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Previous Volume 334:1513-1518 June 6, 1996 Number 23 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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This is the story of the controversy over the safety of silicone-gel–filled breast implants — a controversy that has raged in this country for nearly a decade and is still not resolved. It is a story fascinating in itself, but one particularly worth telling here because of the insights it affords into how contemporary American society deals with the problems of evaluating health risks. The breast-implant story illustrates better than almost any other event in recent times how litigation, fear, bias, and greed can interfere with scientific efforts to answer an important public health question. Perhaps most troubling of all, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

The Breast-Implant Story

Immediate Consequences of the FDA Ban

The Scientific Evidence

The Law

Long-Term Consequences

References

Related Letters:

Evaluating the Health Risks of Breast Implants
Goldberg E. P., Egilman D. S., Stubbs C., Barthel H. R., Barraza O., Meier L. G., Sunshine J., Greenwald M. S., Angell M.
Extract | Full Text  
N Engl J Med 1996; 335:1154-1156, Oct 10, 1996. Correspondence

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