Doctors, patients raise alarms about cancer linked to breast implants

[ffr]

Although doctors have linked the cancer to a specific kind of implant, manufacturers have no plans to stop making it.

When Michelle Forney’s breast started swelling and itching, doctors told her she had mastitis, a common infection, and treated her with antibiotics. When she discovered that she, in fact, had a rare form of lymphoma and that it was probably caused by her breast implant, she was both furious and frightened.

Forney is just one of hundreds of breast-implant recipients who have developed a rare blood cancer called anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL). The Food and Drug Administration has been investigating reports linking breast implants with the cancer, and now has more than 400 reports about patients who developed ALCL after having a breast implant, including nine who died. - MSNBC

[Stinky The Clown]

1. I think men have some culpability here.

Big Boob Obsession.

Some men need to reign in their juvenile fantasies when it comes to women who they might be able to influence.

[still_one]

2. Not entirely. Some breast implants are for those who have mastectomies.

[Ms. Toad]

4. still not necessary, and also driven by male-dominated standards of beauty.

Speaking as someone living with breast cancer.

Reconstruction is not necessary. My partial mastectomy was not large enough that it would have been worth the hassle. But there was no way of knowing that in advance of surgery so I went through the entire decision making process, and had decided I would not opt for reconstruction.

A breastless chest is still functional. My mother and grandmother both made similar decisions (double adn single mastectomies, respectively). Even absent the cancer risk, implants are not one-and-done. They require periodic replacement. Not worth the surgical hassle merely to acquire a certain shape to match the largely male-dominated standards of beauty.

[Heddi]

6. Oh that's not fair. Plenty of women make the decision to have reconstruction independently

and your comments remove their agency from them.

not every decision a woman makes is entirely through the lens of "men." Some women enjoy having breasts, and they do it not to make the men in their lives happy, but to make the woman that they are feel happy.

Please stop speaking for every woman. You speak for yourself and no one else. You didn't opt for reconstruction for whatever reason. Many women make different decision and you have no right to judge them. That is very unfair and incredibly and ironically misogynistic to remove their agency in decision-making to presume to know, deep down, that they only wanted reconstruction to match the "male dominated standards of beauty"

Women really do have these things called "brains" and can do this magical thing called "make their own opinions"

DID YOU KNOW --- there are *lesbians* who get breast reconstruction surgery?! It's true. I wonder how they play into this desire to fulfill men's sexual desires ?

DID YOU KNOW that there are elderly women, in their 70's and 80's who get breast reconstruction surgery. It's true. I wonder how they play into this desire to fulfill men's sexual desires?

Please stop presuming to speak for anyone else's health care choices other than your own. TO do so is no different than anti-choicers. It's disgusting.

[still_one]

9. I can only speak for those in my family who had to make that decision, and they did not make it on

the basis of what some "male standard of beauty is".

The decision was made by them. Then again, I am thankfully surrounded by very independent thinking women, which include my daughter, and I would NOT want it any other way.

[Ms. Toad]

13. And women liked corseted waists, and 4" feet, and individual women chose those

shapes as well.

But even when women choose to sculpt themselves into that shape - the notion that a particular shape is ideal is driven by men's notion of what the ideal woman should look like - which is largely a slightly less exaggerated version of playboy/hustler/porn star shapes.

As to what lesbians do - we grow up in the same culture straight women grow up in - a culture dominated by a male-centric vision of what the ideal woman looks like. Just as blacks are indoctrinated with whites views of the good black, gay people are indoctrinated with straight's view of the good gay, women are indoctrinated with male-centric views of what the good woman should look like. That creates a fair amount of internalized self-criticism, and willingness to mold ourselves to the ideal view of who we should be.

Just take some of the implicit bias tests and see how free you really are from cultural influences that will urge you toward what the culture in which you're immersed tells you is good.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

[Heddi]

15. This is such a bigoted post

I am a nurse, and a woman, who has worked with women with invasive breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer, who have gone through the agonizing decision regarding reconstruction. To not just imply but outright state that the decision surrounding reconstruction, regardless of age or sexual orientation is equivalent to foot binding or 4-inch corset waists, to imply that every post-mastectomy woman who has reconstruction gets a hustler-type breast implant (hint: they don't) is beyond insulting. Again, your choice to not have post-mastectomy reconstruction, and the reasons behind that are *your* reasons, and no one else's. To foist your preposterous, insulting, and misogynistic bullshit on the millions of other women who make different choices than you do as being solely based on male-centric ideas of sex and sexuality is just the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I again equate the mindset to the closed-mindedness of anti-abortionsts who claim to be able to get into the minds of women who have had abortions, or who take birth control, or who visit Planned Parenthood. They care not the real reason -- they have their own, internalized and fabricated, anti-woman agenda, just as you seem to.

You are removing EVERY inch of choice and agency from women who make different decisions than you do. No different than anti-abortionists. They choose to have breast reconstructive surgery because it makes them feel better about themselves? Because it makes them think of a time before they had a life-changing disease? Because it makes them not think of their stage IV diagnosis that will kill them too soon? TOO FUCKING BAD, YOU ARE ONLY THINKING ABOUT HOW MEN WILL FIND YOU SEXY IN THIS MALE-DOMINATED WORLD, YOU SMALL MINDED THOT

[Ms. Toad]

16. Try reading again, with comprehension rather than outrage in mind.

You've taken general assertions I made about how society influences what is perceived as the ideal, and morphed them into an assertion women have no choice - which is not even close to what I said.

Do you seriously believe, for example, that I would overhear discussions about among my students about whether they could get away with nappy hair for their formal photos, or job interviews, or about their mother's assertions that they are more beautiful with straight hair - if black women's view of what is acceptable in a business setting wasn't influenced by a culture that tells them that professional = white? There are similar influences as to women's appearances.

The exact same resume sent out receives very different responses based on whether the name sounds white or male than if it sounds like a minority or woman's name - and it doesn't reallly make much difference whehter the recipient is a woman (who believes she is making a free and rational choice) or not.

In research in which identical resumes, aside from name gender, were sent for review:

Both men andwomen were more likely to vote to hire a male jobapplicant than a female job applicant with an identical record. Similarly, both sexes reported that the male job applicant had done adequate teaching,research, and service experience compared to the female job applicant with an identical record.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018839203698

Can individual women freely choose to have breast implants? Sure - but that choice is always made in the cultural context of what we are told the ideal woman should look like - you can't escape that. And all of us are more influenced by that cultural soup than we realize.

If you are seriously interested in comprehension, rather than an excuse to be outraged, it wouldn't hurt to read up on implicit bias, and feminist theory on how the dominant views shape how women (and minorities) present themselves in the world.

Did you even bother to go take the implicit bias tests I directed you to?

[Heddi]

17. I read your words. YOUR words

You have so far equated breast reconstruction with
4-inch waists
foot binding
hustler and playboy

you have repeatedly denied that women can make ANY decision without a male centric view of sex and sexuality.

I am aware of implied an inherent bias. I have no interest in going to any link you provide because I see the bias in what you write. You can say what you want but you remove all ability for women to make any decision because THE MENZZZZ.

You are as much of an anti-choicer as someone who presumes to know WHY that woman is walking into planned parenthood. Is it for a pap? a cancer screening? birth control? an abortion? Don't matter. THAT PROTESTER KNOWS AND THATS ALL THAT MATTERS

Does that woman want reconstructive surgery because her husband makes her feel like less of a woman without boobs? because the woman feels incomplete with a part of her body missing? because she wants to be reminded of another time, another person she was before her terminal (or near terminal) diagnosis? Don't matter. MS. TOAD KNOWS AND THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS>

Tell me -- do you hold people who have had other body parts amputated and have opted for prosthesis with the same derision you hold for women who have opted for breast reconstructive surgery? A false leg? I mean, people can get along fine with one leg and a wheel chair or walker. How about a glass eye -- that's just vanity, no need for it for sight, right? People should just run all of their medically unnecessary decisions by you? You should get hired by the insurance companies as the Medical Director for Procedures -- they're the ones who decide whether procedures like this will be covered. I mean, after all, you've already decided that women only get these done through the lens of inherent sexualized bias to appeal to male-centered sexualization, not one whit of personalized desire at all. Let's add a few legs, eyes, dental implants (food can be pureed. Chewing not necessary). You've got it all figured out there, apparently.

And what I have isn't outrage. It's actually disgust.

[Ms. Toad]

18. Until you actually do read my words, there's no point in trying to have a conversation.

[still_one]

7. I am not ignorant of the fact that it is elective, but it is a choice, ultimately made by the

patient.

I also have family who have also had to go through that decision, and they were NOT pressured by what they thought alpha males thought. I personally didn't want them to have it done, and voiced it because of the potential risks involved, but it wasn't my decision. They ultimately didn't have it done, but it was still their decision.

What I observed though was more pressure exerted by the physicians/surgeons to have it done, than any pressure from what they thought of a male-dominated standard of beauty. My cynical nature suspects that pressure was motivated more by money from the doctors

[Ms. Toad]

12. But where do you think the physicians got the idea of what a female body should look like?

I'm not talking about who, specifically, pressures an individual woman - but where the pressure for all of us to have two symmetrical, perky, cup size C breasts in the first place. Yes, surgeons make a lot of money molding us into that shape - but they didn't invent it, and if another cookie-cutter shape (e.g. the corsetted waist, or the 4" long feet in past eras) they could make just as much money sculpting women that those ideal shapes of bygone eras were the shape all of us should buy for ourselves.

[wasupaloopa]

3. Are the guys who like small breasts good guys.

I use to work for a company who made implants. They also made penis implants. Per your theory women who like big penises are to blame.

The company was Inamed

[Ms. Toad]

5. No. not really.

I'm sure you're aware that the vast majority of dick measuring contests take place outside of the line of sight of women. There are no equivalents for women.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Do you have an actual point or are you disagreeing to be disagreeable?

[wasupaloopa]

10. Women get implants for personal reasons.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. May I congratulate you on a reasonable, if failed, attempt at deflection.

Have a swell evening. See ya around campus.

[marlakay]

19. My daughter got them and I have always been concerned

She wanted a tummy tuck because after losing baby weight had a lot of loose skin, her husband made a deal with her if she got breast implants she could get tummy tuck.

She has had back problems from the weight of them and wants to reduce and can’t afford, health insurance won’t pay for it even though it’s causing problems because she choose to do it.

Sometimes we make choices we live to regret.

[StarryNite]

20. Is Facebook hiding groups dedicated to the potential dangers of breast implants?

PHOENIX (CBS 5) - Is Facebook pulling a fast one?

"Doctors and the government say breast implants are safe but tens of thousands of women who believe implants made them sick are finding each other on social media.

Now it appears Facebook may be hiding groups dedicated to breast implant illness.

Nicole Daruda is the founder of the private Facebook group: Breast Implant Illness and Healing by Nicole.

She is concerned the social media giant may be suppressing the growing movement.

Daruda says when sick women with implants find her group it can be life-changing."

More at link:

[link:https://www.azfamily.com/news/is-facebook-hiding-groups-dedicated-to-the-potential-dangers-of/article_5927de1e-f20a-11e8-a02c-dbc1b292555a.html|