A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel began a two-day meeting Tuesday on silicone breast implants to consider ways to improve the effectiveness of post-approval safety studies. After being banned for 14 years, the FDA in 2006 approved Allergan and Mentor silicone gel-filled breast implants for breast reconstructive surgery and for breast enlargement in women aged 22 and older. Such implants had been banned because of concerns about possible links to several diseases, including cancer and lupus.
