? No, I wasn't!



I can guarantee that the insurance companies will argue precisely that. Of course, the numbskulls currently comprising what is laughingly called the "government" are currently hell-bent on destroying people's current ability to take on such organisations with equality of arms, under no win no fee, and are about to enact laws which will mean that the innocent victims will still have to pay a slice of their own legal fees. Nobody is interested in this, they won't complain until it happens to them, and then it will be far too late.

In a year or so, a woman suing a breast implant company, up against the might of their insurance company and fancy lawyers will, if she wins, have to pay part of the legal costs (the lawyer's Success Fee) and will also have to pay her legal expenses insurance premium, which could all amount to thousands of pounds. That is justice, Lib-Con style. Even when they fook up, shove some money into the pockets of big business wrongdoers, at the expense of innocent victims.

There's also the issue of setting a precedent for future 'vanity' cosmetic issues. If the NHS decides to open its doors and foot the bill for every dodgy breast implant, they're also in effect saying they'll put right every private issue of faulty cosmetic surgery - on whatever scale.

Who knows what the long-term damage will be for those stupid people who enjoy looking like ducks and have collagen injections in their faces every few weeks - will this be the result in 10 years?:

Should the NHS perform corrective surgery?

The explosion in cosmetic surgery has - for the most part - been a recent phenomenon. Chopping, changing, removing bits and inserting various foreign objects and chemicals into our bodies is not a great idea and we've actually got no idea what the long-term damage and effects will be.

As others have said, if I seek out a private firm and pay for something that subsequently turns out to be faulty, I don't generally expect the government to sort my problems out. I generally expect the firm concerned to sort me out, or if that's not happening for whatever reason, I take responsibility and if I feel I've a strong enough case, seek recompense in the courts.

Not at all, as the father of 23 and 19 year old daughters I know full well of the pressures on them to comply and to look a certain way and as I point out to them every time they are off on another shopping trip to a shopping mall somewhere - come back and tell me how many clothes shops they find that cater exclusively for men and how many for women, and then come back and tell me that they aren't brainwashed by advertising to believe that they have to do this.

Likewise the perfume, make-up and accessory shops that they inhabit, are there equivalent for men ?

Yes you are absolutely correct, women, and some very young women, are often pressurised into thinking that their breasts are "wrong" and need correction in order to comply with a "standard" - there was one on TV yesterday morning, a young girl singer with a girl band (forget the name, didn't even recognise the name), who had breast implants after she breastfed her child and thought that they "looked wrong" afterwards, its vanity, but yes, its enforced vanity.

I just wonder if private clinics started pushing testicle implants and the idea that large testicles would make men more attractive to women, would men re-mortgage their houses to get them or just stuff a sock down their pants ?

however, this is not a routine situation - ultimately, the women with these implants have a higher risk of breast cancer, and the NHS will be liable to treat that. It will probably be worth taking the risk of paying now to avoid a bigger cost in a few years.

While not the appropriate grade of silicone, I thought neither UK nor Australian medical authorities considered it to be toxic or carcinogenic to surrounding tissue in case of a leak? Didn't the whole cancer scare come out of one woman in France who contracted breast cancer and had a leaky implant?

Increasingly, yes.



I can't remember with certainty which group came up with the research (it was something like the NSPCC), but it was reported a couple of years ago that girls as young as six were being (negatively) critical about their bodies and girls as young as nine were dieting. It's frankly Jesuitical – get 'em young and keep 'em for life – as far as the entire beauty, fashion and diet industries are concerned. And yes, the male market has been being targeted for some time now too.



But then we get into the relative positions of men and women within society, and the relative treatments of both by employers, the media etc on the basis of looks. And, as we've discussed more than once here, that's not a level playing field.

Taking your point, though, there are plenty of adverts around offering ways to increase penis size – I presume some men must be buying into these. So the insecurity is there too.

That was my impression too.

I also think that the media have been somewhat instrumental in whipping up hysteria. When I asked Emma whethere she had PIP implants, she replied that she had no idea but thought that as she had a cheap boob job done in Belgium, it was a fair bet that they were PIP. When I asked if she was concerned, her response was "not in the slightest". Now given that she is almost paranoid when it comes to health & hygene issues, I did think this somewhat unusual.

In any other situation, a basic risk assessment would probably conclude that there's nothing to get excited about.

Ditto.

I'm no expert but have done a little digging. It seems likely that these implants have a failure rate - ie they leak - of maybe 7%. If I had some, that is not good odds. At all. One Guy Sterne is a Consultant Cosmetic Surgeon and he says: Quote:My personal opinion is that these implants should be removed. The reasons for this are: they are substandard; they have a high risk of rupture (the consequences of which can be significant); and they contain non-medical grade silicone which, although is probably inert is not specifically manufactured for use in the human body and so should be removed. He also is one of several indicators that many cosmetic surgeons knew of the issues being steadily raised about PIP implants - as long as 5 years ago - and it seems the prudent avoided them Quote:... the gel filler was changed from medical grade silicone to cheaper, industrial grade silicone containing Baysilone (a fuel additive), Silopren and Rhodorsil (both used in the production of rubber tubing). Thus, these implants rupture far more frequently than other silicone implants, and the leaking gel appears to be more irritant than the extremely inert medical-grade silicone. As long as 5 years ago, reports started to appear in the Plastic Surgical Journals that these PIP implants had an increased risk of rupture and most plastic surgeons avoided them. Anyone who wants to minimise or dismiss the potential health risks and problems of a ruptured implant should have a look at this surgeon's site, {WARNING- SOME GRAPHIC IMAGES} and then try to minimise it.

I'm no expert but have done a little digging. It seems likely that these implants have a failure rate - ie they leak - of maybe 7%. If I had some, that is not good odds. At all. One Guy Sterne is a Consultant Cosmetic Surgeon and he says: Quote:My personal opinion is that these implants should be removed. The reasons for this are: they are substandard; they have a high risk of rupture (the consequences of which can be significant); and they contain non-medical grade silicone which, although is probably inert is not specifically manufactured for use in the human body and so should be removed. He also is one of several indicators that many cosmetic surgeons knew of the issues being steadily raised about PIP implants - as long as 5 years ago - and it seems the prudent avoided them Quote:... the gel filler was changed from medical grade silicone to cheaper, industrial grade silicone containing Baysilone (a fuel additive), Silopren and Rhodorsil (both used in the production of rubber tubing). Thus, these implants rupture far more frequently than other silicone implants, and the leaking gel appears to be more irritant than the extremely inert medical-grade silicone. As long as 5 years ago, reports started to appear in the Plastic Surgical Journals that these PIP implants had an increased risk of rupture and most plastic surgeons avoided them. Anyone who wants to minimise or dismiss the potential health risks and problems of a ruptured implant should have a look at this surgeon's site, {WARNING- SOME GRAPHIC IMAGES} and then try to minimise it.

If you paid privately for them for reasons of a cosmetic nature then the only way the taxpayer should be involved is in an emergency removal if the go pop. If its just a case of replacing them with another type because of worry, then do what you did before, pay for it yourself