Free Republic

A German plastic surgeon has told how he built himself the perfect wife after wedding a "dowdy" woman "for her potential". Reza Vossough sculpted his 33-year-old bride Cany with eight surgeries to change her chest, thighs, eyes and face, The Sun newspaper reports. In pictures: Plastic surgery obsessions"It's almost like being God — you have the ability to change nature," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "When I first met Cany, she had physical deficiencies, but I could see there was something there ... she had big hips and big thighs, so we made corrections, then did a little bit...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Does Islam frown on nose jobs? Chemical peels? How about breast implants? One of the clerics with the answers is Sheik Mohammed al-Nujaimi, and Saudi women flock to him for guidance about going under the knife. The results may not see much light of day in a kingdom where women cover up from head to toe, yet cosmetic surgery is booming. Religion covers every facet of life in Saudi Arabia, including plastic surgery. Al-Nujaimi draws his guidelines from the consensus that was reached three years ago when clergymen and plastic surgeons met in Riyadh to determine...

Stem Cells Could Replace Plastic Surgery Silicone breast implants and botox could one day be things of the past thanks to promising new techniques that would allow doctors to work plastic surgery miracles using only a patient's own stem cells. Traditionally, plastic and reconstructive surgery has relied heavily on fillers. Bags full of saline or silicone are used to plump up breasts. Chunks of fat are taken from one area of the body and grafted into another. These techniques, which like other body enhancement procedures have soared in popularity in recent years, can work successfully but they also have drawbacks....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Women who get cosmetic breast implants are nearly three times as likely to commit suicide as other women, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. The study, published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, reinforces several others that have shown women who have breast enlargements have higher suicide risks. Loren Lipworth of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee and colleagues followed up on 3,527 Swedish women who had cosmetic breast implant surgery between 1965 and 1993. They looked at death certificates to analyze causes of death among women with breast implants. Only 24 of the women had committed...

A U.S. consumer group called for an urgent Food and Drug Administration review of the safety of aspartame on Monday, but the FDA said there was no immediate need to do so despite a new study showing the sweetener may cause cancer.  Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame -- widely used in soft drinks -- might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats.   "This is the second study by the same lab showing that aspartame causes cancer in rats," Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson said in a telephone...

Breast implants saves woman after Hezbollah attack Tue Aug 15, 8:07 AM ET JERUSALEM (AFP) - One Israeli woman has received an unexpected boost from her breast implants during the Lebanon war -- the silicone embeds saved her life during a Hezbollah rocket attack, a doctor said. "This is an extraordinary case, but it's a fact that the silicone implants prevented her from a more serious and deeper wound," Jacky Govrin, of the hospital in Nahariya that treated the woman, told army radio Tuesday. "The young woman went through surgery two years ago to have a larger chest," he said....

MEDIA, Pa. - Instead of feeding children in third-world countries and fixing the leaky roof, a woman used money from First Church of Lansdowne collection plates to buy a shore home and breast implants. "I was very dishonest and selfish," Colleen Lacombe, 34, of Drexel Hill, told Judge Robert C. Wright tearfully. Lacombe pleaded guilty in September to theft by deception, and made full restitution of $325,000 to the church. Wright sentenced the mother of two to two years of house arrest Tuesday, followed by two years of probation. Lacombe embezzled the money while handling finances at the church from...

Coming Soon: The mp3 Breast ImplantBT bod moots musical mams Here's an appealing thought: an mp3 breast implant which will allow surgically-enhanced girls to store and play back their entire music collections from their 36DD assets. We kid you not. According to UK tabloid the Sun - ever watchful for life-enhancing technology, especially when it's got a big jubs angle - BT Laboratories bod Ian Pearson reckons breast implants may as well do something useful if they're to be permanently installed, rather than just looking decorative. Accordingly, he's proposed sticking an mp3 player in one dug, and a storage chip...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Silicone gel-filled breast implants won conditional approval to return to the broad U.S. market after a 13-year ban when health officials on Thursday backed a version made by Mentor Corp. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the device maker must satisfy a number of conditions before it receives final approval to sell the implants. FDA officials said they were legally prohibited from making the conditions public. Mentor said the conditions were "generally consistent" with recommendations from an FDA advisory panel earlier this year. In April, the expert panelists voted 7-2 to recommend approval of Mentor's silicone...

Finally, there is something upon which the NOW and I can agree. Props to the NOW for promoting a pro-woman position. (Although I do believe the press release could have been written in a more objective manner.) "Will the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve the general use of a product -- silicone gel-filled breast implants -- that has not been proven safe for long-term use? The FDA must not allow women to fall victim to the greed of two companies, Inamed Corp. and Mentor Corp., that want to bring these implants back to the open market without protecting women's...

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- A former topless dancer who was famously cleared of battering a Florida nightclub patron with her "crazy big" breasts has shed her oversized silicone implants and put one of them up for auction on eBay. The woman known professionally as Tawny Peaks said on Wednesday she recently came across the implants in a box in her closet after watching a television discussion about crazy things sold on eBay and decided, "Why not ... I don't need it any more." "Somebody might bid on it. It's like the first boob to be sued over in a lawsuit,"...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Researchers have found high concentrations of platinum in women who got silicone breast implants and in the children they bore and breast-fed afterward. The type of platinum found in the women's blood and urine was different from the traces of regular platinum not uncommon in people's bodies. It was a highly reactive platinum, used to help turn silicon oil into the honey-like gel that lends a more natural feel to a breast implant.

Be all that you can be -- and no more. That's the message the owner of an adult video company wants to give women serving in the nation's armed forces, where they can receive free breast augmentation, liposuction and other cosmetic surgery from surgeons honing their battlefield skills. Mark Kulkis, who owns Kick Ass Pictures, on Wednesday officially launched his "Bullets Not Boobs" campaign at a press conference outside a military recruiting center in Hollywood. Kulkis, who employs only "all natural" actresses in his films, said he will give $500 in lingerie and a day at a spa to any...

A member of the Canadian parliament has submitted a bill to create a mandatory national registry for breast implants. Judy Wasylycia-Leis said a registry is needed to ensure that at-risk women can be treated if specific products are found to be hazardous to their health. It would also enhance research capabilities on implants, improving the choices available to Canadian women, the Toronto Star reported. Women have been treated like second-class citizens when it comes to health protection, she said. We don't know what the level of risk is so we can't really manage these products and give people adequate consent....

Wet-nursing makes a comeback in Hollywood By Martin Patience The Web site for Certified Household Staffing appears like a throwback to Victorian times, when the moneyed classes hired teams of servants. The site sports images of butlers with bow ties, nannies in black and white uniforms and gamekeepers dressed in tweeds. But the agency offers another service associated with times long past: wet nurses. Robert Feinstock, 65, the owner of the Beverly Hills, Calif., company, believes his business is one of the few in the United States that offers wet nurses, or women who suckle other peoples' children. He says...

<p>The Food and Drug Administration has rejected Inamed Corp.'s application to sell silicone breast implants.</p> <p>The agency yesterday issued guidelines seeking more information and a longer study before it will consider lifting a ban it placed on silicone implants in 1992 amid fears they cause health problems when they leak.</p>

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration rejected Inamed Corp.'s bid to bring silicone gel breast implants back to the market, more than a decade after they were first banned amid fears the devices harmed women. The FDA apparently heeded criticism that Inamed hadn't studied the controversial implants thoroughly enough to settle questions about just how often they break apart in women's bodies and the resulting health effects from leaking silicone. The FDA's move doesn't end strictly controlled research studies that make the implants available to some women with breast cancer and a few other conditions. Nor does it mean...

After more than a decade of sharply restricted sales because of health concerns, silicone gel breast implants are poised for an unusual return to the market. The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing an application to approve the controversial devices, and close observers believe it will rule on the subject this year.The National Organization for Women and the consumer group Public Citizen fear that the FDA is moving too fast, and will call today for the agency to slow considerably its review process. They say that the long-term studies needed to determine whether there is a health risk from silicone...

<p>EAGLE, Colorado (AP) -- Jurors acquitted a former stripper-turned-mayor on a felony charge of tampering with evidence, but found her guilty of a falsely reporting that she was attacked near her home.</p> <p>The jury returned the verdict for former Georgetown Mayor Koleen Brooks about 11 p.m. Thursday.</p>

  ----- Original Message ----- From: ABC TV Stossel Reporting To: ABC TV Stossel Reporting Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 5:28 PM Subject: JOHN STOSSEL'S "GIVE ME A BREAK" THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4,200210 P.M. EST This Friday's "Give Me A Break" is about an another accounting scandal. The accounting at an institution is so lax, employees used investors' money to buy engagement rings, Elvis photos, women's lingerie, jewelry, escort services, and breast implants. The "investors" in this case are you, because the "company" is the defense department. It happened because of the defense department's ludicrous policy of giving out...

Alleged Search Victim Takes ActionPosted: 7/19/2002 Holland - A cancer survivor, who had a double mastectomy, set off alarms when she tried to board a plane in Grand Rapids. Now the woman who says local airport security crossed the line is taking action. Kelly Kammeraad's round metal breast implants used as a part of her recontructive surgery is what caused the detector to go off. However, Kammeraad thinks security scanners went too far and got too personal when checking her for weapons. Security at the Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids continues to deny Kelly Kammeraad's claim that security...