Review

Science on Trial

With the seemingly universal spread of irrationality in our culture, it is inspiring to see a prominent figure stand up to defend reason and objectivity. Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, exposes the horrifying disregard of science in the campaign against breast implants. In 1992, the FDA banned silicone breast implants in response to charges that they caused connective-tissue diseases. Over the next few years, a flood of successful product-liability suits hit the makers of these implants, forcing the largest manufacturer, Dow Coming, into bankruptcy. Angell argues that this represented an appalling injustice. She shows how the claims against breast implants were made in the absence of any scientific evidence.

The breast-implant campaign was fueled by people hostile to science. They were supported instead by random anecdotes – by stories of women who became sick and who simply "felt" that their implants were the cause. Abetting this travesty were a few "distinctively second-rate scientists" who speculated about "possible" links between silicone implants and disease – speculations unsupported by any scientific research.

The one kind of study that could have provided evidence for these allegations – an epidemiological study comparing the rate of disease in women with implants and without – had not been done.(Subsequently, several such studies were completed, and all indicated no link between breast implants and connective-tissue diseases.) This did not, however, dissuade the FDA; it simply demanded "proof"' that the implants did not cause some other, arbitrarily asserted ill- nesses.

The political impetus behind the FDA’s ban was the lobbying by "consumer advocates" (who promoted the baseless health scare) and by feminists (who claimed that women seeking implants for cosmetic reasons were being "oppressed"). But the ultimate root, Angell concludes, is a growing rejection of reason in favor of "speculation and mysticism" by those – such as feminists and multiculturalists – who see science as "little more than the customs of a white-men's club." .

The author admits she is a "liberal Democrat" who is "quick to see the iniquities of large corporations." Yet she does not let these biases taint her grasp of scientific truth. "The facts were simply not as I expected they would be," she says. "But my most fundamental belief is that one should follow the evidence wherever it leads." .

It is this "unyielding commitment to scientific evidence" that Angell prescribes as the ultimate cure for the cultural corruption that produced the breast-implant hysteria. .

(250 pages)

This review is courtesy of and copyright © by the Ayn Rand Bookstore.

Books

• Science on Trial by Marcia Angell.