The Orange County Register last week included a special section about cosmetic medicine, with a focus on breast implants. I applaud the OC Register and the lead writer, Innovation Columnist Colin Stewart, for addressing the safety issue, which these days most media coverage totally ignores. If the OC Register ever decides to do another cosmetic medicine section, however, I hope they come to me for ideas. I have a few suggestions on how they could have done it better:

I. The article, “Weighing safety vs. aesthetics of implants,” should appear above the one that compare saline and silicone implants, which helps women “shop” for implants. Its placement implies that safety is a lesser concern than consumer product choice.

II. The safety article, itself, answers three questions:

Do breast implants cause disease?
How long will breast implants last?
What if I have the implants removed?

The first, most important question implies that disease is the only health concern. While there is no proof that implants cause disease, neither is there proof that they don’t. The manufacturers have been very careful to limit studies to implant recipients who’ve had them for a relatively short time, less than seven years. This is a device that resides in women’s bodies for decades. Meanwhile, local complications in the short term are well documented and widespread. It would have been useful to point out to readers that within the first three years of getting implants for the first time, almost half of implant recipients experience one local complication such as pain, infection, hardening or the need for additional surgery. This number soars to about 75 percent among breast cancer patients.

III. Finally, instead of an article devoted to Jane Seymour’s plastic surgery, it would have been much more useful to have an article about plastic surgery’s financial costs, particularly in regard to breast implants. Aesthetic medicine generally is not covered by insurance, and neither is treatment for complications arising from such procedures. Implants, replacement implants, and regular FDA-recommended MRI monitoring adds up to quite a hefty sum over the decades a woman would have implants in her body. Add on top of that the costs of treatment due to likely complications, then we’re talking about significant financial pressures that could push a family to insolvency.

The decision to undergo cosmetic breast augmentation is serious, not the casual choice that Hollywood, plastic surgeons and manufacturers would have us believe. Following not too far behind the current tide of demand for this unessential surgery will be a wave of critically ill women who have signed away their rights to disclose their health information and thus will have no legal recourse. Which news media see this coming? Who among the opinion makers will begin to treat this topic with the gravity it deserves and sound the alert in an effort to possibly, just possibly, minimize that wave of sick women?

Thank you, Colin Stewart and the OC Register, for remembering that it’s not just about a woman “looking and feeling better about herself.”

TAGS: Orange County Register, cosmetic surgery