(NEW YORK) — At least eight people are dead from an explosion at a hotel in Havana, Cuba, apparently caused by a gas leak, officials said.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel is now at the scene of the Saratoga Hotel in Havana with other officials.
Search and rescue work continues to see if people are trapped, according to Luis Antonio Torres Iribar, first secretary of the Party in Havana.
The president’s office said 30 people have also been hospitalized.
The hotel, a popular tourist destination in the capital city, had been closed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to its Facebook page. It was currently working to get ready to reopen on May 10.
The five-story building is located in the Old Havana neighborhood and was remodeled as a hotel in the 1930s. It is located just across the street from Cuba’s National Capitol building.
Authorities said a nearby school was evacuated and no children were harmed.
Colombian Presidency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — An alleged Colombian drug lord believed to control the “largest and most powerful cocaine trafficking and paramilitary organization in Colombia” arrived in New York Thursday to face multiple criminal charges, according to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.
Dairo Usuga, who is also known as Otoniel, was flown from Colombia to John F. Kennedy Airport overnight and made his initial appearance Thursday in Brooklyn federal court where he has been accused of overseeing the production, purchase and transfer of multiton cocaine shipments from Colombia and Mexico into the United States over many years, according to court records.
Usuga pleaded not guilty to federal charges and was ordered detained during his brief first court appearance.
“His face said it all,” said Ricky Patel, deputy agent in charge from Homeland Security Investigations. “He walked off the jet a defeated man.”
Usuga was arrested in Colombia in October 2021 at the request of the United States.
“Prior to his capture by the Colombian National Police, the defendant was the principal leader of a transnational criminal organization known as the Clan del Golfo (‘CDG’), the largest and most powerful cocaine trafficking and paramilitary organization in Colombia,” prosecutors said in a March court filing.
“In furtherance of its drug trafficking activities, the CDG, at the direction of the defendant, also engaged in repeated acts of violence, including murders, assaults, kidnappings, torture and assassinations against Colombian law enforcement officers, Colombian military personnel, rival drug traffickers and paramilitaries, potential witnesses and civilians,” the filing continued.
Usuga is charged with supervising and managing a continuing criminal enterprise, international cocaine distribution conspiracy and use of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking.
CDG “uses violence and intimidation to control the narcotics trafficking routes, cocaine processing laboratories, speedboat departure points, and clandestine landing strips,” according to the State Department.
For 20 years, Usuga sat atop Colombia’s most powerful drug cartel as it flooded the United States with cocaine and made billions, federal prosecutors said.
Under Usuga’s leadership, Clan del Golfo had what prosecutors called a “staggering capacity” for violence.
“His paramilitary organization, thousands of soldiers, including sicarios, or hitman as they’re called, murdered, assaulted, kidnapped and tortured,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said during a news conference announcing the extradition.
During a turf war with a rival criminal organization for drug trafficking routes, homicides shot up 443% over two years, according to the federal government.
Prior to his capture, the State Department had been offering a reward of $5 million.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 06, 8:28 am
Video shows explosions, smoke at Mariupol steel plant
Video circulating online shows explosions and smoke coming from the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in Mariupol.
The footage was released Thursday by the Azov Regiment, a far-right group now part of the Ukrainian military that was among the units defending Mariupol and is holed up inside the Azovstal plant with others. In a statement alongside the video posted on Telegram, the group said that Russian forces were keeping the plant “under heavy fire,” using “aircraft, artillery and infantry.”
ABC News was unable to verify the date that the video was taken.
In recent days, Ukraine and Russia have offered conflicting accounts of what’s taking place at the Azovstal plant. Ukrainian fighters claimed that Russian forces started storming the plant this week, which Russia has denied and instead claimed that its troops have “securely blocked” the sprawling industrial site.
Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters and civilians are said to be trapped inside the Azovstal plant, the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol as Russian forces declare full control over the strategic Ukrainian port city.
May 06, 7:51 am
Russia says war in Ukraine is ‘going to plan’
Russia’s so-called special military operation in neighboring Ukraine is going according to plan, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“The operation has been going to plan,” Peskov said during a press briefing in Moscow on Friday.
When asked about reports that Putin’s inner circle was not informed about the start of the operation, Peskov told reporters: “As you understand, naturally, information about the special military operation cannot be shared widely the day before it begins.”
“That is because, clearly, such classified information is always shared with a rather limited circle of persons. This is an absolutely normal practice,” he added. “The very essence of this operation does not imply that information about it will be shared widely.”
May 05, 10:49 pm
US shared intel with Ukraine that helped sink Russian flagship Moskva last month, officials say
The U.S. shared intelligence with Ukraine that helped it sink the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, last month, according to two U.S. officials.
The Ukrainians, who have their own intelligence capabilities, had tracked the Moskva independently, though, and the U.S. did not provide “specific targeting information,” according to one of the officials.
“We did not provide Ukraine with specific targeting information for the Moskva. We were not involved in the Ukrainians’ decision to strike the ship or in the operation they carried out,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Thursday. “We had no prior knowledge of Ukraine’s intent to target the ship. The Ukrainians have their own intelligence capabilities to track and target Russian naval vessels, as they did in this case.”
The U.S. official also noted that: “We do provide a range of intelligence to help the Ukrainians understand the threat posed by Russian ships in the Black Sea and to help them prepare to defend against potential sea-based assaults. Many of the missiles fired at Ukraine have come from Russian ships in the Black Sea, and those ships could be used to support an assault on cities like Odesa.”
NBC News first reported this intel.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
May 05, 9:05 pm
US ambassador to UN calls out countries for remaining neutral
Presiding over her first open meeting of the United Nations Security Council since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield implored representatives still clinging to neutrality to speak out against Russian aggression.
“The truth is well known. Russia is the only perpetrator of this war. So it’s hard to understand why some council members continue to call on all parties to desist,” Thomas-Greenfield said, calling out countries like Brazil, India, and to some extent — China.
“Let’s call a spade a spade. Members should call on Russia explicitly to stop its aggression against Ukraine,” she said.
Speaking in her capacity as the United States’ permanent representative and not as the temporary president of the council, Thomas-Greenfield lamented that Russian envoys had repeatedly used the body to spread disinformation.
“Three months ago, Russian representatives told this council they had no intention to invade Ukraine. Now, Russia claims the attacks aren’t real or never happened,” she said. “Russia even claims that Ukraine is attacking itself, that they bombed their own buildings, attacked their own people and assaulted their own democracy. These lies defy all logic, all evidence and common sense.”
(NEW YORK) — Prince Harry and Meghan plan to travel to the United Kingdom next month to attend the public celebrations for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, a first for the couple since stepping down from their senior royal roles two years ago.
Harry and Meghan, the duke and duchess of Sussex, also plan to bring their children, 3-year-old Archie and 10-month-old Lilibet, a spokeswoman for the Sussexes confirmed Friday.
“Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are excited and honoured to attend The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations this June with their children,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to ABC News.
The trip will mark the first time the California-based family has traveled to the U.K. together.
Archie, who is celebrating his third birthday Friday, was born in the U.K. but has not traveled back there publicly with his parents since they moved to California in 2020.
Lilibet was born last June in Santa Barbara, California, making her the first senior royal baby born in the United States, and the first great-grandchild of the queen to be born outside of the United Kingdom.
The Sussexes’ attendance at The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration in June will also mark Harry and Meghan’s first public, joint return to the U.K.
The couple made a private stop in the U.K. earlier this month to visit Queen Elizabeth, their first in-person visit with the queen together in two years.
The celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne will be a multi-day celebration that is scheduled to include, among other things, a public concert, a church service and the annual Trooping the Colour parade.
Because they are no longer senior working royals, Harry and Meghan will not be part of the traditional Buckingham Palace balcony appearance royal family members make during Trooping the Colour, according to a Buckingham Palace spokesperson.
Harry’s uncle, Prince Andrew, who in February agreed to settle a sexual assault lawsuit, will also not be present on the balcony as he is also no longer a senior working member of the royal family.
“After careful consideration, The Queen has decided this year’s traditional Trooping the Colour balcony appearance on Thursday 2nd June will be limited to Her Majesty and those Members of the Royal Family who are currently undertaking official public duties on behalf of The Queen,” a palace spokesperson said in a statement.
Among the royals who will join Queen Elizabeth on the balcony will be Harry’s father, Prince Charles, and his wife, Camilla, duchess of Cornwall, and Harry’s older brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate, duchess of Cambridge, and their three children, according to the palace.
Harry and Meghan’s return to the U.K. will undoubtedly put a spotlight on the tensions Harry has faced with his father and brother, whom he is known to have seen in-person only a few times since leaving his royal role.
When interviewed earlier this month while at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands, Harry did not answer a question about his relationship with his brother, William, and their father, Charles.
“He completely avoided the question. He changed the subject,” said ABC News royal contributor Victoria Murphy. “That really gives us a huge amount of insight into the fact that, clearly, significant bridges still need to be built there.”
Harry also raised questions and drew some backlash from the British press with his comments in the same interview about protecting the queen. The interview took place just a few days after he and Meghan visited her in the U.K.
When asked about his visit with the queen, Harry told NBC News, “Being with her, it was great. It was just so nice to see her. … She’s on great form.”
“I’m just making sure that she’s, you know, protected and got the right people around her,” said Harry, who described his relationship with his grandmother as “really special,” adding, “We talk about things that she can’t talk about with anybody else.”
The royal family has so far not issued any official response to Prince Harry’s comments.
(WASHINGTON) — With a leaked draft opinion revealing this week that the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights precedent, Democrats and activists are sounding alarms that other rights not explicitly listed in the Constitution — but long-considered protected as implied rights of privacy — could be threatened next.
“If the rationale of the decision — as released — were to be sustained, a whole range of rights are in question — a whole range of rights,” President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday, offering his first public reaction to the document as the court confirmed its authenticity.
“If the right to privacy is weakened,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, “every person could face a future in which the government can potentially interfere in the personal decisions you make about your life.”
Their anxiety, legal experts told ABC News, is not only with Roe being overturned but in how it would be overturned — and whether the final opinion’s language and reasoning could set the stage for other unenumerated rights — those not directly listed in the Constitution — to be similarly sent back to be decided by the states.
While Justice Samuel Alito writes in the draft opinion that the court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerns only abortion and does not extend to other rights, experts say his current justification for overturning Roe opens the door to imperil other long-standing liberties the court has upheld for decades.
Here’s what legal experts are saying about the draft text:
Alito’s ‘originalist’ approach
The Supreme Court grounded its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade on the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, which the court has said guarantees Americans an implicit “right to privacy,” though that phrase is not used in the Constitution.
Justice Harry Blackmun described the constitutional underpinnings of that right when authoring the opinion: “This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy,” the 1973 decision read.
But Alito — rejecting stare decisis, the legal doctrine intended to bind courts to abide by past rulings, as it relates to abortion — called the court’s decision on Roe “egregiously wrong from the start.” Taking an originalist approach, he argues in the draft opinion obtained by Politico that there’s no explicit right to privacy, let alone the right to an abortion, in the Constitution.
“It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned,” Alito writes, calling the Roe decision “remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text,” and arguing that stare decisis “does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority.”
Taking issue with Alito’s reasoning, Biden said Wednesday he believes the court’s current conservative majority would agree with failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s view that the right to privacy should not have been guaranteed with the court’s ruling in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut, which overturned a ban on married couples’ access to contraception.
“Griswold was thought to be a bad decision by Bork, and my guess is, the guys on the Supreme Court now,” Biden said.
Marc Spindelman, a professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, said it’s because of Alito’s reasoning — appearing to reject court precedent and the right to privacy in favor of an originalist interpretation of the Constitution — that puts other precedents, like the right to same-sex intimacy in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 and same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, at-risk, since those rights were also bound to the Fourteenth Amendment.
“From the point of view of originalist reasoning, it’s difficult to see what is distinctive about abortion compared to other rights that are now constitutionally protected but that originalist methodology, in principle, threatens,” Spindelman said.
Kate Shaw, a professor at Cardozo School of Law and an ABC News contributor, echoed that view.
“The whole method that the Roe Court used, which is basically to say what are the kind of key attributes of liberty that the Constitution has to protect, whether or not they’re written in the document, Alito says that method is totally illegitimate,” she said. “And instead, what the Constitution should be read to protect is the explicitly enumerated rights and a small, a small list of unenumerated rights, but only rights that are deeply rooted in history and tradition.”
Spillover concern
Alito wrote in the draft opinion, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
“What sharply distinguishes the abortion right,” he said, is that it destroys “potential life,” and that “none of the other decisions cited by Roe and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion.”
In deciding whether a right is protected, Alito said the court “has long asked whether the right is ‘deeply rooted in [our] history and tradition’ and whether it is essential to our Nation’s ‘scheme of ordered Liberty.'” In Alito’s view, abortion does not meet that standard.
“What Alito says is, don’t worry. Our decision today is only about abortion, not about anything else,” Spindelman said. “But if an originalist approach is the touchstone for judgment in the case, then it’s hard to see how or why the decision should not apply to other kinds of individual rights that the Court has said are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
That approach, in principle, could doom any right that didn’t exist since the country’s founding, Spindelman said.
“It’s difficult to see why if once you pull row up from the roots, why decisions of more recent vintage ought to stay in the ground to be counted by the court as part of its respect for its own precedent,” he added.
So, could the court find a way to pull abortion from the right to privacy without unraveling other precedents? Former Justice Antonin Scalia clerk and vice-dean at the NYU School of Law, Rachel Barkow, doesn’t think so.
“I think that you can’t coherently do it,” she said. “Unfortunately, that is actually what erodes the legitimacy of the court as an institution because it’s not the leak that’s going to damage the court’s legitimacy, it’s not upholding rationales and being consistent over time.”
The problem for the court, she said, is that the Roe decision is part of a line of cases bound to recognizing the right to privacy, “and the draft opinion shows no respect for the right to privacy, and in light of that, all the cases that rely on that right to privacy would also find themselves falling under the same rationale.”
“I think the bigger thing that the public sees is no precedent is safe,” Barkow said “The court’s willingness to just cast aside a 50-year-old precedent, not just any precedent, but one that has been the subject of these confirmation hearings, and it’s a reason that they’re sitting there is they gave assurances to senators that they weren’t going to overrule it, and then they did.”
“I don’t think anyone can really take that group of people’s word if they say, ‘Oh, no, the other precedents are safe,'” she added. “I think they cried wolf one time too many.”
The opinion could change
When the court confirmed the document’s authenticity on Tuesday, it stressed in a statement that it “does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
Experts stressed to ABC News that court opinions can change throughout their drafting. The leaked decision could potentially emerge with a different decision entirely — or completely unchanged.
“We don’t know exactly what this final opinion is going to look like when it is issued,” Shaw said. “But I would say absent something truly extraordinary and unexpected happening inside the court, some version of this opinion will be issued as the opinion of the court in a matter of weeks that will be the law of the land, and Roe versus Wade will be no more.”
And if so, the question becomes how soon the fate of other privacy rights will come before the court — from states and others challenging their constitutionality, using the conservative justices’ own arguments.
(NEW YORK) — Michelle Obama is honoring her mom in a special way.
Ahead of Mother’s Day, the former first lady announced that an exhibit in the highly anticipated Obama Presidential Center in Chicago will pay tribute to her mother, Marian Robinson.
In a video Friday shared first with ABC News’ Good Morning America, Obama reflected on the close relationship she has with her mother and the values that Robinson instilled in her at a young age.
“Growing up with my mom was always an adventure,” Obama said. “It was trips to the library as a toddler to learn about ABCs; it was the entire family piling into our car to go to the local drive-in; and my mom inviting family over for New Year’s Eve, passing around her special hors d’oeuvres and toasting in the new year.”
“But above all else,” she added, “my mother gave me that nonstop, unconditional love that was so important for me to grow up. In so many ways, she fostered in me a deep sense of confidence in who I was and who I could be by teaching me how to think for myself, how to use my own voice and how to understand my own worth. I simply wouldn’t be who I am today without my mom.”
The exhibit, called “Opening the White House,” will focus on community and family while also making sure everyone who visits the presidential center “feels at home,” Obama said.
The upcoming exhibit will also feature scale replicas of the White House’s East Room, where the Obamas once held dinners, as well as the Blue Room and the South Lawn, where the family hosted garden tours and the Easter Egg Roll.
“This is just one part of the story we’re telling at the Obama Presidential Center,” Obama said. “I am so excited to announce that we will be dedicating a space at the Obama Presidential Center in her honor.”
In her memoir, Becoming, Obama opened up about her mother, whom she called the “first grandmother” because she lived with them in the White House. During their eight years there, Robinson would help Obama balance the demands of raising a private family in a very public house.
Obama ended her Mother’s Day tribute to her mom by saying that she hopes everyone will be able to see the exhibit when the presidential center opens to the public in 2025.
“In the years ahead, we want to welcome you to Chicago to see it — maybe even with your mom,” she said. “So Happy Mother’s Day everyone. And especially to you, mommy. Love you.”
(NEW ORLEANS) — The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival kicked off in New Orleans last weekend after two years and three cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The energy is just out of this world. I feel like there’s just such an overwhelming feeling of like, love and camaraderie — from the musicians to the participants,” Robin Barnes, who is known as the Songbird of New Orleans, told ABC News.
Barnes is set to perform at the festival on Sunday, its closing day.
For New Orleans — considered by many as the birthplace of jazz — the festival is the city’s musical heartbeat.
The 10-day cultural festival attracts over 400,000 visitors to New Orleans each year and draws musicians from around the world and pumps an estimated $400 million into the local economy.
“The economical side of it is extremely significant,” Barnes said, adding that while tourism in the city ebbs and flows throughout the year, Jazz Fest is a “musical mecca” and its return is a “game changer” for musicians around the city.
“It’s almost just a breath of relief,” Barnes, who is part of the jazz duo Da Lovebirds with her husband Casey Pat, said.
“For musicians, with the gig economy, every gig is a paycheck … so coming from a pandemic, we’ve all had to learn to basically survive with no money,” she added.
And the sorrows for the jazz community amid the pandemic have been immense in other ways. The human toll of the virus touched every corner of the jazz world as dozens of jazz musicians and producers died of COVID-19, including New Orleans jazz legend Ellis Marsalis.
“I feel like the amount of loss or lack of having music during the pandemic was able to really just force us to have such a renewed appreciation and love for the music,” Barnes said.
Hurricane Ida, which also wreaked havoc in New Orleans in September, swept away the Karnofsky Tailor Shop and Residence, a historic jazz landmark that Louis Armstrong once considered a second home and many musicians affected by the destruction.
As Jazz Fest returned to the city, the New Orleans Public School Board reversed a 100-year-old rule banning jazz in New Orleans schools.
Kenneth Ducote, NOLA public schools historian, found the obscure rule and brought it to the board’s attention.
“There was no prior discussion. There was no analysis, there was no theory, theoretical analysis of jazz,” he told ABC News’ Good Morning America of the rule.
Although it was mostly unenforced, Ducote brought it to the school board’s attention which reversed the rule.
“It was really important for us to pass it because, to be honest, this is a policy that was rooted in racism,” Olin Parker, president of the New Orleans Parrish school board, told GMA.
Barnes, who is the mother of a 2-year-old daughter named Riley, said reversing the rule is a “symbolic” move that shows the community’s appreciation for jazz and its impact on New Orleans history.
As for Riley, who was born during the pandemic, Barnes said she is excited to have her daughter experience Jazz Fest for the first time.
Although jazz is the cornerstone of the event, the festival celebrates all the indigenous music and culture of New Orleans and Louisiana and includes music from various genres, including blues, R&B, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, Afro-Caribbean, folk, Latin, rock, rap, country and bluegrass, according to the festival’s website.
This year’s headlining acts include The Who, Stevie Nicks, Willie Nelson, Foo Fighters, Jimmy Buffett and The Coral Reefer Band, Luke Combs, Lionel Richie, The Black Crowes, The Avett Brothers, Erykah Badu and Norah Jones.
Barnes said that the festival “encompasses the diversity” of New Orleans and so many people come because “there is something for everyone.”
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. employers added 428,000 jobs to their payrolls in April, the latest figures released Friday by the Labor Department show.
The increase marks the 12th straight month of job growth above 400,000.
The biggest gains in employment last month occurred in leisure and hospitality (78,000), manufacturing (55,000) and transportation and warehousing (52,000), according to the Labor Department.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, remained unchanged at 3.6%.
(NEW YORK) — Former NASCAR driver Danica Patrick revealed she had her breast implants removed after suffering medical complications she believes were caused by the implants.
Patrick, who turned 40 in March, shared in an Instagram post that she had her implants removed this month, nearly eight years after undergoing breast augmentation surgery.
“I thought to myself, I want to share this if it makes a difference,” Patrick told ABC News’ Kayna Whitworth in an interview that aired Friday on Good Morning America. “Because I’ve tried so many different things to feel better to look better, all the things, and nothing worked.”
Patrick said she got her silicone implants in 2014, when she was 32-years-old.
“I did it because I wanted to be more perfect,” she said. “I wanted the whole package … I felt like I was very fit and I thought, well, but I just don’t have boobs.”
Four years later, in 2018, Patrick said she started experiencing health concerns, and spent the next four years seeking answers for symptoms including weight gain, inflammation, leaky gut, menstrual changes, heavy metal toxicity and thinning hair.
Patrick said she went to multiple doctors, took thyroid medications, tried a 90-day protocol to heal her gut and at one point was taking “up to 30 pills a day” to improve her health, all to no avail.
Ultimately, Patrick said she came to the conclusion that she had breast implant illness, a term coined by clinicians and patients to describe symptoms reported by women after breast reconstruction or augmentation using implants, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Shaun Parson, the Arizona-based plastic surgeon who performed Patrick’s removal surgery, said breast implants can sometimes prompt a “chronic inflammatory response” in the body.
“It’s usually that their bodies have this kind of chronic inflammatory response to this thing, this implant, so your body’s fighting something just like if it had an infection,” said Parson, a board-certified plastic surgeon. “I have seen too many times people get better after you remove their implants, and I think we have work to do to try to figure out why.”
One week after having her implants removed, Patrick said she feels “amazing.”
She said she plans to continue to share her journey with the hope of helping other people.
“My journey is not even over. This is week one,” said Patrick. “There’s going to be tons of testing that still happens. There are going to be physical changes on the inside and outside that I’m happy to share.”
What to know about breast implant illness
Breast implant illness is not yet a recognized medical term but is described by experts as a “diagnosis by exclusion,” according to Diana Zuckerman, Ph.D., president of the National Center for Health Research, who has studied the health impact of breast implants for over 30 years.
“Diagnosis by exclusion means that there is no test for it, but there are tests for other things that have the same symptoms or similar symptoms,” Zuckerman said. “And if there is no other reason for this array of symptoms, then there are doctors who will call it breast implant illness.”
There are as many as 40 symptoms of breast implant illness, but the most common symptoms include joint and muscle pain, fatigue, memory problems or brain fog, hair loss and difficulty breathing, according to Zuckerman.
She said Patrick’s story of taking years to get to a diagnosis is not uncommon for women who suffer health complications due to breast implants.
It can take years for breast implants to start causing complications, which makes it more difficult to link complications back to breast implants, according to Zuckerman, who was not involved in Patrick’s care. She also noted that many of the symptoms of breast implant illness can, and are, attributed to other things.
“When [women] go to the doctor and say, ‘I have joint pain. I’m really tired,’ the doctor will say things like, ‘No wonder you’re tired, you have a young child,’ or, ‘No wonder you’re tired, you’re 45 years old. You’re not 25 years old anymore,” said Zuckerman.
“So there’s been this, some might call it gaslighting, but this sense that these are common symptoms and they could be anything,” she said. “But, what is distinct about them is there are so many women who are experiencing them, and there are very good studies showing when women have these symptoms and they have their breast implants taken out, almost all of them get better.”
Breast implant surgery is considered an elective procedure that is done not only for cosmetic reasons but also for women undergoing breast reconstruction after a medical procedure such as a mastectomy.
Saline-filled and silicone gel-filled are the two types of breast implants approved for use in the United States, according to the FDA.
Breast implants may cause damage if they leak in the body, or because they can cause scar tissue to build in the body, according to Zuckerman.
“When women have a breast implant, their body almost always forms a scar tissue capsule around the implant,” she said. “The body is basically protecting itself by surrounding this foreign body, this breast implant, with scar tissue, and that scar tissue can get very thick and can get very hard and be a bad symptom in that it can be painful.”
Zuckerman said that the popularization of social media has helped women with similar symptoms connect and share their experiences, leading to greater awareness and more diagnoses of breast implant illness.
Patrick wrote on Instagram that she watched “over 100 stories on YouTube” of women with breast implant complications.
“Social media has really made the big difference here,” Zuckerman said. “It wasn’t until Facebook and other social media options became available that women could really share their stories.”
“We’ve certainly known women who’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on tests and specialists, and nothing helped and then they went online and found a Facebook page or some other social media, and they started reading these stories of other women that sounded just like them,” she said.
In October, the FDA released new guidelines on breast implants, adding a black box warning and a checklist for doctors and patients about potential side effects.
“The patient must be given the opportunity to initial and sign the patient decision checklist and it must be signed by the physician implanting the device,” the FDA noted in its guidelines.
Zuckerman, a member of the working group that advised the FDA on implant safety, said she advises women who are thinking of getting implants to make sure they also have the resources to get them removed later on if needed.
“Don’t get them unless you can afford to have them taken out,” she said. “A lot of women spend all this money getting them put in, and then when they get sick, they don’t have the money to get them taken out. It costs just as much, sometimes more, to have them taken out.”
