Illegal Silicone Shots on the Rise
It reads like the plotline for a particularly lurid Law & Order episode: A 43-year-old Bronx woman dies suddenly; her death seems tragic but unsuspicious, until the medical examiner discovers a silicone embolism in her lungs and her family reveals that she'd been given body-plumping silicone injections by an unlicensed cosmetologist, who would have been charged with homicide had she not fled to the Dominican Republic.
It's a trend that's either a gruesome indictment of our obsession with vanity, or a symptom of just how much cosmetic surgery shows have inured people to the dangers of sticking foreign substances beneath their skin, or both. But for whatever reason, silicone liquid—which can be bought at a hardware store—is increasingly being injected as a quick, cheap, black market substitute for surgical implants.
The biggest customers are transgendered women and Latinas, who often want more exaggerated curves, which are not only being attempted with silicone injections, but also with castor oil, mineral oil, petroleum jelly and even automobile transmission fluid. "If you go to a pumping party, you can have it tonight," says a doctor who treats transgendered patients. "It's a big temptation, especially among young people who, when you're 20, you're not thinking about your own mortality."
But even if it doesn't kill you, silicone can potentially "migrate through tissues, leading to ugly lumps and chronic pain." The New York City Health Department sent an advisory yesterday to thousands of doctors, telling them to watch out for signs of silicone poisoning. They also might want to resurrect the erstwhile poster child for tragic silicone disfigurement, the late "realtor to the stars" Elaine Young.
