Evaluating the Health Risks of Breast Implants: The Interplay of Medical Science, the Law, and Public Opinion

Abstract

This is the story of the controversy over the safety of silicone-gel–filled breast implants — a controversy that has raged in this country for nearly a decade and is still not resolved. It is a story fascinating in itself, but one particularly worth telling here because of the insights it affords into how contemporary American society deals with the problems of evaluating health risks. The breast-implant story illustrates better than almost any other event in recent times how litigation, fear, bias, and greed can interfere with scientific efforts to answer an important public health question. Perhaps most troubling of all, . . .