Experimentation?

Michael Brooks modestly characterises cosmetic surgery as "nothing more than an industrial-scale scientific experiment, carried out on vulnerable women". I'm unconvinced by the claim, not least because some cosmetic surgery involves men rather than women - vulnerable or otherwise - and because some cannot be dismissed as attributable to vanity.

His 'Why breast implants don't work' in the New Statesman - increasingly a home for the cranky - argues that -

Viewing cosmetic surgery as an experiment means we should also submit it to ethical consideration. The Nuremberg Code governing experimentation on human subjects states that the individual "should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved"; that the experiment "should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods"; and: "Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death." The great breast augmentation experiment does not meet these standards.

Cosmetic breast implantation is a flawed and ethically corrupt psychological experiment, carried out for commercial profit on vulnerable women. And it should now be halted.

Much contemporary medicine is susceptible to Brooks' problematical characterisation as "an experiment". So of course is the mumbo-jumbo known as 'alternative' or 'complementary' medicine ... 'magic touch', homeopathy and so forth. It's possible to be critical of the TGA's incapacity regarding breast implants without waving around the 'Nuremberg Code' or damning medical practice as an 'industrial-scale experiment'.