Fw: POST - Canada - Keeping Abreast

[Guest guest]

Abstract: Reports that silicone breast implants are becoming popular in Canada as of May 13, 2002. Way that the Canadian federal health ministry has cleared silicone enhancers which are less likely to rupture than older models; Belief of some that unruptured silicone implants are a health hazard.

KEEPING ABREAST

• Improbable but true: silicone breast implants, absent from the surgical marketplace since 1992, are making a big comeback. Because of the crazy legal climate in the U.S., doctors still will not do silicone implants there: they are using the more common, and less "realistic," saline ones. But in Canada, where tort law is not yet a ubiquitous pestilence, the federal health ministry has cleared new-generation silicone enhancers that are less likely to rupture than the notorious older ones. Plastic surgeon Walter s told the CBC that the new gel is "very, very thick" and would not migrate within the body, even if the membranous wall of the implant broke apart. Some continue to insist, in the face of a yawning void of evidence, that unruptured silicone implants are a health hazard--that the silicone itself is dangerous. One CBC interviewee called it a "silent epidemic" and complained of "breathing problems, infections and chronic fatigue." What, no scrofula? It is odd that people have to find reasons to object to narcissistic self-mutilation. Still, at least we are ahead of the Americans in one technological, er, sphere.