Explant

First of all I want to say that I have been a fan of Michelle since I saw her on Drag Race, she's always been entertaining. I really didn't find this film "important and informative" as indicated by another review, let's put this into perspective. Michelle had her first implants at 21, because she felt her breasts were too small. That is a decision she made, she CHOOSE to have this surgery, it was NOT needed nor was it life-threatening. THEN within the following years she had them ENLARGED two more times, for a total of 3 breast implant surgeries. These were all choices she made, and I am certain that the doctors also explained the possible side-effects and dangers that could arise with those surgeries. For those out there that would say "oh no the doctors don't say anything" keep it to yourselves, my father is a cosmetic surgeon and I KNOW first hand that they DO explain the possible dangers to every surgery. She is NOT a victim, this is and was her choice. It's very sad that things ended up as they did, but this movie should be a testament to people's vanity. All those surgeries and enlargements to feel more of a woman than others, and to be "top of the heap" no doubt. The movie was too one-sided, making her appear as a helpless victim, and drum up sympathy for her and hatred for the men that "forced" her into this situation. Blaming everything else BUT HER for that choice. This movie won't help anyone make any "informed choice" it's far more of an opinion piece than anything medical or technical. It's the age of information and ALL the information for one to make an "informed choice" is at their fingertips.

I'm a very scientific and critical viewer (and person), and found this to be an excellent, balanced, even-handed doc. I'm able to maintain objectivity here because I'm a male who's not in or connected to the medical profession (so I don't have skin of any kind in the game) and love breasts - of all sizes.

One looks for the objective evidence, and it was here: The biochemist working for an implant manufacturer who ran the tests proving that the envelopes of even *saline* implants leached silicones into the users; Michelle's lab tests that showed those silicones were in her system; the doctor who confirmed that those compounds linger in the users' systems for *years* after removal of the implants. This is damning evidence. Rather disturbing, too, is the final shot of Dr. Rose, who, after admitting that a small percentage of his own patients suffer problems, desperately grasps about in a pathetic attempt to argue their safety. This is going to seem like an extreme comparison, but I got exactly the same sense of denial recently from watching Horst Wächter (the son of a notorious Nazi war criminal), unable to reconcile his belief in his father, the "good Nazi who helped the Jews", with the hundreds thousands of deaths he was responsible for. Fellow reviewer @workoutsmurf exhibits this sort of denial too.

The filmmakers were smart enough to not place much stock in the hysterical bookface drum circles, because those groups (online and off) exhibit every kind of bias and it's difficult to separate the real sufferers from the psychosomatics - and it's important to understand that both exist.

The reality is that these devices were invented and pushed into the market (and patients) without any safety testing whatsoever - and unsuspecting women became the guinea pigs in an experiment that's now been running for 60 years. There are a million factors to blame, from space-age techno-excitement to medical paternalism to female vanity, but the result has been that the FDA suffered complete "regulatory capture", otherwise these things would be much more strictly controlled (if not banned outright), and at very least *real* informed consent would be required where their use is compelling. Because until these materials are to a significant extent forced from the market, they'll continue to represent too great a profit center and there will be no motivation to come up with replacements that are actually inert and won't harm the users.

(Added points for the section on polypropylene string implants, true horrors that I didn't even previously know existed.)

As for Michelle, if she has the strength of character to shake off her trademark boobs, she should do the same with all those stupid glasses and switch to something that doesn't dominate her face.

A really great examination of not just Michelle's experience, but also our relationship as a culture to breast augmentation and the history of this medical device. I have personal experience with this topic and it was emotional to feel a connection to all of the women featured in this film. Bravo to Michelle for speaking up and hopefully pointing out to some people information that will help them make more informed choices.

This was interesting and I think continues this conversation about the world not believing woman.

It's insane for me that people don't believe this illness is real? To me it's just common sense, if something is leeching slowly into your body of course it is going to make you ill? It's a foreign body. So it's crazy to see doctors just deny it.

So the subject is interesting and unique and Michelle is very "exposed" and open in this. But the production was a little crunchy.

It had lots of stock footage and images. Like they are talking about someone wearing a purple cardigan, it's not a crucial detail but they decided to have a picture of a random purple cardigan that I'm 100% sure is going to be in the first 10 Google imagine search results. I don't love WOW. I think they can be a little cheap with things. Just a little more polish would have been great.

Also Jesus Christ that man at the end made my skin crawl. Dr Rose or what ever he was called. Ugh.