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Liposuction Virginia
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Question: At a time when we worry that some of our soldiers don't have the
armored vests they need, and many Americans have no health insurance,
the thought of using taxpayers' money for liposuction and implants for
either our recruits or their wives is hard to accept. Surely there are
better incentives and rewards for our military men and women.
But the cost and the principle are not the only issues. After all,
breast implants are also used for reconstruction for breast cancer
patients who lose a breast to mastectomy surgery. Don't those women
deserve free medical care if they or their husbands are serving our
country? Or is breast implant surgery not safe enough - especially if
done by doctors with limited breast implant experience, as would
almost always be true of military doctors?
Answer: a friend of mine who underwent a double mastectomy at the
age of 22, performed by military doctors at the Portsmouth Naval
Hospital in Virginia because her husband was in the Navy. She was told
she needed to have both breasts removed because she had a
pre-cancerous condition, and that silicone gel breast implants would
make her as good as new.
There was no publicly available risk information about silicone
implants at the time, but one doctor at the military hospital warned
her before her biopsy that she should get her clothes on and leave,
because the doctors were using her. She never forgot his warning, but
she did not heed it.
She had her surgery, and the implants caused immediate problems -
fatigue, joint pain and muscle pain. Implants that she was told would
last a lifetime were replaced four times, eventually destroying some
of her breast tissue and popping through the skin. With more than 20
operations related to her implants, she finally had her implants
removed and not replaced.
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