A decade after preventative surgery to remove her breasts, Mandy Ginsberg, CEO of online dating giant Match Group — which owns Tindr, Match.com and OkCupid — says she’s stepping down because of the recent breast implant recall.
“Last Friday, I had to have another surgery due to an FDA recall of the implants, because they have been linked to cancer,” she said in a memo to employees, posted on Axios. Ginsberg, 50, also cited a tornado that destroyed her family’s Dallas home in October, adding, “It’s been a lot to handle.”
Read MoreGinsberg’s Preventative Mastectomy
In a 2017 piece for Thriveglobal.com Ginsberg wrote that a decade prior she had opted to have a preventive mastectomy. The reason: Her mother and aunt died of ovarian cancer, and she tested positive for the BRCA 1 gene, which she said put her at high risk for breast cancer. RELATED: Angelina Jolie On Her Mastectomy Decision I'm More Likely To Meet My Grandchildren And The Scars Are Positive Reminders“I didn’t want to die in my young sixties,” she wrote. “Not a single woman in my family at least 4 generations back has lived past 61, including my mom, Joy, who died 13 years ago today. Her sister died 2 years before of the same disease: ovarian cancer.”
RELATED VIDEO: Dr. Andrea Pusic, chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, discusses options for breast reconstruction
The FDA Recall
While we don’t know which implants Ginsberg had, in July 2019, the FDA requested a 'Class 1 Recall' (their most serious ranking) of all Allergan BIOCELL textured breast implants and tissue expanders — both saline and silicone — marketed in the U.S.
“Use of these products may cause injury or death,” the FDA said.
Allergan then officially issued a worldwide recall in September.
The textured breast implants are associated with a rare type of cancer called "breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma” (BIA-ALCL).
While ALCL begins in the lymph nodes around the breast, it’s a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (cancer of the immune system) and not a breast cancer.
Should You Worry About All Breast Implants?
Dr. Andrea Pusic, chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told SurvivorNet in a previous interview that she doesn't want anyone to interpret the recent recall to mean that breast implants overall "aren't safe."
"The vast majority of women who have breast implant surgery, whether it be for cosmetic reasons or for reconstruction after breast cancer surgery, do really well with their implants," she said.
“The FDA is really trying to help make sure that women know as much information as we [providers] do about the risks of breast implants and that they're able to process that and make a good decision themselves," she said.
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