thelastpsychiatrist.com - Breast Implants and Suicide. Adnotated.

I'll give you the punch line first: In each of the Danish, Swedish, Finnish, American, and Canadian studies, appx. 0.4% of breast implant patients killed themselves, representing a two to threefold higher risk than the general population. In some studies, the risk of suicide was increased to 1.5 times for any type of plastic surgery. Getting implants over 40 may also be a risk for suicide.ⁱ
2761ⁱⁱ Danish women who got breast implants from 1973-1995 were compared to 7071 women who got breast reduction, and 11736 who were considered controls. Median age was about 31.

14 (0.5%) breast implants committed suicide, 3 times more than expected (i.e. standardized mortality ratio=3). 7 of them had been previously psychiatrically hospitalized. 220 (8%) of all implants were psychiatrically hospitalized.

22 (0.3%) breast reduction committed suicide, 1.6 times more than expected. 6 of them had been previously psychiatriically hospitalized. 329 (4.7%) of all reductions were previously psych hospitalized.

0 controls committed suicide. 96 (5.5%) were previously psychiatrically hospitalized.

A U.S. study followed 12144 implant patients (mean age 31) and 3614 other plastics patients (mean age 40) from 1970-2002. 29 (0.24%) implant patients suicided vs. 4 (0.1%) other plastics patients. Thus, the 29 suicides were 1.6 times more than expected (SMR=1.6).

Interestingly, the risk of suicide was increased only after ten years; 22/29 died after 10 years. And while the majority killed themselves before 35 (16/29, SMR=1.4), the biggest risk was for >40 year olds. (SMR=3.4)

Really interestingly, the authors found that for breast implants there was no excess risk for any kinds of accidents -- why should there be, they were accidents -- except car accidents. Hmmm. 10 MVA deaths (occurring 15 years post implant) vs. 0 for other plastic surgery. The authors speculate these may not have been accidents.

Swedish studyⁱⁱⁱ, prospective but no comparator group, of 3521 women (mean age 31) found 15 (0.4%) suicides, SMR 2.9.

Finnish study of 2166 breast implant women from 1970-2000 were studied (retrospectively) until 2001; there were 10 (0.4%) suicides, SMR 3. 6/10 happened in the first five years (in contrast to the U.S. study.) (Accidents here were 14, SMR 2.1. No explanation given for this.)

Canadian study^iv: 24558 women with breast implants vs. 15893 women with other plastic surgery from 1974-1989, studied through 1997. Mean age 32. Once again, overall all-cause mortality was lower for breast implant women, except in suicide: 58 (0.24% SMR 1.73) ) suicides vs. 33 (.20%, SMR 1.55) for other plastic surgery. Like the U.S. study, women over 40 with implants carried the greatest risk of suicide (SMR 2.3), but no relationship to how far after surgery suicides occurred.

So in these studies, appx. 0.4% of breast implant patients killed themselves, representing a threefold higher risk than the general population. In some studies, the risk of suicide was increased to 1.5 times for any type of plastic surgery. At least in North America, getting implants over 40 is a risk for suicide. It goes without saying that the number of actual suicides was very small, and this could all be bunk.

All studies excluded implants for breast cancer surgery.^v

You may be interested in knowing that suicide is the only serious risk that has been regularly associated with breast implants -- silicone included -- and supported by real evidence, so far. Everything else is either no greater risk, or less risk. For example, there is a higher risk of lung cancer, but it most likely is related to smoking, not the implant.

The obvious next step is to see if there is a causative link between implants and suicide (likely impossible) or the implant is a clue to something else (poor self image, depression, drinking, etc.)^vi

Something else: the stereotypical breast implant recipient (e.g. 20 year old coed in Playboy) is not really the typical recipient. The average recipient is older (mean age 34,); is more affluent; is married (75%) and has two kids; had kids at younger ages; has had abortions; and smokes. I mention this so that you have the right person in mind when you go looking for risks.

Other fun facts:
80% are cosmetic, 20% are breast cancer surgery reconstructions.

290,000+ breast implant surgeries done last year (compared to 130,000 in 1998). 25% are replacement surgeries for ruptures, pain, etc. Compare to 324k liposuction and 300k nose jobs.

10% of US women have implants. (This seems wrong.) 95% are white.
10% did it in California.

Since we're on the subject of implants and suicide, it seems to me an easy maneuver^vii to fill breast implants with liquid explosives, puncture and mix. I am not sure why no one has tried this, actually -- or, more specifically, why no one at the TSA is looking for this as they stop to search my stupid tube of toothpaste. Not that there's any good way of checking, of course.

1. Hello and welcum to yet another edition of our award winning show, the Random Correlations Game! Do you remember all those happy childhood hours spent on your back, watching the clouds form patterns in the sky ? Well... since they've been trying to produce careerwomen out of all the naturally born streerwalkers, they had to come up with some kind of a career fit for streetwalkers.

   Here's the show format : pick some interesting item of one kind, and some interesting item of another kind. That's it, you can start counting, and call this idle masturbation "doing science". Suppose some percent of female schoolchildren aged 9 to 12 are sexually active ; some other percent of schoolchildren aged 9 to 12 brush their teeth more than twice a week. What do you think, is the percentage of female schoolchildren who are virgins larger, or smaller than the percentage of female schoolchildren who brush their teeth more than twice a week and are also virgins ? Some percentage of people have a testicle-to-eyeball weight ratio above one. Do you suppose the frequency of occurence of people with balls heavier than their eyeballs who also won at least a game of craps during the past six months larger, or smaller than the plain case of people with balls heavier than their eyeballs ? Some girls with really small labia are really good at math, but are they better on average than girls in general ? How about proxy studies! Do you suppose really small labia predict really pronounced Montgomery glands through the venue of being good at math, in that if a girl has really small labia she's more likely to be good at math, and if a girl is good at math she's more likely to have really pronounced bumps around her nipples ? Or vice-versa ?

   This limpdick "research" of a very pronounced "you can't accuse me of not doing research" slash "days of our lives" flavour is the best they could come up with so that born and bred streetwalkers can at the same time pretend to a career while staying true to their hairdressers' worldview and limited interests as supported by intellects that peaked sometime before highschool. The pretense economy at its very best, not merely because all sorts of morons get to borrow as if they were employed (therefore "helping the economy!!!", as if), but also because this science is non-blocking! You can keep re-discovering the same "thing" over and over and over! It's not anything like that evil patriarchy of old, wherein once someone discovered Thales' theorem, it stayed discovered (and by them!) for potentially thousands of years, blocking everyone else from getting grants and tenure through discovering it again. No, no, ten thousand times no. No more of that, random "patterns" in complex systems will naturally change over time, so one generation's "science" can be the next generation's "regrettable error", and so ad infinitum, plain makework of the purest kind in a slow circular motion downward.

   Not that he doesn't know all this, of course. He just wants some things to be true, is all. [↩]

2. In this context, 2`761 is synonymous to "zero", and anyone quoting the thing straight is directly a moron. [↩]
3. I will very much not take anything a "nordic" idiot has to say at face value, on the basis of actual experience with the delusionally mendacious sacks of shit. Your experience wont vary, though you may imagine it will for absolutely no good reason. [↩]
4. Notice how the scam works, incidentally ? Even though you know better, the sheer ennumeration of nonsense does exactly what he claims :
   

   He knows he's right. The science is just padding. Even if all the studies turn out to be negative, he just needs to point at the stack: "look at all the research that has been done on the question of paranormal behavior and sex differences!" You look at the stack, five meters high, and think, "guess it makes sense. Chicks will believe anything."

   [↩]

5. Aaand why did they do that ?

   They come out even further out, and nobody wants to have to deal with that, yes ? After all, this is a lefty study, it's supposed to "hit hard" against the sort of evil patriarchy that can (somehow!) still afford to push the women to compete, and force them to throw the curve, rather than permit them to sit on ass all day and "consensus" about how little work they need to do. It'd be ridiculous if instead it came out as an indictment against socialized medicine, or something unsavory like that. [↩]

6. No, the obvious next step is to see if suicide is not actually the better option, in the sense that everyone'd be better off if most of these idiots "doing studies" offed themselves tomorrow. [↩]
7. Very easy. [↩]