Original subtitles

(bright music)

- [Michelle] Ironically,

they're not as big as people think they are.

- [Man] Your boobs?

- [Michelle] Yeah.

- [Man] They're pretty big.

- They're big-ish, but they're not.

When I'm on the show, I do this.

So people get the real effect, but really they're not.

That's what the joy is,

pushing them up, and making them cartoony.

It's all about the cartoon effect.

- Well, a big trend in queens these days

are those latex boobs.

- Uh, I don't like the way they look, those aren't breasts.

These are breasts.

- Oh, girl.

- [Michelle] These are breasts.

- You don't have to tell me twice.

(upbeat music)

- The reason I showcase my breasts so much in my career

is because I love them.

As a teenager, my breasts were nonexistent.

I was literally ribs, nipple.

I had a specific boyfriend

who used to play the bongos on my chest,

and he did it in jest,

but I think somehow that stuck with me.

And so my best friend and I sent away for this cream

to make our chests grow

that we got from the back of a magazine.

None of it worked, and instead of embracing it,

it was always in the front of my mind.

Weird that I couldn't have security, but I just didn't.

I got my first set of implants when I was 21.

I never felt complete without them, so I did it.

I did it three times over.

So I got what I wanted, and I had them for 16 years,

and all along, they were making me sicker and sicker,

I believe.

I was sick for actual years.

Doctors kept saying it was in my head.

Every single one says, you're fine.

And then finally in 2018, I was online,

and I saw that there were tens of thousands.

I'm not even exaggerating.

Tens of thousands of women out there

with the exact same symptoms that I had.

- Leg swelling, pain in the joints.

- [Woman] I couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs.

- [Woman] Chronic yeast infections, sinus infections.

- [Woman] Brain fog, migraines.

- I got to a point where I couldn't get out of bed anymore.

I was in that much pain.

- [Michelle] I started Googling curing autoimmune disease,

and then the term breast implant illness was on there.

And then I found the Facebook group.

- [Reporter] Right now there's an online group of women

who think their health issues

can be linked back to their implants.

- [Michelle] And on there,

women that had explanted right then and there

were telling me everything changed.

They felt so much better.

- I woke up from that surgery explant, and feeling,

taking that first full breath.

And you explant ladies know what I'm talking about.

I took my first full breath,

and I no longer felt like I was burning alive on the inside.

- [Michelle] I knew this was it.

I bought it from the beginning.

I was never skeptical, it was it.

So once I figured it out, I wanted to tell everyone.

- I have implants.

I got my implants about two years ago.

So when Michelle called to tell me about,

she thinks she has breast implant illness

I was really annoyed.

I had no idea there was even risk.

A part of me wants to go back to my surgeon, and be like,

why would you not say something?

But he'll probably deny it.

They don't even admit it

because they'll lose patients, and they'll lose money.

(bright music)

- [Reporter] The FDA and medical community

do not recognize breast implant illness as a real condition.

- There have been many large-scale scientific studies

that don't appear to show

that breast implant illness even exists.

- Breast implant illness is more of a psychosomatic ailment.

It's almost a fad.

You know, it's totally socially contagious.

The breast implant illness, social media groups,

they're turning their patients against their doctors.

They are way out of their lane, and are doing a lot of harm.

- I just can't say that this is a toxic biomaterial.

Does that look unsafe?

It looks absolutely safe to me.

It just enhances the breast just that much.

- I've actually had 16 great years with these boobs.

Are you gonna miss these?

They fed you.

- No.

- [Michelle] Really?

- No, I honestly got scared that your career was gonna end

after you got your boobs removed, I'm not even kidding.

- When I told you that I was thinking about it?

- [Lillie] Yeah, like, I actually felt like,

no one was gonna like you anymore.

- When did I tell you, like, about two years ago, right?

- [Lillie] Yeah.

- I was talking, this is how long ago I started thinking,

I want to get them out because I think there's a connection.

- I remember vividly telling you, like, crying telling you,

I didn't want you to get them out

'cause, like, you weren't gonna have as job.

- No, you weren't crying, how it went was this.

Well, there goes your career.

- Okay.

- [Michelle] That's how it went.

- [David] Wow.

- [Michelle] You really think?

- That's like your entire brand is, like,

based off that, like.

- Yeah, but do you think that I am just my boobs?

- I never said that, I just said you're-

- [Michelle] No, I'm asking you.

- No, I don't think you are,

but your, like, entire brand is, like, about your boobs.

- Yeah, true, but my entire brand is based off my talent.

- And your boobs, right?

- [David] That's like a microphone drop.

- Thank you.

- [David] Thanks.

- Here's my question.

How do you know some of your symptoms aren't just?

- I don't know.

- [Lillie] Like, created mentally?

- [Michelle] I don't know.

- I just think it's important not to jump to conclusions,

or you know what I mean?

There just has to be significant amounts of.

- If you're sick enough, you can jump to a conclusion,

and I'm sick of being sick.

And there's hundreds of thousands of women out there

that are sick of being sick.

And the thing is, every time I go to a doctor,

you're normal, your test is normal, it's anxiety.

- What happens when you bring up the idea

that you think it's the implants?

- Dr. Allen said,

they tell us in medical school that they're safe.

- [Lillie] Do you regret getting them?

- No, because I had a lot of good years with them.

- Right.

- I don't regret it.

I just resent that I wasn't told the truth.

And the truth is these can make you very sick.

- I don't know.

I think she's just, Lola says she's faking it for attention.

- Lola?

Do you think I'd go through surgery to fake for attention?

You think I need attention?

- A little.

- No, I think I don't, I get enough.

Yeah, I get enough, plenty.

Not from you, but from everybody else.

- Of course, I question it, but I've always been supportive

'cause these illnesses have been stretched over,

like, now decades, I think.

To have brain fog, Epstein-Barr syndrome, sleep issues,

headaches, heart palpitations, and stuff like that.

There was a lot of symptoms, a lot of symptoms.

So I want her healthy that's all that matters.

I don't care anymore, I just want her healthy.

- [Michelle] I know it seems crazy

that people are battling over whether implants are safe

decades after they were brought onto the market,

but it all started to make sense for me

when I looked up the history of implants,

and found out how this whole thing began.

- [Interviewer] So how did you guys find out

what your dad was famous for?

- [David] Kind of an interesting story.

- Your fourth grade story was a good story.

- So I was in fourth or fifth grade,

came home to dinner one night,

and the topic came up that dad was gonna be on TV.

I was like, how cool is that, right?

And so I go to school the next day, and tell my teacher.

Hey, my dad's gonna be on TV, can we watch?

And she's like, "Well, sure, that's great."

And so this opening shot is the medical reporter

standing in front of, I think, the OR doors, or something,

I vaguely remember,

and she's holding silicone breast implants.

And the teacher was like,

"We're gonna turn it off and let's go to recess."

That was kind of my first realization that that item was,

you know, his baby that he created.

- He started in Canada.

He was a Canadian citizen,

and migrated here after medical school

because he wanted to be a capitalist.

He didn't feel like he had that opportunity in Canada

because of the medical system they had.

And that's what it's all about.

* Only in America can a guy from anywhere *

* Go to sleep a pauper and wake up a millionaire *

* Only in America can a kid without a cent *

- Gerow and Cronin told me they wanted to do something

that would be as big as the artificial heart.

- Well, what we have done is to replace the human heart

not only anatomically, but functionally.

- As big as the NASA space exploration.

- [Reporter] We have lift off, we have lift off.

- They wanted to be world-famous.

Gerow was a friend of mine,

and he had a bigger ego than I do, this is saying a lot.

So in '62, Gerow is making rounds

at one of the county hospitals

where he also did his charity work.

All of us did charity work, believe it or not.

And he made rounds and he felt this IV bag.

- It just happened to be the same day

they stopped putting liquids in glass bottles,

and had begun to put them into plastic bags.

So he's walking down the hall

with this bag of warm blood, soft.

- It feels like a breast.

That's where the whole idea came from.

- Now, at the same time,

there was a company called Dow Corning,

and they have a new product.

It's a material that can be made into solid liquid,

or gel, or anything in between.

- [Narrator] This is Dow Corning in Midland, Michigan,

the world's first and largest silicone plant.

Silicones are a remarkable recent development.

A great step forward in the science of chemistry.

Say, Dr. Miller, what kind of silicone mixture is that?

- This, just hold on.

This is just a little polydimethylsiloxane.

- [Narrator] Complex compounds for making life simpler.

- Silicone was invented around World War II,

and it became this really wonder material.

Initially, it was used

for things like lubricating jet engines.

After World War II, manufacturers of silicone

started looking at more civilian markets.

- So Cronin goes back to his office and calls Dow Corning.

This is Dr. Thomas Cronin in Houston.

And would you think about making a breast implant

out of your new material?

The answer was yes.

- It was that simple.

- This was like the Wright brothers airplane.

(bright music)

We weren't the first to try to augment the breast

with an implant,

but every single case of it before that time

had a lot of body reaction, all negative.

- We saw some really odd materials,

things that were at hand.

Things like woodchips, glass balls, even kinds of yarn.

- [Dr. Patten] And then at the end of World War II in Japan,

the Japanese ladies wanted to have bigger breasts

so that they could marry American GIs.

- There were barrels of silicone on the harbor

in Yokohama Harbor during the American occupation.

And barrels of it started disappearing

because Japanese prostitutes were actually injecting

some of the silicone right into their breasts.

- And it was a gigantic disaster

because silicone caused tremendous inflammatory changes,

and an activation of the immune system,

such that the tissues were destroyed.

Direct injection of silicone was outlawed right away.

- So one of these new silicone bags

could be the much better solution,

or perhaps the next implant revolution.

- Dow Corning, they sent us

a little tester about that big,

and we put it underneath the skin of a dog.

Esmeralda was the dog, and the dog survived,

and everything went well so that was our research.

And with that we told them, yes,

we're ready to put an implant into a patient.

(telephone ringing)

- Hello.

I'll tell you.

I'm being interviewed right now, so I can't talk.

- [Woman] What are you being interviewed for?

- Well, you know about my breast?

- [Woman] Oh, okay.

- You forgot that?

Okay.

- [Woman] Bye.

- Bye-bye.

What did you ask me?

So my implants were put in long about '62.

I guess the world would be surprised to see

here I am 88, and still going.

How it started because I'd gotten some tattoos on my breast.

I didn't stop at one, I went one, two, three.

I regretted it 'cause my dad preached,

never mark your body.

Well, having them a year or so,

I was just desperate to get them off.

And that's how I come to get to meet Dr. Gerow.

He was such a nice man.

He was handsome and tall.

See, I'd never seen any professional person before.

I just had a crush on him, secret one.

Dr. Gerow asked me,

would I like to have my breasts implanted?

And I said, well, I don't know.

I said, but I'd rather have my ears fixed

'cause I used to be called big ears, and big foot

through the getting my breast fixed.

Then they said, well,

they'd fix that too, and then I did it

(quirky music)

I just felt real proud about it.

After I got out of the hospital, and the first time I'd

been out on the street in downtown Houston

I got a lot of cat-calls.

And I'd always thought I was the ugly dumpling,

but getting the breasts implant,

and beginning with the doctors, and everything,

I'd just come out of all that,

and realized that I was good as anybody else.

- No, okay, so you're gonna have them removed.

Now what happens to your emotional identity

once they're gone?

- The reason I got them was for my self-confidence.

I needed them because of male-dominated society telling me,

and boyfriends that I wasn't as attractive with no tits.

I always had a great ass, but I never had tits.

- Right, because if you look at the first

Seduction album cover, you don't have them in.

Is that correct?

- No, I had nothing in.

- Yeah, because that's the album cover

you are flat as a board.

- [Michelle] Flat as a board.

Right after high school,

I was in a girl group called Seduction,

and we had a huge song called "Two To Make It Right."

So that album cover followed me everywhere.

And I absolutely hated it

because it reinforced all of my insecurities

every single time I looked at it.

- And how soon after that picture was taken, did you,

how many hours after that picture was taken did you?

- Minutes.

Booked the next flight home to Dr. Rosenberg, yeah.

So I did that really early on,

and it was my own identity, thinking I wasn't worthy.

I'm not anti-plastic surgery.

If you love plastic surgery, I love plastic surgery,

but it doesn't work right for everybody.

And for me, I think my implants are causing my ill health.

When I got my first set of breast implants,

I was told that breast implants were 100% safe,

and that there were no dangers at all,

but as it turns out,

that's what women have been told since day one.

(reflective music)

- I met Dr. Gerow when my girlfriend called me,

and had an appointment with him for liposuction.

And I was just going to be in the room just to be a friend.

He was examining her sutures,

and her sutures were loosely stitched

between the buttocks and her thigh.

He surprisingly raised that area up

where you can actually look inside the cavity,

which took me by surprise.

It was like looking into a chocolate Easter bunny.

When he raised her buttocks up, he looked at me,

and went wah-ha-ha-ha, you know.

I really liked Dr. Gerow.

When we were about finished with her appointment,

her doctor appointment, he looked at me and said,

I was wearing a violet sweater.

He said, "You don't look so perfect in your sweater."

And I said, "Well, what do you mean by that?"

And he explained that he was the inventor

of the breast implant, and then he said,

"Why don't you come see me sometime?"

I was taking modeling classes,

and acting classes at the time.

And so I thought,

well, gee, I might venture into this and see,

you know, it seemed so easy.

And I went to visit him on an appointment.

I had a list of questions.

Are breast implants decompressible?

Because I was taking scuba classes.

And are they okay if you're flying in an airplane?

I wanted to know the integrity of an implant.

And he said, "No, they're fine."

He really believed in his product.

So, therefore, I elected to have the surgery done.

I mean, I was happy from the beginning.

And then I realized

that something is wrong with this implant.

It's flat, it doesn't match the other one.

It lost its volume.

I went back to see him saying,

I think something is wrong with this implant.

He said, "You have a rupture."

Now what do we do?

He said, "Well, I'm gonna have to replace it."

I just said, "Okay, fine,"

but he said, "I'm gonna have to replace both of them."

So he increased the size.

And I had a size C instead of a B.

I didn't understand why he wanted to make me larger.

- He liked big breasts.

And I think this was a personal failing.

So he would have a patient on the table,

and install implants

that really looked like this woman was stacked.

Nope, not good enough, take it all down.

And another two hours put in a bigger one, so,

it was never enough for him.

- So I went home,

but then later I had another rupture again.

So he said, "Well, you're gonna have to replace it again."

And then gradually I was getting tired.

I was fatigued.

I started getting body aches.

Then I started breaking out in skin rashes.

Gosh, my hair started falling out in clumps.

I went back to see him, he said,

"Go see Dr. Bernard Patten.

He is a neurologist.

He's with Baylor College of Medicine."

- Gerow found a number of people

that he had done implants on

developing neurological problems,

weakness, fatigue, trouble seeing, thinking,

reading, writing, remembering,

chewing, swallowing, talking, climbing stairs,

getting out of a chair, off the toilet,

anything you can think of

that seemed to refer to the nervous system,

Gerow would send the patient to me.

So I began to see a group of referred patients from Gerow,

and they all had implants 'cause he was the implant doctor.

This was the implant mecca.

I began connecting the dots, and seeing the obvious,

is that the implant

was somehow stimulating the immune system

to make the patient sick.

- I'm not a doctor,

but it doesn't take a rocket scientist now to go back,

and realize it was too soon

for Dr. Gerow's product to be on the market.

These were making people sick and ill,

and I need to do something about it.

- Doctors told me,

you guys are really doing women a disservice by,

because this isn't real and made me feel really guilty.

- [Woman] I think we all look.

- [Woman] We all look normal.

- [Woman] 'Cause doctors don't take us seriously.

- [Woman] It's an invisible illness.

- I overheard a really good friend of mine.

I heard her talking quietly to someone else.

She's a nurse also.

Well, I think sometimes these women

just want to attribute their symptoms to something.

I don't really think that.

I mean, she didn't know I was listening, but I heard her,

and it really hurt me 'cause she has them,

and she has no issues,

but just because you don't know something exists

doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

- [Michelle] Did you confront her?

- No, I didn't want to do it in a room full of people.

- [Michelle] She's also your friend.

- [Woman] Right.

- Who here has explanted already?

- I've gone to several plastic surgeons asking,

and I've had two male plastic surgeons tell me

you're not gonna be happy

with the way you look if you do this.

- Yeah, that's the line that they give everybody.

- [Woman] That's insane.

- And female doctors do it too.

- How do you know what I'm gonna be happy with?

How dare you tell me.

- [Woman] At this point it's not about looks.

- No, we're way past that point,

we're way past that point, yeah.

- [Michelle] It's not about looks anymore.

- Part of the reason I was seeking out

female plastic surgeons

was because I thought they would understand.

- [Michelle] Oh, they have a bunch of crazy ones out there.

I'm gonna use the word crazy.

- They don't, they don't.

After I told her and I'm crying and telling her all this,

all these things that I'm going through,

and I'm tired of it.

And I'm so happy I'm gonna get this out,

and I'm so happy she's gonna do it, she says,

"So I guess you won't consider putting another implant in?"

- [Michelle] Oh my God.

- [Woman] Having beautiful tits

are pretty pointless if you're stuck in bed.

- Yeah.

- I like that.

- [Michelle] That's a good line.

- [Woman] Not having sex.

- True because you're too tired.

- You're not parenting, you're not doing, you're existing.

- [Woman] I haven't had sex this year.

- Oh, I'm not even gonna say how long it's been for me.

I'll embarrass my husband.

- [Woman] Please don't record that.

- [Michelle] They're troopers, the ones that have stuck.

- [Woman] He needs some male support,

another husband who's gone through this.

- It's not easy on them, it isn't.

- No, it's been rough for us.

- Of course.

- We got married three years ago, and just the decline,

so I'm not the person that he married.

When you go to a doctor,

and they want to give you another pill,

they want basically just to brush you off.

It's very isolating,

and it makes you feel like you are crazy.

Sorry.

I just want if I can help one person

to know that you're not alone and you're not crazy.

And that this is something that is happening

to hundreds and thousands and maybe millions of women.

- It's wild that history is repeating itself, though,

because so many women went through this

in the '80s and '90s, and now it's all happening again.

And it's like, everyone has amnesia,

but it's just wild that there's these doctors

that aren't remembering what's happened.

And you'd think that they would have been taught.

- I believe, in my opinion, the first to get them out,

to have them explanted.

It was early '80s.

Dr. Patten said,

"You show the signs of silicone exposure in your body."

He let me know that there is a correlation,

and I really felt the need in my mind

to really get these out.

That's when I went through the Yellow Pages,

and searched for a surgeon

to get them out as soon as possible.

I went to the appointment, and I said, "I had a rupture."

And I said, "Get these out."

And I said, "When you take them out, I'd like to have them

because I wanted to sue the manufacturer

because they're making faulty breast implants."

You have to have data in order to prove your case.

I wanted to know why I got sick.

Find out what was happening to me.

Did this happen to another woman?

But I never got my implants back.

I don't know whatever happened to them.

After the surgery, I went to him, and said,

"I thought you were gonna give to those to me

after the surgery."

And he said, "Well, it's for your protection."

He said, "Let's get your sutures out."

He avoided, and then he laughed when he took out the suture,

he goes, "Well, have you adjusted to your new shape?"

I was disfigured, and he laughed.

Like I did not think that that was very nice

for a surgeon to laugh at a woman,

and treat her that way in that fashion, you know?

I don't want to cry 'cause this has been a long time.

I have to get over it,

but, you know, it was, you know, it was.

So I wanted to pursue a products liability case.

I called different attorneys, and I was laughed at.

People said, "Oh, that's ridiculous.

There's no such thing as ruptured breast implants."

No one believed me.

- [Doctor] You see those areas?

- [Woman] Yes.

- Those areas show microcalcifications.

I'd like to schedule a biopsy.

- What if it's cancer?

- If anybody had told me in 1983

that a diagnosis of breast cancer

would give me a 30 year career,

I would have been blown away, but that's what happened.

(reflective music)

I was 43, I was diagnosed with breast cancer,

had bilateral mastectomies,

and my first set of breast implants.

- Mom.

- They ruptured.

- [Woman] This can't be normal.

- Actually, it does happen.

- Set number two, same thing happens.

- Now what?

- Surgery again.

- Set number three, I'm starting to think

that this is really not a very good thing,

but what am I gonna do?

- Perhaps we shouldn't put new ones in.

- I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking,

and feeling like a freak.

- [Man] You're not gonna look like a freak not to me.

- Set number four I said I am done.

And if it had happened to me,

then it had to have happened to other women too.

So I started to look around to find out

what the situation was.

- How can the FDA approve a product with such serious risks?

- We haven't.

- Excuse me.

- When I found out that they had never been approved

by the FDA I almost had a heart attack.

(reflective music)

- The kinds of studies that one should engage oneself,

we didn't do.

Nobody even thought about a series of studies.

You have a new implant you put it in, and it works.

And the patient is happy, and then let's put in another one.

- So they were considered an experimental device,

but when I went to buy them, oh, these are fabulous.

People have been using them since the '60s, oh, my my.

So everything was to make me, put me on the defensive,

but don't put me on the offensive 'cause when you do that,

you have lost your battle, and that's what happened.

I did not find any other information

about women having problems,

so I decided to write the article.

Once that article appeared, my world changed.

I started getting letters from women

who had read the article,

and they told me their experiences.

They were much more horrendous than mine.

And we decided to have an information clearinghouse

because you couldn't get it directly from the doctor.

And I put everybody's name on a three by five card.

Write it down on a card, put it in the little box.

It was endless.

We probably had somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 names.

And after that, the Connie Chung show contacted me.

The lid blew off of my life.

- Most of us know little about breast implants.

We've seen the ads.

We've heard the rumors about which celebrities have them,

and which don't,

but we don't know anything about the dangers.

- Connie Chung said, "Would you allow a picture

of your failed implant to be shown?"

And I said, "Yes, I would."

- [Connie] Sybil Goldrich gave up on implants

after five operations left her breasts mangled and infected.

She allowed us to use this photo

as a graphic example of her ordeal.

- My daughters were so angry at me.

They just thought I was putting too much out in the open.

It's one thing for me to speak about it,

but it's another thing to see something.

And what I let them see was pretty horrific.

- [Connie] Today she's demanding

that doctors warn women of all the dangers they may face.

- Nobody has done the kind of studies

that are required for this kind of product.

Just as I say that it's my belief

that the implants are harmful,

the drug companies, and the manufacturers

don't have any proof that it's not.

Why should we be in this catch-22 situation,

30 years after the fact?

- Every single woman went to see her plastic surgeon

the next day,

and the doctors started calling it Connie Chung disease.

- You know, this was in my estimation,

frank yellow journalism.

It was just so dogmatic

in terms of breast implants are not safe.

And so then FDA Chairman, Kessler,

had all of these hearings.

- The implants hardened, migrated,

generated one infection after the other.

- I would give anything to be restored

to the condition I was

before I had my breast implant surgery.

- 25 years of study and experience have shown these devices

to be as safe as most things in life.

(reflective music)

- A journalist got hold of these documents,

hundreds of pages of internal documents.

He contacted me.

The documents were very quotable, and very shocking.

I ended up showing it to the FDA commissioner.

- Dow knew that their product

stimulated the immune system in 1975.

The FDA subpoenaed the company documents that say that.

- In addition to that,

the documents had a lot of internal memos

from salesmen at Dow Corning.

They were saying things like

I'm telling the plastic surgeons

that there are clinical trials

with my fingers crossed behind my back,

or the implants

when I put them on the doctor's desk to see them,

they're greasy.

They're leaving a grease mark on the desk.

And that makes a very bad impression

'cause it looks like it's leaking.

And then, of course, there's the higher up at the company

saying just keep washing your implants,

so that they don't leave a grease mark.

There was clear dishonesty in many different directions.

- I am asking that physicians cease using

silicone gel implants.

As physicians, our first obligation is to do no harm.

(dramatic music)

- I'm angry, and frustrated, and scared.

- They tell you it's in your head.

You begin to think you're crazy.

It's very real.

- Walk in my shoes.

You want a study?

Study me.

(indistinct)

- We have recalls for seat belts.

We have recalls for cigarettes.

Where's our recall for this defective product?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

(applause)

- All these women were coming,

and wanting their breasts taken out, and this,

and all these bad things happening.

And for me, it didn't,

and they've just been a good thing, lasting,

but I don't know, so many women were claiming this,

and claiming that.

And I don't know whether it was true or not.

- There was a bonanza medically.

And then the interesting thing was

there was a bonanza legally

because a lot of these implants turned out to be toxic.

- [Narrator] In the Old West justice was hard to find.

Today when you've been hurt on the job,

you need a lawyer ready to handle

the challenges of a new frontier.

- Houston has a very high concentration

of personal injury lawyers.

It was for many years a blue-collar town,

and it was close to the port,

so you had all of these blue-collar injuries.

- [Narrator] Working long hours in the oilfield

is dangerous, hard work,

and it's a challenge just to make it home safely everyday.

- The guys who are the most successful plaintiff's lawyers

in the country, if not the world, they're like sharks.

- [Narrator] When you have an accident, or a job injury,

dial Law-1000.

- They're always trawling for new business.

- If you've been hurt in any accident,

you can talk to an attorney who can settle most cases

without going to court.

- I think when someone heard,

hey, a couple of women are getting sick with these things.

I'm sure someone like John O'Quinn immediately thought,

oh, well, let's investigate.

- Make no mistake, we are engaged in a holy war.

We're gonna win this fight.

We're gonna win it because we're right.

And we're gonna win it

because like no case I've ever worked on,

this is the champion of all of them.

(applause)

- You know, it was all money.

And in Houston, especially, at that time,

that's what was valued.

So if the plastic surgeon is getting wealthy,

and John O'Quinn was getting wealthy,

it was like, hey, it works for everybody.

And if there are these women getting sick in the middle,

well, somebody, you know, you get help at the front end.

You get help at the back end.

- Okay, let me try that.

Hey guys, I'm posting this to give you some news.

This is the last time you're going to see me with these.

I know they're a national treasure,

but I believe for the past 20 years,

these breast implants have been making me sick.

And I'm documenting this journey,

and I'm sharing it with you,

so stay tuned for all the details.

I love you, and I'll see you on the lighter side.

Okay.

Here we go.

My God, it's like I'm nervous, I never get nervous.

Hey guys, I'm posting this to give you some news.

This is the last time you're going to see me with these.

I know they're a national treasure,

but I believe for the past 20 years

these breast implants have been making me-

- I follow Michelle Visage on Instagram.

I felt that I really had to make a comment

talking about my experiences.

I was fresh out of college.

And my first new job was in a med corporation.

And they're a breast implant manufacturer.

They hired me right away, and we were doing experiments.

This was right kind of in the middle

of when Dow Chemical was being sued.

There was a lot of lawsuits going on

regarding breast implants.

- [Reporter] Once silicone implants

were taken off the market, saline implants,

which are basically silicone bags filled with saltwater

were marketed as the new safe alternative,

but even as the manufacturers were making this claim,

no one had done the studies

to confirm whether or not it was even true.

- People were saying, implants are saline now they're safe,

but we were still worried about the shell,

which was still made of silicone.

To make the shells you have this there's, like, a bar.

And then there's, like, the shape of the implant.

And it gets dipped into the liquid silicone,

and then it's cured.

And then you seal them up, and you fill it with saline.

So we knew that there's still silicone.

We're still putting silicone in the body.

Even though the gel was gone,

there's still silicone in the implants.

So we needed to test for the safety of the shells.

I did these experiments where I would take the implants,

and set them on these silicone disks.

It was, like, these round disks.

And you put the implant on top of it.

And what happens is because there's silicone on silicone

if there's any leakage, the silicone from the shell

will get absorbed into this silicone disk.

And so everyday, twice a day, I'd weigh these disks.

And if it starts getting more weight

then you know that it's leaching from the implants

out into the body, potentially.

I weighed it for at least six to eight months,

twice a day, five days a week.

And the weight would definitely go up.

It's not saline that's coming in.

It actually was silicone

because saline wouldn't be absorbed into the disk.

It would just roll right off,

and could really start to even see,

like, a glisten on the disk.

I mean, it was actually more significant than we'd expected.

And I reported all my results.

And when reporting all this data I'm thinking,

oh, so we're gonna, like, change how this goes.

And it was really exciting.

And just time goes by and nothing, nothing changes.

You'd think that there would be some kind of action

that would happen with the company that they'd say,

okay, well, let's maybe pull this off the market for now,

but nothing ever happened.

I remember I took a tour of the factory,

which ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week,

365 days a year.

And it dumbfounded me to see

how many they were cranking out they were still just,

they had just these machines that were dipping those things,

dipping, dipping, dipping, all day, all night.

There was so much money.

There was so much money they were making

with these implants,

but we never did anything.

We never fixed anything, never fixed anything.

The final tipping point for me,

there was a woman that had an explant surgery.

She had to have her implants removed.

They brought it back to the office

so that we could look at ways to improve it.

I looked at that and I thought of her.

I'd never thought of her before, the her, you know?

Where these were going, who was wearing them.

After a while, it started to feel funny just working there

because they were controlling the information.

They were controlling what women could know.

I felt like I was a part of something sinister.

I made my exit from the breast implant industry,

and never looked back.

- [Michelle] Okay.

Packing my bag to go down to Newport Beach.

Of course, I have to have a candle because you know.

Water bottles, and then sweat pants, button-up stuff,

all these things,

and, guys, look, no nails 'cause the surgery.

Ew, whose hands are these?

I'm so natural I could puke.

I'm shopping for bras.

I think I got the right size right here, right?

Think I'm in the right section.

Here we go, that'll be me.

So my surgery is in two and a half hours.

- [Lillie] I'm proud of you.

- Well, a prayer at noon would be lovely.

- [Lillie] Okay.

- [Michelle] My atheist child.

- [David] Lillie, say something nice to your mama.

- [Lillie] I love you, and it's gonna be great.

- [Michelle] I love you too.

- [Lillie] Where the fuck are your nails?

(laughing)

- [Michelle] When silicone implants were banned,

I was working at a strip club in Queens called Goldfingers.

I hosted the hot oil wrestling show

because my breasts were too small to get a job as a dancer.

My little kind of large B cups weren't gonna do it.

The girls that made the money,

they were called featured dancers, right?

They were huge, and they were still getting implants.

Many of them were actually going all the way to Houston

to get them because Houston

not only was the most affordable place to get them,

they also went the biggest.

- After the FDA moratorium,

there was definitely a chill on implants.

I mean, you literally couldn't get silicone implants.

You could only get saline implants.

So during the moratorium,

some of the largest customers of breast implants

were women in the burlesque industry,

and the cabaret industry.

Houston was ground zero for that.

- The demand in the market for topless dance clubs,

obviously, for breasts is higher because, you know,

to put a slang phrase, it's a titty bar.

- One of the marketing tactics was that I would go out to,

there's probably not a gentlemen's club in Harris, Brazoria,

or Galveston County that I have not personally frequented.

I used to always say that I was out, you know,

selling boobs for Dr. Johnson.

He would always say,

"You're gonna go strum us up some business this weekend."

I would actually go into the dressing rooms.

And I had a way with the girls.

I would talk to them about a way

that we could make you feel better about yourself,

improve your income, your health, what's good for you.

- It was like, well, okay, you have the silicone implants,

but we have now these saline implants,

which are healthier, and look more natural.

So I think, again, it's all about the money, ultimately.

- I gave 500 business cards out

probably in just a few months.

He started Grand Teton Days.

It was a discounted rate if you booked then.

Our day on a Teton Day was just go, go, go, go, go.

The ladies would come in,

and we'd have a whole waiting room out there,

and, golly, sometimes I'd tell them, I'd say let's say,

be knocking on the door, let's go.

- Come on, let's go because. - Let's go.

- I knew Gerald quite well, and I like Gerald,

although, he was even more eccentric than was Frank Gerow.

- Every surgical day, radio on,

it have to be the country music.

- Oh yeah, uh-hmm.

- Willie Nelson.

- [Darlene] Yes, indeed.

- [Nurse] Linda, come on back, Linda.

* If you've got the money honey I've got the time *

We'll go honky tonkin'

- Get one on the table, get them under, get them going.

Move them to recovery.

She's recovering while we're getting another one going.

- There was a conveyor belt of women

just coming through these operation rooms.

- He would line up 20 patients,

and do 20 breast augmentations all day.

- It's like boobs everywhere, you know what I mean?

And this crazy doctor in this Hawaiian shirt,

white cowboy boots, are you for real right now?

* If you've got the money honey I've got the time *

- He had a swimming pool, it was like a breast.

It was a breast.

- And the nipple was the hot tub.

- Yeah.

- Anna Nicole, she got a lot of recognition,

and women got more comfortable talking about breast implants

because of her publicity.

- Her career started right over here

at a club called Rick's Cabaret.

- It was sort of a combination

of an old-fashioned titty bar,

and, like, an upper-class British men's club.

So you could have your cigars and your brandy,

and an 18-year-old SMU student

working her way through college.

- [Reporter] Strip clubs,

once found only on the seedy side of town

have today become business centers.

- Rick's was the first publicly traded cabaret company

in the world.

It was American Express's largest corporate account.

It really popularized large breasts

for this mainstream market.

And in fact, from Rick's Cabaret,

you had this idea of large breasts migrating to Hollywood.

And from there the rest of the world.

- Okay, I was straight as a board when I was growing up.

I was flat-chested, nothing compared to this.

- [Regis] There isn't much compared to that, ha-ha.

- Anna Nicole, anytime she would be in the spotlight,

it made a lot of young girls feel comfortable

about talking about breast implants,

and to actually get out there and get them.

- [Woman] Thank you.

- [Woman] Can I have your tits by any chance?

- [Man] No, no tits allowed.

- I'll give you my doctor's name.

(upbeat music)

- Dr. Johnson, a lot of ladies came to him

to be very, very, very large sized.

And he's like, "What can we do to do that?"

The largest implant that you can buy is a euro sell,

it's overseas and from France.

And I believe that one goes only up to,

like, three or 4,000 cc's, but don't quote me on that,

but once you get to a certain point with the big implants,

it voids the manufacturer warranty for the implants.

What you're looking at here is

you're looking at polypropylene string.

Now he put this string in some of the largest ladies

that we have ever done.

The polypropylene string is just that.

It was just like a big wad of string, just wad of string.

I mean, he had an FDA experiment approval, a patent on that,

and they had to sign a release.

- [Alma] So they have to sign.

- He would make a pocket,

usually a little under the inframammary crease,

and put the string in.

What would happen is

the string is a foreign body to the breast,

so the breasts would start to react to this foreign body,

and have, like, almost an allergic reaction,

or some type of reaction.

So it caused the serum to just build and build,

and build and build and build.

What happened is we had to teach patients

to take an 18 gauge needle, and a 60cc syringe,

embed it on the breast,

and actually withdraw some of the serum.

So if I didn't, like, reduce with the syringe,

and the needle,

they would just get huge, huge, huge, huge, huge.

Dr. Johnson, he's thinking, okay, at some point

the body would stop,

and it would accommodate this string implant,

and would stop making the serum that didn't happen.

The breast tissue itself would be compromised,

and the polypropylene

would start rubbing the side of the breast wall.

And it could actually start to evacuate out of the body.

He got more aggressive with encouraging the ladies

to go ahead and get these out.

- I'm a ticking time bomb

because anything could happen to me.

I was basically a victim of an experiment.

I have one option, a mastectomy.

- If PPP would have worked,

wow, what an amazing thing that would have been.

If it would have worked.

- [Alma] If.

(quirky music)

- With your implants being older,

it wouldn't surprise me if at least one of them is ruptured.

- Right.

- So you have your implants surrounded by the scar sac.

The whole thing comes out in one piece without any tear

in case there's a rupture,

because if you make a tear,

now some of that free silicone gel will come out.

- [Michelle] For how long have you only been explanting?

- [Dr. Chun] Probably about two years.

- 'Cause you were doing other stuff up until then,

and then it became.

- [Dr. Chun] Exactly.

- The primary.

- Yeah, 'cause the thing is

the more I would do this type of surgery

as that volume went up,

and you start consistently getting that same feedback.

Oh, my God, my life has changed.

I'm no longer bedridden unable to do anything.

Now I'm out there my old self again.

There have been some patients

where they're just a completely different person.

- Right.

- [Dr. Chun] And that's their old self coming back.

- Why do some doctors not believe

that breast implant illness is real do you think?

- Well, I mean, I think the biggest thing is, you know,

as doctors we're trained to be like scientists,

so we're supposed to use data to formulate our opinions.

Then everyone points to the core clinical studies

that were done.

And what we were told all these years

was that studies have shown referring to those two studies,

that there is no connection

between the implants and these symptoms.

So that's the story that gets told over and over and over.

And so everyone's mindset is,

okay, well, you can't be sick from implants

because I've been told that the study showed

that does not happen.

(dramatic music)

- In "Medicine Tonight"

in 1992 the FDA banned silicone gel breast implants

for all, but a limited number of women,

not because of known risks,

but because of possible risks.

Now four years later, many are asking, was it real,

or was it a silicone scare?

- [Reporter] Recent studies say there's no link

between silicone gel implants and disease,

studies at the Mayo Clinic and Harvard,

published in the prestigious "New England Journal."

Some believe it's time to take a second look.

- I look at it as the hoax of the century.

- What happened was Dow Corning had to do something.

They were gonna lose a lot of money.

Number one, they had the most popular breast implants

on the market.

Number two, they make pretty much all the silicone

sold in this country.

Number three, they were sued,

and it was their desire to not have to pay $3 billion.

So Dow Corning took some money from its marketing budget,

not its research budget,

but from its marketing budget,

and started hiring academic researchers to do studies

that would show that their implants were safe.

- [Reporter] Some believed the Harvard,

and Mayo Clinic studies are seriously flawed,

concerned that the research,

and some of the researchers themselves

were funded by breast implant makers,

that the studies didn't follow enough women for long enough.

And that they focused on the wrong thing.

- You have the ability to take a little bit of information,

and pretend that it answers all your questions.

When it, number one, can't possibly answer those questions.

And number two, was never designed to answer the questions

because the people paying for the studies

made sure that the questions were asked in a way

that would make their product look good.

- At the end of the day,

they did those studies to sell silicone implants again.

I mean, I think we can never discount individual experiences

because here what we have are a group of healthy women,

they get their breast implants put in,

and all of a sudden they don't feel well.

- Right.

- And then they get their implants taken out,

and they feel better.

- [Michelle] Right.

- So I don't think you can discount that.

Is it as good as a large control study?

No, but certainly I think that should raise flags and say,

hey, something's definitely going on here.

- At some point, what was happening is the plastic surgeons

were saying there are now dozens of studies

showing how safe breast implants are.

And a lot of those dozens of studies were published

by the same researchers funded by the implant manufacturers,

and their summary was there's no evidence.

(dramatic music)

- The multiple randomized prospective studies

that have been performed show no demonstrable link

between silicone gel breast implants,

and health or safety concerns for women.

- The scientific studies have failed to demonstrate

that women with these devices have greater health risk

than women without implants.

- There are treatment options available,

which foster the safety, efficacy, and patient satisfaction

of silicone breast implants, thank you.

- There is major medical news tonight

about silicone breast implants.

Late today, the FDA approved them for use

lifting a ban that has been in effect

for more than a decade.

- The Food and Drug Administration Advisory panel

voted seven to two,

to recommend approving the sale

of silicone gel breast implants

by the Mentor Company of Santa Barbara, California.

Stock price ballooned 40 points after the approval.

(laughter)

We'll be right back.

(cheers and applause)

- I definitely feel my heart beating faster.

Is that normal?

- [Nurse] It is, just a little bit of nerves and anxiety.

- [Michelle] My whole life is about to change completely.

I'm scared, I'm nervous, I'm petrified.

- [Nurse] All done.

- All right, so I'm gonna go ahead,

and put some markings on you.

You feel okay?

- I do.

- [Dr. Chun] Swing your legs around.

- [Michelle] If this doesn't work

it's back to the drawing board,

but I know so much that I'm right.

I know that I'm gonna feel so much better after this.

- Piece of cake, get those guys out.

(soft music)

- She's sound asleep, all right.

So the surgery consists of removing their implants,

but also the surrounding scar tissue,

otherwise known as a capsule.

They don't want any foreign material,

foreign body left behind, so they want everything taken out.

The reason why there is so few plastic surgeons

performing the procedure, as I think it should be done,

remove the entire capsule is because of this belief

that implants do not cause any health problems.

So I've just now freed up the entire implant.

Her implant is inside the sac.

I think it's intact.

I can't quite tell because obviously we haven't opened it.

You know, women seeing things on social media

are finally realizing,

hey, everyone else has the same problem.

And a lot of them are getting better.

So I'm gonna look into that.

Since the early '90s,

that's when Connie Chung broke that story,

and actually when the floodgate opened.

- [Reporter] But decades later,

social media provides a place

for a new generation of women to commiserate.

- It's been, like, absolutely horrific,

like, the amount of pain,

and, like, suffering that I've had to go through.

- [Reporter] There are thousands of women who do find

that they have these types of symptoms,

but there have been many large-scale scientific studies

that don't appear to show

that breast implant illness even exists.

- It's being ridiculed, denied, talked down to.

I'm afraid to ask for help.

- [Reporter] Within the medical community,

little to no credibility is given to possible connections

between illness and implants.

- Spoiler alert, it was my freaking implants.

- So we'll leave that on the back table.

So we just have to get all the bleeding stopped,

and we'll be done.

After their surgery, I can't explain exactly why,

but they seem to get better.

What I like to see happen is this whole issue

becomes more of a recognized medical issue,

not imagined symptoms by a bunch of crazy women

'cause that's how this is portrayed at this point.

- [David] My wife's awake, hold on.

Wow, she powered out of that.

Honey.

- Uh-hum.

- [David] Hi.

- Hi.

- [David] How are you?

- How'd it go?

- It went great, how are you feeling?

- Oh, tired.

- [David] Tired, you want to keep sleeping?

- Keep sleeping.

- [David] Okay, I'm right here, okay?

- Yeah.

- [David] Okay, love you.

- [Michelle] How are the capsules?

- [David] Capsules, I'm gonna check it out now, okay?

All right?

Do you want to see it later, yeah?

Okay, I'm gonna go check it out now, okay?

All right.

- At the end of every procedure I do,

I always examine the capsule and the implants,

so that I can determine if there are any abnormalities.

So at the end of the day, you know what we see here,

I think, it's interesting, but it's not diagnostic.

They all came out in one piece, you know,

there's nothing leaking out.

- [David] Can I ask,

do you have a prediction on either of them?

Do you think either?

- [Dr. Chun] I don't think this one's gonna be.

This one, maybe, maybe not.

This one, I don't think it's ruptured the left one.

So I'll take a look.

- [David] Yeah.

- [Dr. Chun] Now you always want to make sure

that you don't cut the implant yourself.

So this one's intact.

- [David] Okay.

- [Dr. Chun] So this one looks like,

this one's intact as well.

- [David] Two intact ones.

- Uh-hmm, so they're both intact,

but, again, whether you see things or not,

doesn't correlate with whether you have symptoms or not.

Because, again, I think the problem is

it's a reaction to the silicone materials,

whether it's broken or not,

saline, silicone doesn't really seem to matter

because it's the shell that's got silicone.

- [David] Thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

They'll process it and then we'll give it back to her.

- Two days from now?

- When she comes back, yeah, when she comes in.

- [David] Great.

It's what, two days after the surgery?

- Yeah.

It feels really weird, they're just so little.

Oh my God, little, usually, I'd be out to here.

- [David] Yeah.

- I'm totally flat-chested.

They're gonna be like pancakes, I can tell.

So get some syrup, and some butter.

- Hi, how are you?

- Dr. Chun, I'm so little.

- Huh? - I'm so little.

- That's what Mother Nature intended you to be.

- Yes, that is what Mother Nature intended.

- That's you.

- You are right.

- All right, so how do you feel more importantly?

- Pain-wise, what, a two, maybe.

- [Dr. Chun] That's great.

- There's really no pain.

- [Dr. Chun] No, that's good.

- Soreness, it feels like when I got my implants in.

- Sure, so all the bad things,

all the worst things happen in that first 48 hours.

- [Michelle] Right.

- So going forward, things are gonna start getting better.

- [Michelle] Good.

- Even if you do nothing, things are gonna get better.

So the worst is behind you already.

- [Michelle] Okay.

- Each day it's gonna get a little bit better,

a little bit better.

- From your mouth to God's ears.

I just can't believe how little I am,

like, really, really little.

- Does it surprise you, are you?

- My belly is bigger than my boobs got to work on that.

- [David] Are you not upset that they're so small?

Then you're cool.

- No, I am not, I am so happy.

I'm able to detox and regain my health.

- There you go, I love you, no matter what.

- I love you.

Day 10.

- [David] Day 10, really?

- [Michelle] Day 10.

- [David] Generally, how do you feel?

- Yesterday morning was a rough morning for me,

and I feel, like, weak and I could possibly pass out.

I've never passed out,

but I think that's what it feels like, so.

This feels great healing beautifully.

This is not quite there, still lightheaded.

Didn't expect it to last this long, but my body needs time.

Blood flow is brand new after 30 years, I guess.

It's got to find its way back to my brain.

Three months after, some things have improved,

but not everything.

I'm definitely not one who woke up and was healed.

So we are going to get my toxicology reports of my hair,

skin, nails, blood.

This will show what, if anything,

has been leached into my body from these implants.

I do expect to find something because I know I'm not crazy.

I know the way that I feel.

So there's something going on from these things.

Okay, here we go.

Oh, I'm not gonna be able to read these things.

Let's see.

Unknown chemicals and toxins.

What they found in my pee.

Dioctyl phthalate, the plasticizer,

and organosilicones detected in trace amounts.

I mean, organosilicone sounds like

it has to do with the implants.

It's obviously from these.

(soft music)

I'm Michelle.

- [Dr. Patten] Welcome.

- [Michelle] Nice to meet you.

Have a look, tell me what you think.

There are hair, urine and skin.

- The silicones leak from the implant,

and they do travel in your body, so,

and it looks like it migrated all over you, it's all over.

So you're a typical case.

A low molecular weight silicone,

which is what they detected.

- [Michelle] Right.

- Dimethylsiloxane is the immune stimulant.

Do you know what kind of implant you had?

- [Michelle] Mentor.

- Yeah.

- Mentor smooth silicone gel.

- And the capsule did it have?

- Full en bloc. - Yeah.

- And things are slowly getting better.

- The usual patient that has complete removal does recover

about two years later.

- I was gonna say in time, in time, Dr. Patten, yeah.

- [Dr. Patten] It takes about two years.

- Yes.

- So your body is actually mobilizing the silicone.

- What does that mean mobilizing the silicone?

- Excreted in the urine, or in the stool, in the bile.

- [Michelle] Yes.

- And if there's no more coming in

chances are you're going to recover.

Believe it or not, the company's knew,

the silicone migrating.

- So then, Dr. Patten, why do they keep saying

the data says there's no harm?

- This is the whole thing, it's a cover up.

Don't you get it?

Okay, it fools the people.

It's like President Grant's

physician wrote a paper that Grant's cancer of the mouth

was due to smoking too many cigars, that was 1870.

The medical literature since that time

is full of smoking causes lung cancer.

- Tobacco, yeah.

- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

And some tobacco companies fought it like crazy.

They made it look like it was controversial

that the evidence wasn't good enough,

or that there was a reasonable group of scientists

who thought differently, et cetera.

There are economic forces at work here.

- That's true.

- Billions of dollars are at stake in plastic surgeons.

- [Michelle] Billions, yes.

- Billions, we're talking about billions.

- Yes, 0.1% of doctors are willing to know what you know,

and are willing to talk about it I'm sure.

- I agree with you, I agree with you.

After accumulating 2,000 sick women with implants,

they have to be convinced by the evidence.

This is what Shakespeare calls ocular proof.

I see it myself.

So I don't care what people say

because they haven't seen the cases.

They don't know it.

- [Michelle] Right.

- They don't even know what they're doing.

They are ignorant.

(soft music)

- [Reporter] A report just released from MD Anderson

this morning,

researchers looked at the largest group of women

with breast implants that's ever been studied.

- Now they found there's a higher risk of rare diseases

among these women than in those without implants.

- The alarming news about breast implants,

we've found evidence,

they could be linked to a deadly cancer.

- [Reporter] A cancer of the immune system

linked to breast implants called ALCL.

The FDA told NBC News it will meet next year

to discuss concerns about their safety.

- I got PIP breast implants in Dallas in 1998.

I developed chronic fatigue, and auto-immune disease.

Other symptoms were swollen lymph nodes, recurrent fever,

brain fog, and more.

- My memory became so concerning to me.

I asked specifically to start undergoing testing

for Alzheimer's.

- I started then having flu-like symptoms

that I could not relieve.

This health crisis affects all of us,

and has been going on for decades.

- It's a vicious circle, you know.

You can even compare it to rape cases.

Fundamentally women aren't believed.

- I'm a little emotional

because I still have implants, and I'm very sick.

- I was prepared to say goodbye to my family

because I didn't think

that I was gonna make it through all of this.

- At some point we have to stop and listen to women,

and look at them and say, I believe you.

I believe that you're in pain.

And I want to do something to help that.

- We must have better informed consent,

so the patients can determine the risk are low enough

to implant or not.

- Respectfully, I employ you to require surgeons

to provide informed consent.

- Everyone deserves to have a choice, I agree with that,

but we deserve to have an informed choice.

- You have the power to make that happen.

Please do what is right.

Thank you for allowing to speak.

(applause)

- This morning, the FDA's call for a new warning

for the most popular cosmetic procedure in the world.

We are talking about breast implants.

- The FDA is proposing all breast implants

contain a black box warning.

That label is the strictest warning attached to a product,

meaning it comes with hazards, including loss of life.

- However, those warnings would only be seen by the surgeon,

not the patient because unlike medications,

patients don't see implant boxes, or labels.

- [Terri] Dr. Potter says her hope is that the FDA

will do more to make sure patients are informed.

For the KV Defenders, I'm Terri Gruca.

(soft music)

- [Michelle] For 15 plus years,

I was told by every doctor that I saw

that implants were 100% safe.

So now I'm sitting here wondering

is this new mandate by the FDA enough

to change the doctor's minds about implant safety?

(soft music)

- [Dr. Rose] At these recent FDA hearings,

the newest thing, from what I understand,

is to put a black box label on the implant.

- Well, that's why I'm here.

The black box warning would you warn your patients?

- Breast implant illness does exist.

- Well, that in of itself is validated.

- It exists, but I have experience with maybe

six or 7,000 implant patients,

and out of all these thousands of patients of mine,

I can only think of three, or four, or five,

that have had what we would call connective tissue disease.

And so I see so many patients that are doing so well,

years and years and years and years later.

- Yeah, it won't affect everybody for sure.

- So does that mean you just take all the implants

off the shelves,

and all these 10 million women that are implanted worldwide

what happens then, you know?

- [Michelle] Well, true,

but you take the responsibility off of yourself.

- Right, right.

- [Michelle] With full disclosure.

- And if you follow that black box warning,

and you had said to me, Michelle, you're 33.

These got to come out because,

no, at 33 I wouldn't have done.

I'm telling you Dr. Rose, I know me.

- Michelle, you're hanging out in the clubs.

You're a young, beautiful girl.

- No, at 33 I was not, I was a professional.

I was working, and I had two kids.

I was not hanging out anywhere, darlin' trust me.

- These girls, the young patients,

it's beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty.

- And I understand.

I'm in the vainest, vainest industry there is, Hollywood.

I am telling you I get it,

but I also am telling you because I care more,

you cannot money cannot buy you health.

- Absolutely.

- So if somebody, if you Dr. Rose, who I respect said,

Michelle, there's a small percentage that there is a chance

that you can get a neurological, or autoimmune disorder.

And then you said, there's a black box warning on this.

I would go, uh.

- But it's very difficult.

I think it's a very difficult situation

because you just can't say exactly what percentage

could have an adverse reaction.

- All I want is transparency for the women out there

who are getting implanted 'cause I'm telling you,

I know me because I've struggled for so long,

have to advocate for myself 'cause nobody else will.

So at least I'm armed with the information.

And then if something happens, I get to go,

well, he told me this could happen, I didn't listen.

- Michelle, you're not the first patient

that I've had this discussion with.

- [Michelle] I bet.

- And I wish I could get my arms more well around it,

you know?

I just wish I could understand the whole process better.

- I don't want to be in this position.

I don't want to be sick.

- [Dr. Rose] Right.

- It's not a made up thing because it's real.

My blood, and my urine, and my hair, and my skin

will show you that it's real.

It's not made up, but, and you acknowledge that,

but the point is, I guess, to wrap it up

the black box warning will you tell the people?

- Sure, of course.

I mean, when patients come in,

so, typically, what you say is

you'll talk about these 1% things,

and then probably if they would broach the subject

a little bit, I'm happy to talk to these patients.

Look, you've got to understand, Michelle,

I'm not trying to at all minimize breast implant illness.

I'm really not.

- Good.

- I think it's dreadful, it's horrible.

I mean, what's particularly dreadful to me

is did I harm a patient knowingly, or unknowingly?

You know, I mean, it's a little frightening.

- Right.

- But still, I mean, I don't think

even though there's small little risks,

I continue to be a very ardent,

and vocal supporter of this biomedical device.

They are beautiful little objects, aren't they?

Maybe it's not like looking at, you know,

whales in the ocean, but it is quite beautiful to me.

I think these implants are really, really safe.

I feel dreadful.

This implant in my hands does not rupture.

I would feel dreadful to think,

and I've got a letter from Mentor Corporation,

ruptures reported in my practice, 0% rupture rate.

And you could cut this,

and you would see this is a gel.

It's a very viscous, it's a very viscous biomaterial.

It is a beautiful implant

in 99 plus, plus, plus percent of patients

it's a very safe biomaterial in my estimation.

- I think most plastic surgeons are proud of their work,

and they don't want to believe that these breast implants

that they've been putting in all these women

are causing serious health problems.

And I think plastic surgeons like anybody else,

we all want to believe that the work we do is worthwhile,

and we don't want to believe that we've been doing something

that's harmed people.

(applause)

- London town.

(cheers and applause)

My name is Michelle Visage,

and these are what's left of my tits.

(cheers)

Full stop.

I've recently gotten my breast implants out, right?

Along the line I found out something about myself

that I didn't expect to.

When I got them, I was 21 years old,

and my record company was run by men.

I was signed by men.

My production company was men,

and they all told me all along, you know, you're really hot,

but you'd be sexier with boobs, right?

What I realized when I was healing was that all those years

of I thought that I was doing it for myself,

and anybody that listens to the podcast,

you've heard me argue with Ru, say, no, I did it for me.

And I partially did it for me, and by the way,

I'm not anti-plastic surgery.

No, if you want it get it, but know what you're doing,

and know who you're doing it for.

And at the end of the day, I am 50 years old,

and I love my small tits for the first time in my life.

(cheers and applause)

And I ain't doing it for anybody apart from myself.

So when you look in the mirror today,

today right now is all we have.

We don't have tomorrow, it's not guaranteed.

So love yourself for who you are.

You are beautiful and perfect just as you are today.

(cheers and applause)

It's the truth.

(cheers and applause)

("Oh Dead On Oh Love" by Lisa Papineau)

* Broken land, broken hands

* Digging my way to the other side *

* But the dirt and dust

* Slide back into the hole

* So I'll swallow that earth

* Until I'm burst full

* Found wanting

* Oh dead on, oh love

* Your little world hid fast base in shadow *

* Your little world tastes of sweet and sour *

* One foot at a time girl, one foot at a time girl *

* One foot at a time girl, one foot at a time *

* One foot at a time girl, one foot at a time *

(bright music)