Brazil’s Silimed, the third-biggest manufacturer of silicon breast implants in the world, has suddenly found itself in the eye of a global firestorm.

In this body-obsessed nation, where more than 1.5 million women have silicone breast implants, the once reclusive company now plays host to national and international journalists.

The Brazilian health ministry is courting senior company executives to help reassure a public perturbed by horror stories from the other side of the world and to restore faith in a product that is very much in demand.

Founded 33 years ago, Silimed was the “first in 1995 to put a serial number on its implants,” Claudio Carvalho, Silimed’s production chief, explained, conscious of the need to vouch for the safety of the company’s products. Brazil banned PIP (Poly Implant Prothese) products last month but some 35,000 had already been imported and some 25,000 sold.

Behind glass windows at a plant in a northern Rio suburb, dozens of men and women wearing masks and thin rubber gloves meticulously feel, flip and pull on transparent silicone gel balls. Located near the Vigario Geral slum, which provides half of its 450 employees, there is no sign on the outer walls of a plant that used to keep a low profile despite exporting to more than 60 countries around the world.