Doctors have stood on the wrong side of science and truth on many issues, over decades – cigarette smoking being one example. Doctors once promoted smoking and denied it was harmful, while they enjoyed generous kickbacks from tobacco companies.
In massive media campaigns that often included doctors as spokespersons, cigarette smoking was spun as though it boosted one’s appeal. Women were ‘sexier’ and men were more ‘manly’ through smoking cigarettes.
Doctors, and the tobacco industry, were actually promoting sickness and death and making billions of dollars doing it.
Before smoking was proven to be undisputedly harmful, doctors stood unmoving, on the wrong side of science and truth. Many doctors are once again on the wrong side in regard to Breast Implants.
LOTS OF DOCTORS BELIEVING SOMETHING ERRONEOUS DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUE.
THIS blog post is a reaction to a blog post by plastic surgeon, Dr Lisa Sowder, where she presents a synopsis of ‘candid conversations’ in a doctors-only forum, on the topic of Breast Implant Illness. Dr Sowder is outspoken on multiple social media platforms about her skepticism that BII is real.
Discussion topics included:
– Dry eyes and breast implants
– mold and biotoxins
– autoimmune issues
– Breast Implant Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL)
– other stuff
– future research
– breast implants in general
– plastic surgery and plastic surgeons in general
Dr Sowder starts her post with a link to her previously written blog post on Breast Implant Illness (BII) recommending, in fact imploring, her readership to ‘read it now’.
http://www.sowdermd.com/blog/breast-implant-illness/
FYI, I actually wrote a blog post in response to that too .. here’s the link to it:
Thoughts On A Plastic Surgeon’s Blog Post
She then presents a ‘few thoughts’ that she has curated over a period of several months, starting with ‘Dry eye and breast implants’. Dr Sowder claims, “many, many ophthalmologists weighed in on this one. The consensus is that dry eye is very common in middle aged women. Women are 10 times more likely to develop dry eye. One doc said 80% of his female patients over 50 had dry eye.”
First of all, that doesn’t negate that implants can cause this symptom. Furthermore, its not just about dry eyes. I had to carry a water bottle with me at all times because my mouth and throat were so dry my throat and airways would stick together. It was like being mummified from the inside out. It was nearly unbearable. A case of dry eyes alone would have been so easy. Women with breast implants commonly develop symptoms of Sjogren’s Syndrome.Manufacturer information warns of this potential complication.Plastic surgeons that fail to mention ALL possible complications associated with Breast Implants have failed their patients. FULL DISCLOSURE is imperative.
Mold and biotoxins: “General consensus from internal medicine and infectious disease is that patients ill with systemic fungal infections should be in the intensive care unit.”
I saw an internal medicine doctor that totally missed how ill I was. My body was losing the battle, which was confirmed on explant. I had a systemic fungal infection, with ‘neon sign’ symptoms which the specialist failed to diagnose. Western medicine for the most part has a difficult time with the premise of fungal infection. If not for the care of ‘alternative’ practitioners who have greater understanding of mold and biotoxins impacting health I surely wouldn’t have survived till explant. It was just one of the many serious issues I was dealing with. I had silicone implants.
Dr Sowder continues, “None of the plastic surgeons, with one exception, had seen a case of mold growing in a saline implant.”
With an intended ‘statement-of-proof’ that was based on a group of doctors expressing consensus that saline breast implants don’t develop mold and make women sick, Dr Sowder, wrote, “I added up the years of practice and it came to about 250 years. That is a lot of experience.”Stated as though their collective ignorance makes their stance true. It actually just demonstrates how so many doctors can be getting it so wrong. I hope these doctors will begin to realize their misguided position sooner than later. Women’s saline implants often come out looking like cesspools, with all manner of troubling biomaterials in the saline.
On the topic of autoimmune issues, apparently several rheumatologists weighed in, with a mix of opinions. Some felt there is no evidence suggesting implants cause autoimmune illness, while others felt that in genetically susceptible individuals silicone can trigger autoimmune illness. An infectious disease doctor that believes implants can cause scleroderma, was considered ‘out there’ by the rheumatologists. The ‘No evidence whatsoevever‘ camp of rheumatologists might consider another profession. Any doctor, of any speciality, who cannot understand that these make us sick causes unnecessary harm to their patients with implants in that they impede a correct, and timely diagnosis.
Dr Sowder then says Breast Implant Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma is rare; treatable if caught early; related to textured implants and expanders; and ‘really creepy’. She says it was recognized as a disease around 2012.
BIA-ALCL was first described by Keech and Creech, in 1997. In 2011, FDA identified a possible connection between breast implants and ALCL. The fact that it wasn’t recognized as a disease until 2012 is a failure on the part of researchers, doctors, regulators and manufacturers. They knew all that time and did nothing. In 2017 regulating bodies are just recently addressing it. Sowder makes the point of BIA-ALCL being recognized as a disease in 2012 to debunk claims by another ps that she’d had patients die from it prior to 2005. In full disclosure, I’m not a fan of the ps Sowder is referring to, but I do believe that women died from lymphoma prior to 2005. Whether from ALCL I don’t know, but possibly some form of lymphoma. When lymph nodes become filled with silicone it can’t bode well at some point, IMHO.
Under ‘Other Stuff’ the predictable topic of somatization comes up. Their solution to figuring out if bii is a ‘hysterical’ psycho-somatic manifestation that occurs because women have a ‘uterus’ (and, well, they just think we’re crazy that way) is to determine if a transgendered male-to-female with breast implants experiences bii symptoms. Seriously, these are actually people who went to med school.
Under ‘Future Research’, Sowder, acknowledges there has been dismal follow-up in manufacturer funded studies, but then spins it to be the fault of women who got their implants and were ‘gone, gone, gone’. She writes that in her personal McGhan study she had an 80% success rate because she tenaciously ‘pestered patients mercilessly’. She unintentionally makes a case that if other researchers were as tenacious about pestering study participants they, too, might have had an 80% success rate. But, they didn’t make a particular effort. And, the reality is that once women start presenting with complications they’re dropped from studies. Manufacturers want them to be gone, gone, gone.
I unknowingly had RECALLED devices in me for 22 years. They were recalled within a year of me getting them, but I wasn’t notified. I lived at the same address and had the same phone number the entire time. Nobody made any effort to contact me. Not the implanting plastic surgeon, nor the manufacturer, nor Health Canada. My husband was involved in a study for an artificial hip prosthesis. He was followed for one year, and we never heard from them again. We shouldn’t have had to chase them down. They dropped the ball, not my husband.
The following statement makes my head do revolutions! Sowder says,
“One doc suggested maybe a prison study using inmates with really long sentences. Maybe this could be Orange in the New Black meets Extreme Makeover?”
The doc that suggested a prison study should have to surrender their medical license for ethical reasons! Of all the ignorant things expressed in Dr Sowder’s blog post, this one takes the cake. How about we do a long term experiment using plastic surgeons and doctors that deny REAL WORLD EVIDENCE! #asshole
Under ‘Breast Implants in General’ my head is doing more revolutions. Sowder prefaces that there are “some strong opinions about this,” continuing, “Many, many non-plastic surgeons think any woman who gets implants is by definition is a mentally impaired bimbo.”
LETS REPEAT THIS SO YOU KNOW YOU READ IT CORRECTLY THE FIRST TIME …
“Many, many non-plastic surgeons think any woman who gets implants is by definition is a mentally impaired bimbo.”
THE EPITOME OF INGORANCE, THAT STATEMENT WILL BE THE BASIS FOR AN UPCOMING BLOG POST.
Continuing on the topic ‘Breast Implants in General’ Sowder boasts,
“But there was one family practitioner who has had the same set of implants for over 30 years (!) who said they absolutely changed her life. She went from a wallflower to a confident young woman. She even credits her implants for giving her the confidence to apply to medical school!”
If she’s had her implants for 30 years she needs to get them removed or replaced pronto! Its a bit shocking that as a family practitioner she doesn’t have the sense to know that! Its definitely not a milestone to be particularly proud of, or boast about.
Moving on to Plastic surgery and plastic surgeons in general she writes, “Some of the docs think that any sort of appearance altering surgery (except for obvious reconstructive procedures) was morally and intellectually bankrupt. This was an opinion shared by many anesthesiologists!” Marvelling at how weird a sentiment it is, she wonders if her own anesthesia group thinks they are ‘slumming’ in working with her. There was also a belief that plastic surgeons are ‘money grubbing fools’. No comment.
Dr Sowder closes her blog post, “You too can join a doctors only message board but first you have to finish medical school.”
Their medical degree might get them membership into the doctors-only forum, but likely wouldn’t get them membership into a critical thinkers group and it certainly won’t get most of them a spot on the right side of history.
Given the doctors in the group, as per Dr Sowder, take jabs at the mental stability of women who choose to get breast implants, it seems fair to point out that surgeons make the ‘Top Ten’ list of professions with the greatest incidence of psychopaths. Just sayin’.
In closing my blog piece, I will say the collective ‘250 years experience’ Dr Sowder wags around as though its significant, pales compared to the collective experience of millions of women. In the class action lawsuit in the 90’s there were 400,000-ish women registered. In Facebook forums there are currently 30,000+ women. Women since the early 60’s when breast implants were introduced become ill in the exact same ways. Our numbers and collective REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE by far outweighs and outnumbers her collective 250 years.
Just as with tobacco, doctors and the breast implant industry are actually promoting sickness and death and making billions of dollars doing it. Eventually it will be revealed that they’re standing on the wrong side of science and truth.
Link to Dr Sowder’s blog piece:
http://www.sowdermd.com/blog/breast-implant-illness-2/
Qualifying comment:
Though Dr Lisa Sowder’s outspoken public views about bii ladies are condescending I have seen comments from patients of hers, saying, she’s a really good surgeon skill-wise. Albeit, they’re troubled when they find out what she says about women who are sick from their implants.
Breast Implant Failure & Illness 