The first plastic surgeon to make headlines for believing in breast implant illness says he’s no longer alone.
“A lot of my colleagues now recognize breast implant illness is a real thing,” the doctor shared Tuesday.
Dr. Anthony Youn, M.D., is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Detroit, Michigan.
With 13-million followers on social media, he’s currently the world’s most popular plastic surgeon.
In June 2021, the New York Post proclaimed Youn had “broken ranks with the medical establishment” after he’d shared a video on social media saying breast implants could, in fact, cause a “constellation of symptoms” in some women, a condition known as “breast implant illness.”
It wasn’t quite breaking news, since he’d shared that very video twice before, 17 months earlier.
But the message’s newfound audience earned him praise from women and other viewers—and criticism from some surgeons, both publicly and in private.
Youn uses a popular audio track to comically allude to the response he received from other plastic surgeons:
“Hi Ladies, How you doing?” // “I’m gonna kill you.” // “Oh yeah, take a number honey.”
But Youn, as he now points out, isn’t the only prolific board-certified plastic surgeon now widely known to have acknowledged breast implant illness as real.
As of January this year, six of the 10 plastic surgeons with the largest TikTok audiences were doctors who’d publicly acknowledged that “BII” is real—usually in the form of educational articles, in-depth interviews, or videos discussing its symptoms and treatment.
Youn says he’s pleased that a lot of his colleagues now recognize breast implant illness as a real thing.
He believes breast implants are safe for a “vast majority of women,” but that it’s important patients are informed of the potential risks, too.
Viewer responses to Youn’s latest video are, at 113K views and 106 comments so far, uniformly positive.
“You’re a real one for this! The support group of patient’s can’t be denied,” a viewer says. “I’m sure so many women feel so validated. On their behalf, thank you,” says another.
Others mention some of the very conditions the surgeon has worked to bring attention to:
“BA [breast augmentation] in 2015,” says one viewer, “dx [diagnosed] with Lupus 2020….”
To which another viewer replies, “Wow. I got BA 2011; dx with Lupus 2012”
“My coworker got hers taken out after her lupus diagnosis,” a third woman replies.