And everyone says men are desperate. If these women aren't putting out daily, why do they care about looking their best and take such immense (and stupid) medical risks in the process of trying to bring their sexy back? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/nyregion/17silicone.html?_r=1&hp A Cheap, Fast and Possibly Deadly Route to Beauty By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS and CHRISTINA DAVIDSON Published: April 16, 2009 Like almost every woman, Fiordaliza Pichardo just wanted to look beautiful, so a few years ago, she began getting silicone injections from a woman she met through a friend in order to plump up her thighs and derriere. She never expected to pay such a high price for her looks. Fiordaliza Pichardo died a day after receiving a silicone injection. In March, a day after receiving an injection, Ms. Pichardo, 43, died of what the medical examiner later determined was a silicone embolism in her lungs. The cityâs health department fears that the illegal use of silicone as an alternative to cosmetic surgery is on the rise. The cityâs poison control center has received three calls in the last 10 months from doctors who have treated patients injected with silicone; Ms. Pichardoâs case was not among them. In the previous two years, there were only two such cases. Health department officials say there may be other cases that have gone unreported, since doctors are not legally obligated to report silicone poisoning or even death, and since silicone is hard to detect through X-rays or CT scans. The department was planning Thursday to send an advisory by e-mail and fax to thousands of doctors advising them to watch for silicone poisoning cases. Nationally, reports of buttock enhancement using silicone and similar thick liquids have surfaced from the Northeast to Miami, and the Food and Drug Administration is also planning to issue a warning on the dangers of such practices, Siobhan DeLancey, a spokeswoman, said Thursday. âThis seems to be kind of an underground occurrence, so itâs difficult to get numbers of actual events and to know exactly what these people are being injected with,â Ms. DeLancey said. âItâs important to note that none of the products that are reportedly being used are approved for this purpose.â Ms. DeLancey said silicone was not approved for injection into tissues at all, only for use in the eyes and in certain implants where it is contained and cannot leak into tissue. She said the F.D.A. had the ability to conduct criminal investigations, and would encourage victims to come forward âso that we can document the problem.â Across the Internet, chat rooms, Web sites and blogs have sprung up discussing buttock injections. The victims have become caught up in an underground beauty industry that uses injections of black-market, medical-grade silicone or industrial-grade silicone as a cheap, fast and easily accessible way to plump up breasts, buttocks, thighs and even wrinkles. The injections are popular among Latina women and transgender women, who may be unable to afford conventional plastic surgery and who tap into it through unlicensed practitioners working through word of mouth, city officials said. Although side effects are fairly rare, silicone can migrate through the bloodstream, creating potentially fatal clots in the lungs, as it did in Ms. Pichardoâs case, said Dr. Nathan M. Graber, director of environmental and occupational disease epidemiology for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. It can also migrate through tissues, leading to ugly lumps and chronic pain. The injections are administered at home, in motel rooms, in makeshift offices or at âpumping parties,â where the guests take turns injecting one another, officials said. Young transgender women often seek out silicone injections because they are a quick way of making bodies more feminine, unlike hormone treatments, which may take years to work, said Dr. Nick Gorton, an emergency room doctor who treats transgender patients at the Lyon-Martin Health Services clinic in San Francisco. âIf you go to a pumping party, you can have it tonight,â Dr. Gorton said. âItâs a big temptation, especially among young people who, when youâre 20, youâre not thinking about your own mortality.â People are often reluctant to report side effects, because they feel that they are turning in a member of their community, health officials said. Industrial-grade silicone can be bought at a hardware store. But Dr. Graber said there have been reports of the use of substitutes like castor oil, mineral oil, petroleum jelly and even automobile transmission fluid. Dr. Suhail Raoof, chief of pulmonary medicine at New York Methodist Hospital, treated a woman with silicone poisoning in 2007. She came in complaining of shortness of breath, chest pain and coughing, reminiscent of pneumonia, he said, and told doctors that she had been injected with about 500 milliliters of silicone in each buttock about half an hour earlier. Because silicone is not visible on an X-ray or a CT scan, Dr. Raoof said, diagnosis is difficult without a biopsy. Doctors used deduction to diagnose the cause of the womanâs symptoms, and she survived, he said. Ms. Pichardo was not so lucky. Ms. Pichardoâs 19-year-old daughter, Marinés Rodriguez, said that her mother began getting silicone injections several years ago after a friend introduced her to a cosmetologist. Ms. Rodriguez said the cosmetologist went to Ms. Pichardoâs home in the Bronx and to other clients in Manhattan and Miami. A cup of silicone cost $800, and the cosmetologist would inject half a cup to two cups in a single session, Ms. Rodriguez said. Her mother, she said, âdidnât really care about the price. It was more that she knew somebody who had this first.â Ms. Pichardo came to trust the woman. âShe felt that was her friend, nothing could go wrong,â Ms. Rodriguez said. Ms. Pichardo was last injected on March 17, and died the next day. Doctors thought she had pneumonia, Ms. Rodriguez said, and the family never thought to mention the silicone injections â which were discovered during the autopsy â because they thought they were harmless. The medical examiner has ruled her death a homicide because she was injected by an unlicensed nonmedical practitioner, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner. No charges have been filed. Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said, âWe believe she has fled to the Dominican Republic and we are in discussions with the district attorney as to next steps.â Ms. Rodriguez said the family was distraught, but found it hard to be angry. The day after her mother died, she said, the cosmetologist visited to pay her condolences. âWe didnât think she did it on purpose,â she said.
Old joke- Woman slips in her tub, hits her head and is killed outright. She goes to heaven and sees God, and the Lord looks at her and says "What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here for another 30 years. Get back down there!" She wakes up, brought back to life in the emergency room of the hospital. After healing, she says "30 more years? Great!" She goes out and gets lipo, botox, breast enhancements, a face life, etc. Spends a fortune. As she walks out from the last surgery, BAM...hit and killed by an ambulance. Back up to heaven she goes and sees God. "I thought you said I had another 30 years!" God looks at her vaguely and says "Wow, sorry about that. I didn't recognize you!"