The breast implants story is interesting because in the UK, we are being told that there is no real proof of a link from the implants to cancer (the French are considering it as a preventative measure) thus the implants should be left in place (if not ruptured) due to the risk of removing them – though the policy may change.

The problem is down to the “post hoc” argument, some women with these implants got cancer, thus the implants caused the cancer. Is it a fact or is it a tragic coincidence? The NHS in the UK will not generally pay for cosmetic procedures for “vanity” reasons so the women with the implants are mostly those who have chosen to do so, though there are stories about women who have had breasts removed following breast cancer having these implants in afterwards. I think if there is a link, it would make sense to pay for all to be removed and do the “vanity” ones as well and put proper implants in after.

We have a BBC2 (publicly funded) debate/phone in at lunch times (the Jeremy Vine show) which discussed this yesterday and I was disappointed so many of the listeners were being so condescending towards women with implants, suggesting everyone who has a boob job has some underlying “mental” problem and that they had implants to make themselves feel better and pretty much it was their own fault, not one person I heard considered that the women wanted implants simply because they wanted them but rather it was all down to insecurity.