Dow Implant Settlement

Re “Fooling Mother Nature and Then Suing Dow,” Commentary, July 12: Katherine Dowling intimates that it is a moral failing of women with breast implants to have wanted them in the first place and therefore they deserve whatever they get. This benighted attitude demonstrates a misplaced censure of the human condition (it’s wrong to change that with which one was naturally endowed), coupled with the equally outdated idea of caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”).

It is natural and normal to want to be attractive. This is a universal human longing. If a company chooses to exploit this desire in such an extreme way, then it had better be certain of its product. That the users share certain characteristics is only relevant in that it suggests there is a population more likely to utilize the product, for whatever reasons. Also, I found Dowling’s story of the delusional, homeless woman mean-spirited and gratuitous.

MEGAN EMORY

Malibu

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Dr. Dowling conveniently ignores the responsibility of the third party in the Dow implant story: the thousands of physicians who eagerly charged large sums of money to implant these medically questionable devices, with no medical benefit whatsoever. This alliance of the opportunistic and greedy, trading on human frailty, is the real (and old) story. As long as doctors are willing to act as shills for companies like Dow, we can expect more of the same in the future.

SAM COTTEN

Santa Monica