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Reply from the Author: Beware a wolf in sheep's clothing! Or, more appropriately, beware the profiteering pseudoscientist masterfully disguised as a caring physician! Dr. James Santiago Grisolia, having evaluated hundreds of women with breast implants and serving as an expert witness in neurology for plaintiff attorneys, makes the same pseudoscientific admonitions that have been espoused by similar individuals in all areas of science for hundreds of years. [8] Dr. Grisolia also fails to acknowledge his involvement in the breast implant litigation in his letter. If I had failed to do this in my article, [1] I would by now be forced to acknowledge, in writing, the errors of my ways. I am discouraged that the other neurologists around the country, who like Dr. Grisolia, are terrorizing women with silicone breast implants (SBI) into believing that they are suffering from some terrible disease of the nervous system, have not likewise responded. Perhaps their beliefs are not so strong. I am equally disappointed by my supportive colleagues who do not feel the outrage that I have felt strongly enough to respond. Although my article addressed the neurologic issues, I also address the more general aspects of SBI, because Dr. Grisolia addresses these in the manner well suited to the novice pseudoscientist.
Dr. Edward Shorter, a Canadian medical historian, writing in general terms about somatization in the 20th century, [9] could have been writing about the SBI issue when he wrote:
The late twentieth century is writing a new chapter in the history of psychosomatic illness: fixed belief in a given diagnosis. The diagnosis itself may be changeable, based on fashion, but the fixity of belief remains the same, a questing after certainly resulting from the rising influence of the media upon public opinion and the corresponding decline of medical authority.
Given that …
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