December 30, 2006 at 2:22 pm (Breast Augmentation, Cosmetic Dermatology, Plastic Surgery, Silicone Breast Implants, Women)
There are two primary makers of silicone breast implants: Allergan, an Orange County CA company and Mentor Corp of Santa Barbara CA.
Interestingly, Allergan only just got into the breast implant market buying Inamed for 3.8 Billion dollars.
Considering the FDA’s re-approval of silicone breast implants the timing couldn’t have been better.
The Orange County Business Journal has an interesting profile of Allergan and its CEO here.
We all know that breast implants are big business, but Allergan’s acquisition of Inamed helped push it into first place in Orange County:
The Inamed deal also helped to cement Allergan as Orange County’s most valuable company on Wall Street, with a recent market value of $18 billion.
Also from the OCBD article:
Wall Street has taken to the Allergan-Inamed combination.
“They’ll be able to cover a greater portion of the face,” said Timothy Chiang, an analyst with Natexis Bleichroeder Inc., a New York investment bank, in published reports.
Allergan is clearly committed to growing its position as a powerhouse in medical beauty products.
Allergan Web Site
Mentor Web Site
Choosing the right breast implant size can be tough – Envision Implants can help make sure you make the right choice the first time.
Leave a Comment
December 27, 2006 at 5:54 pm (Breast Augmentation, Plastic Surgery, Silicone Breast Implants, Women)
This is my favorite line from today’s news, Rochester NY’s Channel 13 reports that “Cosmetic surgery gift certificates were one of the hottest stocking stuffers this year“.
Given the risk of resurgery, perhaps they should be giving a kit which helps in choosing breast implant size too. A large number of the 300,000 + women who have implants each year come back for re-surgery because they’ve chosen the wrong size. And here’s the kicker: of those who have them redone, most go larger.
So before spending 5k on that gift certificate for surgery, those guys could have invested 50 bucks in a kit which will help assure they don’t have to pay for them again in the new year. 
Leave a Comment
December 26, 2006 at 7:23 pm (Plastic Surgery, Silicone Breast Implants, Women)
Wrapped in a story of a young woman and her quest for new implants (this gal didn’t choose silicone breast implants, opting for saline intstead), the San Diego Union Tribune has a very informative “Implant Patient’s Primer“
In addition to the primer, the article links to two other pieces in the Union Tribune with some very informative information.
One of the articles focuses on the choice between saline and silicone breast implants, here. The other includes a list of breast implant related resource, here.
Leave a Comment
December 24, 2006 at 2:33 pm (Plastic Surgery, Silicone Breast Implants)
From the United Press there’s an article suggesting that more people are giving, or requesting, breast implants as a Christmas gift this year.
Yet another example of the pent-up demand around Silicone Breast Implants.
Here’s the article.
Leave a Comment
December 23, 2006 at 4:47 am (Silicone Breast Implants, Women)
From Medical News Today it appears that, as valuable as the silicone implant is for a realistic effect, the FDA has, in an oversight, excluded the type of implants most valuable for cancer patients.
In mastectomy reconstruction it is necessary to have two procedures. One for the immediate post-operative “rebuilding” of the area of breast removal and one which is used as the final product.
Given the belief that silicone implants are more useful for women without much breast material (particularly flat-chested, if you will) silicone would be most appropriate for post-mastectomy patients in whom all the breast material has been removed.
If in fact these “one-stage” implants are off the table, that is quite unfortunate for these women who have already suffered so much.
Leave a Comment
December 22, 2006 at 6:57 pm (Plastic Surgery, Silicone Breast Implants, Women)
The Houston Chronicle has a good article with some smart points “The Feminine Mistake, Better a Brain Implant”.
There is a fair amount of criticism of the ways in which the FDA and women are seen to be overlooking the dangers of silicone, but better still is a look at breast implants as being contributors to the continuing objectification of women.
Columnist Katha Pollit notes, “Women have learned to describe everything they do, no matter how apparently conformist, submissive, self-destructive, or humiliating as a personal choice that cannot be criticized because personal choice is what feminism is all about. Women have become incredibly clever at explaining these choices in ways that barely mention social pressures or male desires.”
Read the entire article here.
What do you think? Is it a choice? Are we as women pandering to the chauvanist, objectifiers? Is our whole sense of beauty developed from some unrealistic ideal put upon us by men?
Or in the end, have we come too far in the current feminine ideal to turn back?
Leave a Comment
December 22, 2006 at 5:48 pm (Plastic Surgery, Silicone Breast Implants)
After a 14 year ban, Silicone Breast Implants are back. The plastic surgery community and many, many women are incredibly excited — and then of course there are the manufacturers.
ABC News Coverage
As a relatively good yardstick of the buzz being developed, one can always look at Google trends to see how people are searching for Silicone Breast Implants and Silicone Implants.
As you can see, there is a big spike around the time of the FDA announcement for both Silicone related searches and plain old “breast implants” searches.
It’s pretty clear this is a big deal.
Among the benefits of silicone implants is they are more “realistic”, and due to their structure are more believable in slimmer women.
Because saline implants lack the gel-ness, if you will, you can sometimes see their bag through the skin if the patient doesn’t have significant flesh to cover them.
For this and a number of reasons, there has been a long wait for Silicone Breast Implants to come back and I’ll be posting occasionally about the news and latest data.
Thanks for your interest!
1 Comment
