Overview

In the early 1990s, sympathetic juries awarded huge damages to women claiming injury from silicone breast implants, leading to a $4.25 billion class-action settlement that still wasn’t large enough to cover all the claims. Shockingly, rigorous scientific studies of breast implants have now shown that there is no significant link between breast implants and disease. Why were the courts and the public so certain that breast implants were dangerous when medical researchers were not? The answer to this question reveals important differences in the way science, the law, and the public regard evidence—and not just in the breast implant controversy.

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9780393316728

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Reviews

Marcia Angell's outstanding book explains clearly and fairly the combination of greed, fear, ignorance, junk science, and media hype that created this national litigation nightmare. Everyone interested in the tort system, science, and medicine should heed the lessons that Dr. Angell teaches. -- Shirley M. Hufstedler, former U.S. Secretary of Education

[A] sober and rigorous examination of the controversy over silicone breast implants . . . an important statement, not just about silicone implants, but about other matters at the intersection of law, science, and opinion. [Dr. Angell s] book is . . . a warning that rationality, like much else in the fragile porcelain of society, can be weakened by lack of vigilance.

Marcia Angell's outstanding book explains clearly and fairly the combination of greed, fear, ignorance, junk science, and media hype that created this national litigation nightmare. Everyone interested in the tort system, science, and medicine should heed the lessons that Dr. Angell teaches. --Shirley M. Hufstedler, former U.S. Secretary of Education

Author Information

Marcia Angell is the executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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