Defending Joe Biden: Hair Transplant Hero

by Chip Baddaladucci
09/10/08

These days, a Vice Presidential candidate ought to be pretty grateful that the worst accusations most people can throw at him involve his hairline. Did Joe Biden undergo hair transplant surgery to deal with his hair loss problem? Almost assuredly. Did he have this procedure performed before the development of today’s more advanced, natural looking hair restoration treatments? Quite clearly. But rather than knocking Senator Biden for his somewhat helmeted scalp, Americans might want to be a little more respectful, especially the millions dealing with their own cases of male pattern baldness. Biden simply appears to be one of the unlucky men who jumped on the hair transplantation bandwagon in the 1980s or early ‘90s, when the technique known as “punch grafting” was still en vogue.

What’s the difference between punch grafting and today’s hair restoration procedures? As it turns out, an awful lot. Old fashioned punch grafting, or hair plugs, transplanted large collections of 20-30 hairs at a time. These oversized plugs were then moved to portions of the scalp in which doctors had removed skin to make way for the graft. This procedure was time consuming, imprecise, and typically created an unnatural, corn-row type of appearance. If this sounds like an apt description of Senator Biden’s hair, then you can understand why many hair transplant doctors are disappointed that Biden has become a poster boy for hair restoration.

Today, hair transplant surgery is a far more exact science, with careful calculation put into collecting smaller grafts for a natural look. It’s much more difficult to name celebrities who’ve undergone modern hair restoration, and that is essentially the whole point: it’s supposed to be impossible to tell! The examples we are aware of, like baseball Hall of Famer Wade Boggs, had to become pitchmen for Medical Hair Restoration to have anyone take notice.

As for Joe Biden, hair restoration might still be something to consider. Many men and women who underwent punch grafting treatments have since come to hair transplant doctors for “repair work,” as today procedures are able to reverse the damage done from the old methods. Whether a better round of hair transplant surgery lies in Biden’s future remains to be determined, like many other things.

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