Breast imaging company fined $200,000

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A PERTH breast imaging company and its manager have been fined a total of $250,000 for deceptive and misleading conduct after promoting a service as an alternative to mammograms.

BETWEEN August 2009 and December 2011, Safe Breast Imaging falsely represented on its website, in a video, in pamphlets and in information given to customers that its multi-frequency electrical impedance mammograph (MEM) device could medically assess whether a person was at risk from breast cancer and assured clients they did not have cancer.

The Federal Court ruled on Tuesday that the company should pay $200,000 and its manager, Joanne Firth, should pay $50,000 and be disqualified from managing companies for four years. Justice Michael Barker said the sentence was important to deter others from committing similar offences. “While the respondents may consider the pecuniary penalties imposed on them to be high or harsh, I consider them … to be necessary to ensure others who might be inclined to engage in similar behaviour, to the cost of consumers, are deterred from doing so,” he said. The legal action was instigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The court previously heard the company usually charged a customer $145 to take breast images using the MEM device, interpret those images, conduct a questionnaire and provide a report with an information package.