Breast Implants and Suicide: It’s Not All the Women’s Fault
There has been quite a bit of press regarding the results of a Swedish study, published in the current issue of the Annals of Plastic Surgery, that found the long-term risk of suicide tripled for women who have undergone cosmetic breast implant surgery. Actually, this is the sixth or seventh study with the same findings, and the conclusion has always been the same: Those women who killed themselves must have started out a little crazy.
Okay, maybe. But to jump to that conclusion time and again lays the blame squarely on the women, lays a tiny bit of blame on the doctors for not having screened them (after all, how could they know?), and absolves everything and everyone else of responsibility.
I beg to differ. While there is little or no information about the mental health of these women before implants, I have my suspicions that for many of them, complications arising from their breast implants caused emotional distress so profound that it led them to extreme actions.
Consider PJ Brent, a woman I worked with and whom I admired deeply. She experienced awful pain and disfigurement from her implants, and was diagnosed with autoimmune disease. Even worse, her children were affected by the silicone, which, I think, caused incredible guilt. She had breastfed, and her daughters later experienced problems similar to hers. If PJ wasn’t emotionally unstable before she received her implants, she certainly had cause to be after. She ultimately took her own life.
Here’s the tragedy: There are countless women suffering from their implants like PJ suffered. The fact is, women with implants are very, very likely to experience major complications. According to the FDA Breast Implant Consumer Handbook, 25 percent of women with saline or silicone implants have complications severe enough for them to undergo re-operation within five years of getting them, and about half of all implants rupture within 10 years, also requiring surgery. Significant numbers of women with implants have reported problems ranging from severe weight gain to impeded ability to breastfeed to autoimmune disease to cancer. In many cases, the illnesses are chronic and debilitating, taking a heavy financial and emotional toll as the women struggle to pay for treatment and their families fall apart from the stress.
So why, in all the coverage of the Swedish study I’ve seen - such as here, here and here - not one item or article asks how those poor women were suffering at time of death? Why does the media, without exception, declare those women flawed from the beginning instead of looking at and asking questions about how they got that way? Because if, from all the pain caused by their implants, there are women who seek relief through killing themselves, no one should be surprised.
And, because cosmetic breast augmentation is a financial bonanza for manufacturers and plastic surgeons who are willing to fight tooth and nail to keep it that way; because the FDA approved breast implants despite the objections of their own scientific advisors; because our popular culture tells women that only big chests are beautiful so they should be willing to go under the knife to get them; and because the media is complicit in maintaining this status quo, it would not be all the women’s fault.
Sybil has raised some very important issues about implants and suicide. I’d like to clarify some of the research findings for the study.
As Sybil stated, women with breast implants were 3 times as likely to commit suicide as other women in this new, Swedish study. This is consistent with findings in other countries, including the U.S. In the fine print, the Swedish study mentions that this rate is even higher — almost 700% as high — for women who got implants at age 45 or older. Also, the increase in suicides were higher when the women had implants for at least 10 years.
It is certainly possible that some women who get breast implants have low self-esteem or mental health problems before getting their implants. In fact, in testifying before the FDA, plastic surgeons and women who are happy with their implants said that the goal was higher self-esteem. Unfortunately, the data don’t support the assumption that breast augmentation improves self-esteem. Research clearly shows that after the initial satisfaction (during the first 6 months), most plastic surgery patients feel better about the body part that was “fixed” but they don’t feel better about themselves or their lives. That disappointment can be mentally harmful, but if you add the pain and complications that are especially common 10 years or more after getting breast implants, you can see why the increase in suicide, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, is not surprising.
The latest study, published in Annals of Plastic Surgery, was funded by Dow Corning, which manufactures silicone and used to make breast implants. The study seems to blame the women and the doctors, but not the product.
Some of those criticisms are valid. If women have low self-esteem or depression, they should try getting counseling rather than plastic surgery. Plastic surgeons should not promise an increase in self-esteem, because there is no evidence to support that. But, we also need new kinds of studies: to study the health and implant status of the women just before they tried to kill themselves. That is possible by interviewing friends and family, and checking their medical records, as well as interviewing women who attempted suicide but survived.
Dz Zuckerman
Comment by Dr Z — August 10, 2007 @ 10:55 am
On Yahoo’s SalineSupport, women frequently come to the group very sick and lost - the thing they have in common is their breast implants.
What disproves the recent conclusion that women prone to suicide get breast implants is that once our women get their implants PROPERLY removed and detox, they are no longer depressed. They are able to return to work, to school and to caring for their families. They may never be fully healthy again - but life is good again.
I have no doubt that women commit suicide after being treated badly by the medical community. They are frequently told to see a psychiatrist when all they need to do is to get rid of the implants!
By the time they make the connection between their illness and their breast implants (if they do), they often have lost their careers, savings, homes, insurance and health.
What’s horrible is the problems some of the offspring experience! They had no choice!
When is the FDA going to wake up?
Comment by Rogene — August 10, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
At the first support meeting I attended, I watched a group of young mothers come to the realization that the unusual health problems their children suffered from were shared by the children of other implanted women.
The shock, horror and guilt expressed by those young mothers is something that will be with me the rest of my life.
Some of SalineSupport’s mothers have expressed their complete despair and guilt about how their implants affected their children . . . To the point that they have considered killing their child and themselves.
What is inexcusable is that there never have been thorough studies on the women OR children who have become sick after breast implants. . . And, that, without proof, the medical profession is telling women that breast implants are safe. WRONG!
Rogene
Comment by Rogene — August 13, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
First and foremost, let me state for the record that both are entirely reasonable explanations. Both are probably underlying mechanisms driving the association between having implants & suicide. Some women probably get implants because they have low self-esteem which is a risk factor for depression, while others get suicidally depressed after experiencing complications. I think you’ll agree that it probably depends on individual circumstances. I hope you’ll also agree that there is evidence to the contrary… not all women who have low self-esteem and get breast implants become suicidally depressed. Nor do all women whose implants result in complications.
If the study authors did advance it as the “sole explanation” for their findings (i.e., if it’s not just the media hearing half the story and then blowing that half totally out of proportion), the researchers *should* be criticized. This violates one of the most important rules of science, particularly that “there is no such thing as ‘proof.’” One study (or 6 studies, or the majority of members of a support group), regardless of the strength or consistency of reesults, doesn’t equal irrefutable proof of anything. Studies only provide evidence for or against reasonable hypotheses. All the while, it’s always possible that *something important* was omitted from the study, and this important third variable *actually* drives the association.
The problem is that these important third variables don’t seem to be measured in any of these studies. In order to figure out what’s actually going on for these women, we need a study that includes 1) measures of their psychological status before implants, that 2) continues to follow-up about problems for a long-time post-procedure. Until these data are available, the evidence for either explanation will stay weak.
Comment by kristinlm — August 16, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
[…] the recent Swedish study linking higher suicide rates to breast implants, which Sybil wrote about here. The study concluded that the women who killed themselves could have had body dysmorphic order, and […]
Pingback by » Blog Archive » United States Is Now Destination Country for Teen Plastic Surgery — September 6, 2007 @ 3:50 pm
hair loss in young women…
It is so important that we in the younger generation and our children learn from first hand experiences..thanks again…..
Trackback by hair loss in young women — September 19, 2007 @ 8:36 pm
[…] the psychological reasons a woman would want to change herself so drastically. Maybe she read the suicide and implant […]
Pingback by Beauty and the Breast » Blog Archive » Feeling Ugly and Going for a Makeover — October 17, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
Before getting into this thing, they should think the pros & cons. Also children should be advised with this which now we can say s common thing that’s happening.
Comment by kimberly — February 1, 2008 @ 1:23 am