Plastic surgery data vs. public misconception

Some of the information included in a recent MTV broadcast about plastic surgery seemed rather skewed and warranted my further investigation. Reality television has had a special fascination with plastic surgery and the trends it follows for some time now and while MTV did not provide any of its data or any resources from which they took it, I believe a more accurate picture can be formulated from information made available through The American Society of Plastic Surgeons. They offer a wide array of statistical data tables which I found to be helpful in sizing up the situation for myself. These can be found here: http://www.plasticsurgery.org/public_education/2004Statistics.cfm
The table I used for this post is found here:
http://www.plasticsurgery.org/public_education/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=16158
While pundits may claim that plastic surgery is a case of vanity run amok in our society they should be dissuaded from this outlook. The procedures are divided into three main categories which are: cosmetic surgical procedures, cosmetic minimally-invasive procedures, and reconstructive surgical procedures. These cosmetic surgical procedures which include breast augmentation and buttock lifts are the best known but also make up the smallest portion of the total procedures (only 1,740,236 out of the total 14,785,814 in 2004). This coupled with the fact that their frequency has decreased from the year 2000 figures by 8% shows me that this is not a problem of epic proportions.
Significantly more important to the figures are the numbers of cosmetic minimally-invasive procedures which include the popular Botox treatments and chemical peels. There were 7,470,391 procedures of this type done. This number is significantly buoyed by the popularity of Botox which amounts to nearly three million of the 7,470,391 total. Botox itself is an interesting case because it requires reapplication every few months. A relatively low number of people could easily provide a large number of Botox numbers which means the actual number of patients could be much smaller. The problem arising here for MTV’s statements is that these treatments along with many in the category are not marketed towards the audience watching MTV’s shows. Wrinkle reducing bacteria does not interest the author in the slightest, whereas the positive therapeutic uses of it do. Botox is now used to help those with juvenile cerebral palsy, recovering from strokes, and muscle spasms. These uses do not support suggestions of purely narcissistic application.
For my info on Botox see:
http://www.botoxfacts.ca/
The last category which encompasses reconstructive surgical procedures is nearly as large as the minimally-invasive and far outweighs the number of purely cosmetic procedures. These can be animal bite repairs, birth defect reconstruction, or care for burns. Tumor removal is the primary focus of these reconstruction surgeries (4,084,651 of the total 5,575,187) and can easily skew the figures.
The tables provide an impressive amount of data for comparison. I think it is important to change focus and point out that while there is a 9% increase from 2000 the year to year increases are significantly smaller and even decrease from 2003 to 2004.