Silicon or Saline This essay debates the current event issue of which breast implant is safer, Silicon or Saline, and if the FDA should lift the ban off of silicon implants completely..

Essay by karey110College, UndergraduateA+, February 2004

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Recently, the Food and Drug Administration has recommended that silicone breast implants should be allowed back on the market. A ban was put on the implantation of silicon breasts about eleven years ago because of the initial health problems that were resulting from them. This issue has become one that is very controversial because many women are not sure if they should take a chance and embark on the new silicone gel-filled breast implants or just settle with the well researched, but not as good looking, saline implants.

Since 1992, when then the ban was placed on silicone implants, many women have sued silicone implant makers for "complaints centered more on systemic illness purportedly caused by exposure to silicone." The implant maker Inamed Corp. proposed to the FDA, a few weeks ago, that silicone implants can not actually be directly linked to many diseases and illnesses that they were thought to be.

The advisory committee for the FDA has chosen to advise that the use of silicone implants is safe, at least while research is still being completed. The FDA has not actually declared that they are one hundred percent safe for use but they will allow them to be used for wanted breast augmentation. Silicone implants have been said to be connected to autoimmune and connective tissue illnesses and also have caused severe fatigue, short-term memory loss, muscle and joint pain and skin rashes. There are also many reported stories of how silicone implants have affected women's lives. Carolyn Wolf of Centerville, Virginia described, "a long thin greasy glob, of silicone oozing from her eye and X-rays showing it lodged elsewhere in her body even after the implants she had for 29 years were removed." Silicone is said to break apart and leak into the body, and eventually cause...