Dow Corning is an independent agency of breast implants. There are several agencies offering breast implants worldwide. Most of the agencies offer excellent services at economical rates. Dow corning is one of the topmost agencies worldwide. But it had faced lots of challenges from its establishment till yet. A breast implant is commonly known as breast enlargement usually done on women. Dow Corning was established in the year 1943 in the state of an equal joint jeopardize of Dow Chemical Company and Corning Glass Works which is latterly known as Corning, Inc. The main business of Dow corning was to produce silicones for commercial use.
Dow corning headquartered was settled in Midland, Michigan on February 19, 1992, February 19 had been an arduous day for Keith R. McKennon (Dow corning chairman and chief executive) who has been working for the last 2 weeks. Breast implants and silicon production is a risky job for which McKennon required a clear and strict inspection and checking from higher, authentic authorities for the safety of the company’s reputation. McKennon had just checked the Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committee in order to keep its company’s production on the safe side in the market. Gel implants are also one of the productions of Dow corning that is highly used for breast enlargement.
Dow Corning’s ethics program did not have any effect on the marketing decisions of silicone gel breast implants. Dow Coming has a strong code of business conduct that is communed to all staff members and has, a Business Conduct Committee that usually considers each location. The Business Conduct Committee admonishes compliance with ethical standards and has a great relationship with employees to highlight ethics-related questions. There are several questions about the Dow corning ethics program. What are the flaws of Dow Corning’s ethics program? Ethical issues in Dow corning are mostly related to health, safety, and proper injection of silicon. While decision-making, employees are expected to deal fairly with customers, employees, colleagues, and other external parties in order to get desired results. Ethical issues are also involved are kickbacks, price-fixing, collusion, or any related practice that might be or states the appearance of unethical or legal issues.
Dow Corning’s liabilities were very high and for that, they needed to enhance their sales in order to get targeted results. According to an estimate the liability was over 14 billion. Around two million women in America had through breast implants over the past three decades; according to the company’s estimate around 35 percent of total breast enlargement was made by Dow Corning. In December 1991, an unpleasant adventure came up when women got for claiming injuries from Dow Corning company’s implants. Although the company paid a large liability to the clients in case of any injury or unsatisfactory results, still they faced such lawsuits. For proper testing, the company hired a new laboratory to undertake several studies for the safety and authenticity of medical grade silicones, and other equipment and gels. During the research, no one had recorded any evidence that silicones caused cancer, but two out of many kinds of research showed that silicone fluid can cause cancer as if they get injected into a human body several problems can arise. One study proved that experimental animals spread widely-becoming charge in the lymph nodes, liver, spleen, pancreas, and other organs-
The company had faced lots of difficulties and challenges on direct injection of silicone fluid in the body but the company became unconcerned. Nowadays, breast enlargement is not that popular, usually, women like shaped breasts but silicon injection and breast enlargement is one option for those who want to enlarge their breasts. Dow Corning Company hired a task force with a primary duty of checking and ensuring that all elements are non-injurious to human health. Many ethical issues are also involved in this case as injuries may be caused, unsatisfactory results, unsafe injection, and many others. After the success of the first full year of sales, the company’s board of directors had hired a three-individual committee which includes the Audit and Social Responsibility Committee and assigned it the task of designing a corporate code of ethical conduct.
In the year 1977, the company produced its first corporate code of conduct, laying out a comp anointment of ethical standards. For the assurance of compliance, the Dow Corning company started a series of annual audits, in which top managers would likely visit different cities all over the world in order to evaluate corporate performance against code standards. Moreover, the company organized different training plans and strategies for the implantation of code standards.
McKennon being chief was highly responsible for checking up the whole system so that company would not suffer a huge liability and a bad name. Chief was highly responsible as he should have checked all tasks at every stage so that company has not suffered a loss. The task force team was also responsible (least responsible) as they had a duty to make sure that everything is safe and they didn’t perform their duty well. The question is always needed to be answered that what’s the company’s reputation is in the market and what the upholding highest standards of ethical behavior. Chief is the most responsible person for overall project activities.
References
Case Study – Dow Corning and the Silicone Breast Implant Controversy.