Breast Implant Risks and Cancer: How to Distract the Public from the Truth
File this is under the “HERE WE GO AGAIN!” category, girls.
This Reuters article, “Cell Phones, Coffee Not High Cancer Risks,” tells us about a risk ranking system devised by Australian cancer specialist Professor Bernard Stewart to debunk popular myths. The five-point system “lists the risk of cancer from proven and likely, to inferred, unknown or unlikely” causes. And of course in the very first paragraph, after cell phones and coffee, “having breast implants is unlikely to cause cancer.”
When did anyone ever say that breast implants cause cancer? Why is this outdated myth being debunked AGAIN? Of course, this plays right into the manufacturers’ marketing strategy of lobbing distractions at the public to keep us from paying attention to breast implants’ real risks, like the fact that detecting cancer could be impeded because layers of silicone or saline are in the way.
Breast implants may not be a cause of cancer, but they do block early detection, and we all know how important early detection is. Sybil care to comment on those studies? How many PR “science” reports will the implant manufacturers have to MANUFACTURE to get their lame points across?
This is so ridiculous, especially in light of the recent reports about high infection rates for breast cancer reconstruction patients. These companies are evil in how they keep trying to confuse the issue, not give the real information and keep women as “mushrooms” - in the dark and fed shit. Wake up, women! These big business “men” are not your friends.
TAGS: 
breast cancer, 
marketing, 
women’s health
I AGREE with your anger 100% Mary!! We have been fighting the big boys with the $$ on this issue for so many years and it KEEPS getting back into the medie hype. Of course you have to realize to the young uninformed woman she takes the headline “Breast Implants Do Not Cause Cancer” as… “Breast implants do not cause cancer …THEREFORE they must be safe” …This has been a GRRRRRRRR that does not go away! Pam
Comment by Pam — February 5, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
If these implants are so seriouly dangerous why do so many women have them and keep getting them? I am just curious. I am considering getting saline implants and am trying to dig up all the facts i can to make an educated choice.
Comment by Ivy — July 4, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Ivy, from magazines to music videos to movies, our culture tells us that big breasts are essential to beauty. At the same time, the plastic surgery industry spends millions of dollars a year to create the illusion of implants safety. But the fact is, within the first three years of getting implants for the first time, almost half of the women experience one local complication such as pain, infection, hardening or the need for additional surgery. And what happens after that? It’s logical that even more women will have problems, very serious problems. But it’s up to the implants manufacturers to do the research to prove safety, but they have been very careful NOT to do the research in the longer term. In other words, no one know the impact of implants in women beyond the first few years because THE RESEARCH HASN’T BEEN DONE - which is what they mean when they tell you that no one has proved they are dangerous. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of women have had serious problems that have ruined their health and their lives.
Please, please do your research before you take this huge risk just to have bigger breasts.
Comment by Wrdfrk — July 4, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
Ivy- It’s good that you are doing all of the research you can. For more info, I hope you will visit my website at http://www.truthaboutbreastimplants.com there is a lot of great info and links. You can also visit Kacey’s at http://www.implantsout.com Gretchen’s at http://www.myimplantstory.com or Beth’s story at http://www.toxicbreastimplants.org/.
The truth is that yes, a lot of women are getting breast implants and are continuing to get implants, but what you don’t know and don’t hear about is the dark side of implants. Just last year alone over 30,000 women had their implants REMOVED. I bet you didn’t hear about those women. The truth is, that many many women are forced to have their implants removed for various reasons, from local complications but many to serious health problems. You don’t hear about these even because even though there are many of us, many are embarrassed, too sick, or just want to be done with it and move on with their lives. I know hundreds of women who are seriously ill from their implants, but you will never hear from them because they are embarrassed, don’t want friends and family to know they had implants, just want to get better and get on with life, or just don’t have a place to speak out, etc.
The FDA knows there is a HUGE problem, but they are giving the implant manufactures a chance to prove that implants are safe (that is why there are so many studies going on.) What women need to understand is that the manufactures are hell bent on proving (whatever it takes) that their implants are safe. The plastic surgeons are in on it, the media in many ways is in on it. There will never be proper research done until the research is done independently from the manufactures and plastic surgeons, that is fact. There are BIG dollars quieting the women like us. They make us sound like a bunch of whining feminists, when in reality we are women just like any other.
It is true that not every woman will become ill from her implants, but far too many will. It is like playing Russian Roulette with your health. If I would have known that before getting implants, I would have skipped the implants, I’ll tell ya that right now. It is simply not risking, not when there are so many big bucks trying to keep us quiet. There are WAY more sick women that you can imagine.
Comment by Krista — July 5, 2008 @ 9:41 am