Books, Arts & Manners: Breast Wishes

Science on Trial: The Clash of Medical Evidence and the Law in the Breast Implant Case, by Marcia Angell, MD (Norton, 256 pp., $27.50)

IN recent years leading medical researchers have come out with big studies finding—contrary to what we were told in one of the great scare campaigns of modern times—no link between silicone-gel breast implants and the rate at which women contract diseases such as scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. As PBS’s Frontline summed up the data, “Women with implants do not have measurably different health from women without implants.” Millions of women were badly scared, it seems, for nothing. As Gilda Radner used to say, “Never mind.”

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About the Author

Walter Olson

Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of several books.

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Science on Trial: The Clash of Medical Evidence and the Law in the Breast Implant Case, by Marcia Angell, MD (Norton, 256 pp., $27.50)

IN recent years leading medical researchers have come out with big studies finding—contrary to what we were told in one of the great scare campaigns of modern times—no link between silicone-gel breast implants and the rate at which women contract diseases such as scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. As PBS’s Frontline summed up the data, “Women with implants do not have measurably different health from women without implants.” Millions of women were badly scared, it seems, for nothing. As Gilda Radner used to say, “Never mind.”