As her body lay rotting in the grave, her perfect silicone breasts pointed at the stars forever. Except, maybe not.
In documents made public on Wednesday, health regulators estimated that up to 93 percent of silicone breast implants ruptured within 10 years.
Silicone breast implants have been banned for some thirteen years because they can rupture or leak. The manufacturers have been pressing for the ban to be lifted. The debate will come to a head next week.
The panel voted, 9 to 6, in October 2003 to approve silicone implants. In an unusual move, its chairman later wrote a letter to the F.D.A. urging that it reject the recommendation. The agency sided with the chairman and ruled that more information was needed about long-term safety.
[snip]
An expert committee of scientists found in 1999 that there was little evidence that silicone implants caused such diseases. Instead, the primary safety concern, the panel found, was the tendency of silicone implants to cause local complications like infections, pain and scarring.
All emphasis mine.
“Infections, pain and scarring”? That’s not enough to keep these things off the market?
How often do they fail?
Inamed studied its implants for four years and found that 9 percent a year rupture. Those numbers are fraught, however, because most patients have no idea when their implants rupture, and imaging tests are accurate in assessing failures only about two-thirds of the time.
Projecting the numbers over 10 years called for even more guesses. If one assumes that implants are no more likely to fail in their 10th year as they are in their first, just 21 percent of a cross-section of women will see their implants fail in 10 years.
But in comments posted on Wednesday on the agency’s Web site, reviewers wrote that implants, like cars and hearts, are more likely to fail as they age. Adjusting for the increasing risks that come with age, the agency estimated that 74 percent of a cross-section of women would suffer implant failures in 10 years. For women undergoing reconstructive surgery, mostly breast cancer survivors , the failure rate is 93 percent.
One percent over the lifetime of the implant would be too high a failure rate. “Just 21 percent”? What do they mean, just? One fifth will fail over a decade. That’s acceptable? Brain explodes, just as it did with this final quote:
Dr. Mark Jewell, president elect of the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, said he was surprised that the agency had estimated that silicone implants failed so often.
“That’s certainly news and does need to be addressed,” said Dr. Jewell, who has consulted for Inamed and Mentor. “But I feel that the devices should be approved.”
The companies can track the safety of the devices after they are approved, he said. Women often find that silicone implants feel more natural than saline, Dr. Jewell said.
“Silicone implants feel more natural“? I don’t know about you but I would rather look at and feel the breasts of a marble statue than a silicone-inflated pair.
I also have to question whether any medical device aimed at men would even be considered with such a failure rate.
The first sentence is a paraphrase from a poem. Anyone remember it?
Update [2005-4-7 18:15:8 by Athenian]: As I mention in comments below, I was reminded of the full quote:
But she will not surrender to these voracious guestsPossibly by Eleanor Brown
inviolate forever, her perfect plastic breasts.
No silicone, please.
Allow them, so long as the information is widely available, and that “repairs” and associated health care are paid by the woman in question. People should be freely allowed to destroy themselves, so long as no one else pays for the consequences.
It seems to me that it goes against the nature of a liberal mind to pick and choose those that should receive aid – whether self inflicted or not. Everybody is responsible for their own society. It’s really none of our business where our aid goes as long as it goes to the ones that need it. Just think of how we could have helped our own people with the money spent on Iraq. That being said, I would also say that in a case like this the manufacturer, who is legally peddling known faulty goods and not going to the trouble to improve on said goods, should pay through the nose for damages. Otherwise there’s no reason to ever improve.
to destroy themselves.” I could not agree more.
On the other hand, if silicone is approved for breast implants by the FDA, they will be provided to women needing reconstructive surgery following a mastectomy. Should these devices be approved for insurance-covered surgery?
I asked my inflatable wife about this, and she had no comment ; )
(could’nt resist a little fun there)
holding a needle at the time? That would explain her(?) answer……
naaahh…a small knife, and a roll of duct tape,,,; )
you have to be forgiving, even with an inflatable.
Isn’t breast enhancement an individual choice?
P.S: I could never understand women on this issue. Why would they do such a cruel thing to their bodies? To please whom?
“Isn’t breast enhancement an individual choice?”
Not if it is reconstructive surgery following a mastectomy.
Number three is there because the mere availability of surgically enhanced breasts is the answer to the dreams of many men and not something most women would consider if the violent campaign on their self-image were not in another offensive.
My guess is they do it to please the males even though any male attracted by fake tits is not worth the trouble.
Ugh. Can we just say ugh…and I can’t for the life of me think of the poem but I am having LA Story flash backs…
“You’re breasts feel so weird”
“They’re real”
“Oh”
I saw my beloved ex tonight and she reminded me of the poem’s full last line
She thinks it might be Eleanor Brown
I laughed so hard when I read your post. To have touched a real breast, to have tasted real fish, to have eaten food ripped from the ground or the plant by yourself, soon will be, among many others, obsolete pleasures.
I came to this diary to get a glimpse into the secret life of men. Just to spy. Ah well. It seems to me it’s a bit of a personal choice. This question does raise the issue of the nations #1 drug pushers: our very own corporate pharmaceutical companies and their stockholders. Seriously I think the pushing of psychiatric drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac on the developing minds of children, who have no choice in the matter, is a far bigger problem. As a mature adult, with the knowledge of the facts, you should have the right to choose – but I do think the manufacturers need to be financially liable for any failures. I don’t think you should be able to sell whatever you please without serious repercussion.
If you want to spy on the secret life of men one place you could look would a diary of mine called “Blowjob pregnancy” on dKos, not for any terribly insightful commentary of mine (I wasn’t even there most of the time) but for the comments. Take a look soon before the eraser takes it all away.
Do you think a penis enlargement device that failed at the same frequency would be considered for the market?
Oh yes, I’d like to know how that works (is that a Christian right method?)- I’ll go right over there.
As for the “penis enlarger” – are you looking for legal advice? Just kidding – as a general rule though, I think men are far too squeamish for their own good – so no (that is if it caused actual damage as opposed to the run of the mill ineffectual gadget, which seem to sell like hotcakes – snicker snicker).
The title “Her Perfect Breasts” was a natural draw for a guy like me, only I was curious to see what the diarist would be considering perfection, variety being the spice of life and all. Gaaahh, it was those uniform homogenized ones with the UPC code on them. Why would anyone want to be that narrowly defined?
My guess is they have nothing except for their bodies and their bodies are not “good enough” without “perfect plastic breasts,” though their behinds may be tight and high and their tummies flat and muscular. Without tits out to there, it is all for naught, they are taught, by TV and PC.
Sigh, I went through the supermarket checkout line. All those magazines with women on the cover were there. All the women looked the same. They were in fact interchangeable. None of them looked anything like the women I know. None of them looked like any of the women in the supermarket either.
Many of the magazines had brightly covered headlines for articles that seemed to push for “20 ways to a better tummy or better sex or being better in bed. Great abs in 20 days.” These were displayed with the celebrity tabloids. Something is very wrong in what’s being sold as culture images.
At the magazine shelf of the Barnes and Noble bookstore it was only slightly better. A more literate clientele meant that the magazines were also French and Italian pushing slightly more outre’ versions of the same images.
I’m looking for a conclusion. I don’t have one, other than my opposition to this kind of “framing”. I’ve watched it for years and it’s seems to be at it’s lowest, most crass level now. There’s something desperate in the media presentation, as if they have no alternatives or ideas.
Can I ask for a bit of restraint here when throwing around statistics such as “up to 93 percent of silicone breast implants ruptured within 10 years.” It makes for a catchy opening, but is misrepresentative of the research being done in this field. From following on through the link you provided, it would seem this particular figure comes from studies in which women were selected because they were already experiencing troubles with their implants, and quite a few assumptions were made in extrapolating this data into a 10 year estimate, all of which make it misleading for use in a generalized statement as above.
Please don’t misconstrue this as an argument for “silicone implants are terrific”. I think that if most women understood even just the problems that exist with implants as breeding grounds for moulds and funguses, their use would plummet. But this is not simply a cosmetic issue. Decisions on reconstructive surgery for breast cancer survivors are hard enough without sensationalizing the issue.
Sorry, but you hit a nerve here with “As her body lay rotting in the grave, her perfect silicone breasts pointed at the stars forever.” Maybe it’s just my particular circle of friends, but when we talk about breast implants, it’s less likely to be about some Barbie-wanna-be and more likely to be about someone we know battling breast cancer facing the reconstruct/not reconstruct question. And I’m sure as hell not very likely to say, yeh I was reading a great article on that today; it started “as her body lay rotting in the grave…
figures cited are all within the quote marks and are lifted verbatim from the article. If there is misrepresentation, it is by the NYT.
I am actually glad I hit a nerve. I wanted to hit a nerve. The article hit a nerve with me.
As I relate in a comment above, I saw my ex who had originally exposed me to the poem and she could at least remember the end of a poem about the decomposing body of a young woman in which the worms and creepy-crawlies are slithering among her bones:
But she will not surrender to these voracious guests,
Inviolate forever, her perfect plastic breasts
If you don’t want to say the article started with “as her body lay …” just direct them to the NYT article. Reconstructive surgery is the only use of these devices I agree with and then only until we can come up with something better. Still, anything that has a one in ten failure rate in the first year, is worse than useless. It’s a company breaker as Dow Corning found out.
Again, would anything this poor be sold to men? A penis enlargement implant that failed painfully? Guys, would we buy this?
Wow, you know I actually came back to this diary because I was feeling bad that I’d written a post that, due to my own personal experiences with the topic, was more heavy handed than the aim and style of your diary deserved.
But apparently not. I thought this might have come through with the comments I wrote before, but do you understand that when I say the “body rotting in the grave” stuff hit’s a nerve in this topic it’s because for some of us , for me, I know quite personally some rotting bodies with their reconstructed breasts.
The arrogance of your “I’m glad I hit a nerve, I wanted to hit a nerve” is unbelievably rude. Especially as you don’t even seem to care if the article you’ve quoted is accurate or not, `that’s the NYT’s responsibility`, not yours. And yet you’re happy to tell me to direct my friends there if they’re looking for info after their mastectomies. Do you not care at all that the kind of sloppy throwing out of whatever statistics make the flashiest case for your point of view with no concern for their validity certainly doesn’t make things any easier for women trying to make educated choices on such an important issue?
It seems like this NYT article hit a nerve with you and so it’s got to be a smack in the face for others too, huh. I’m assuming your justifying rational is that disturbing others is a `good thing’ because it means at least it will `open up others minds’ to the great knowledge you just have to share. Well, guess what. Me, my rotting friends, and scarred living ones already know a great deal about this subject. Enough to know that the ‘facts’ you are basing your diary on are out of context, sensationalized and misleading. Enough to hope you’ll never need to learn the hard way.
I was being flippant and over-reacting to your post. I do apologize and did not intend to insult or to be rude or to denigrate your pain or that of your friends.
That initial “just 9 percent” really got me. It seems to me incredible that they would continue to press for a lifting of a ban on a product that is so flawed. I was also astounded that their final quote was from a person with a clear conflict of interest.
I also really like the poem and the notion of surgically disfiguring otherwise perfectly healthy women is something I find repugnant. I know that the issue of elective breast enlargement and reconstructive surgery are and should be separate. They got mixed up.
Could you please share some of the facts and figures that the NYT and I got so wrong?
My apologies again.
Hi Athenian,
Thanks for the reply, it’s appreciated.
I’m having some bad computer problems today, I’ve managed to pick up one of the newer ‘Look2Me’ parasites. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but it’s managed to cripple my Norton Anti-Virus and is wreaking havoc with Internet Explorer. So it may be a few days before I can track down some of the reconstructive/studies info.
I’ll post it here when I can in a few days.
Maggie
I just saw your comment and the computer probs, you are having and maybe I can be of some help as I just went through a complete crash due to a virus I had. Tried everything to get rid of it and nothing worked, so eventually I had to do a full restore and that cured it.
You might also try your boot disk to load windows and see if that helps.
There are specifc programs that target specific viruses that I found in my searches. I will try to remember them if you need some help. Let me know.
Diane