Word: micromastia
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This wouldn't be the first time that the medical profession was caught inventing a disease to go with the cure in hand. In the 1990s plastic surgeons discovered "micromastia," a syndrome characterized solely by small breasts and conveniently curable with silicone implants. A century and some years ago, doctors detected an epidemic of "hysteria" among affluent women, manifested by hundreds of unrelated symptoms and requiring constant medical attention. Or we may reflect on the case of hormone-replacement therapy, which doctors promoted as a cure for the "disease" of menopause, only to discover, after millions of women had been...
...fact, according to the rumor mill, Jessica Hahn may have needed them too, as may have Melanie Griffith, Jane Fonda, Brigitte Nielsen and even, gasp, Dolly Parton. Why take chances? The doctors know there are not only obvious forms of micromastia, discernible to the man on the street, but insidious, hidden forms -- very well hidden indeed...
...plastic surgeons were willing to cough up hundreds of dollars each to finance the ASPRS's campaign to show the bright side of the breast-implant story. Though nearly 2 million micromastia victims have been cured, millions more remain untreated, as shown by the continued existence of the plague's dread symbol -- the A-cup bra. There have been many earnest attempts to reach the untreated: public health-oriented magazines like Playboy, for example, repeatedly print photos illustrating normal breast size for the woman in doubt. Tragically, though, many women still live in denial, concealing their condition under mannish blazers...
...cynic would be missing the point of modern medical science. We may not have a cure for every disease, alas, but there's no reason we can't have a disease for every cure. With silicone implants, small breasts became micromastia. With injectable growth hormone, short kids become treatable dwarfs. Plastic surgeons can now cure sagging jowls and chins, droopy eyelids and insufficiently imposing male chests and calves. So we can expect to hear soon about the menace of new diseases such as saggy-jowlitis and hypopectoralis...
...will be hard, though, to come up with anything quite so convincing as micromastia. As the plastic surgeons must have realized, American culture is almost uniquely obsessed with large, nurturing bosoms. And with the silicone scandal upon us, we can begin to see why: in a society so unnurturing that even health care can sadistically be perverted for profit, people are bound to have a desperate, almost pathological need for the breast...