[www.medicalnewstoday.com, December 01,
2006]
Illicit silicone injections can be lethal
By Megan Rauscher Thu Nov 30, 11:30 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061130/hl_nm/silicone_injections_dc
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Illicit injections of liquid silicone for
cosmetic purposes can be fatal, often leading to pulmonary embolism and
severe respiratory failure, Dr. Carlos S. Restrepo told the Radiology
Society of North America's annual meeting in Chicago where he shared
imaging findings from a series of 44 patients.
In 1992, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned direct injection
of silicone, but the increasing popularity of so-called "pumping
parties" -- where black market silicone is injected by untrained
"hosts" into paying clients -- speaks to both the demand and
availability of the substance, experts say.
Male transsexuals often undergo cosmetic procedures of the breasts,
genitalia and other areas to make them appear more feminine. They may
seek out liquid silicone because it is cheaper and easier to get than
professional plastic surgery or hormone therapy and it provides
immediate results.
But silicone that is injected improperly can travel through the
bloodstream and cause blood to clump in the lungs, creating blockages
that can be immediately life threatening if not identified and treated
promptly.
Of the 44 patients in Restrepo's series -- the largest case series
reported to date -- 25 patients were transsexual males and 19 were
females.
All 44 patients experienced respiratory difficulties after receiving
illicit liquid silicone injections and half developed fever. "The
mortality rate was 25 percent," Restrepo, who is director of chest
radiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San
Antonio noted in an interview with Reuters Health.
Silicone was injected most often in the breast, hips, buttocks, vagina, chest and arms.
"It is difficult to really quantify how prevalent this practice is,"
Restrepo said, "since patients usually do not disclose when they come
to the ER with respiratory symptoms that they have received illicit
injections of fluid silicone."
Restrepo hopes that by making the public and medical community aware of
the symptoms and severe consequences of illegal silicone use, mortality
risks and patient outcomes from this clandestine practice will improve.
MEXICO CITY (AP) | Mar 30, 8:15 AM
Puerto Rico's all-time top-selling artist Ricky Martin defended the
right of gay pop stars to come out of the closet as he toured Mexico
and geared up for his "Black and White" tour across the United States.
In an interview, Martin said he felt solidarity with Mexican Christian
Sanchez, a singer of the group RBD who recently publicly said he is gay.
"Life is too short to live closed up, guarding what you say," Martin said.
Christian "has to be free in many aspects. I wish him much strength."
Puerto Rican news media have long speculated Martin is gay but he has avoided commenting on the topic.
Martin said his foundation People for Children, which helps exploited children worldwide, inspires him in his song writing.
"When you start to work with social problems, it gets the attention of the media and people think it's a farce," he said.
"It's a spiritual search. The philanthropic work helps me write music and the music helps me in the philanthropic work."
The singer, named Person of the Year in 2006 by the Latin Recording
Academy, said it is great that more celebrities are working with
charities.
"If this is a fashion, then I hope a lot more fashions like this come along," he said.
Martin plans to tour in the United States from California to Miami in April and May.
The Lady in Red
It's never been easier to convince an MP to pose in front of Parliament.
With
a flick of her multi-toned locks, Georgina Beyer, the world's first
transsexual MP, has flung herself eagerly at the stone plinth above
which Prime Minister Richard Seddon stands immortalised in bronze.
She
leans into King Dick's leg, her teeth quickly licked of any vestiges of
lippy and, hands on hips, eyes fixed with that kissy-kissy stare, pouts
into the photographer's lens.
Suddenly - "How's this?" - she
whips her fur-lined jacket open to reveal a to-die-for figure in
elegant black, draped with chains of faux gold and garnet-coloured gems.
"When it comes to cameras, once a queen..." Beyer winks, then sinks into the fox fur trim with a giggle.
Beyer
is heading for the old stage lights again after announcing she'll quit
next February after seven years in Parliament to take up a role in
Christchurch's Fortune Theatre.
The MP has twice before been
stopped from quitting by the most unlikely of folks. In 2002, 60 Grey
Power members from Dannevirke talked her around. Then three years later
Brian Tamaki marshalled his homophobic troops to Parliament. "How could
I leave now when the spectre of that is on the horizon?"
After nearly 50 years - as a boy, prostitute, stripper drag queen,
actress, mayor and MP, she reckons she has two or three careers left in
her. Of Parliament, she's had her fill.
"We deal with the most
grave matters of the nation," she says. "And for a bit of a slapper
from Vivian St like me, you know, wow! That's a bit of a learning
curve! And strangely enough at the end of the day, I see so many
similarities between politics and prostitution, especially when it
comes to election time, you know? I mean what the hell are we
soliciting for?"
Plans for her valedictory speech outfit have
begun. "Something glammy," she muses, because the cameras might come to
such an important event.
"Oh, you doooooon't want my Christmas day story," she moans.
Loved
as a queer icon and adored as a hero by human rights activists, Beyer
will more than likely spend Christmas tomorrow alone, at home, in the
tiny hamlet of rural Carterton.
Her aloneness is a necessary
escape from the people she spends "99 per cent of the time with", she
reckons. "That's part of the job. It's work. It's 'You're on' - the
price of fame and notoriety."
But the microscope of politics has played havoc with her private life.
"I
haven't had the emotional support (others have) by way of a home life
or anything like that. I've had to deal with this entire 14 years of my
life, as far as that's concerned, alone.
"Yes, I've had support
from friends, but many of them have dissipated because you just can't
unload on people about stuff. It ruins your personal social life quite
dramatically."
Beyer says her aloneness is where she finds her inner peace.
"Relaxation
for me is just being at home," she continues. "I don't host Christmas
dinners and I'm not very good at wanting to go to others' Christmas
meals and things because it's all terribly family and terribly close
and I," she pauses, "I just don't fit into that very easily, seeing as
I don't do my own."
Her mother is dead, she has nothing much to
do with her biological father whom she met for the first time in her
mid-20s. She has never met her brother Andrew's wife or children.
Perhaps
they're proud of her? "They're probably pissed off that I did so well
with myself. It was more convenient to think badly of me when I was a
prostitute on the streets or just a drag queen in a drag show or
something like that. But then, yes, that'd be having to acknowledge
that I'm," and she pauses for dramatic effect, "the only MP in our
family."
Beyer hates talking about her family. People have no right to know about "all the deep bitterness and pain and stuff like that".
Was
she helpfully shuffled from Parliament by Prime Minister Helen Clark?
"No! I would like you to state categorically no one, nothing, but
myself has purchased me out of here. I'm the one that's made the
decisions."
What are her thoughts on shelving her Gender Identity
Bill - which would have enshrined in law the right of transgender and
other people to be covered by the Human Rights Act?
She rolls her
eyes and says: "There is a prudent time to pull back, you know." Labour
had just passed the Civil Union Bill and legalised prostitution. The
public didn't have an appetite for more social liberalisation.
A
Crown Law clarification was tabled which affirmed that gender identity
was covered in law. That achieved what she had wanted so, she reckons,
why push the country's tolerance any further?
"And did I want to
put myself, my supporters, the queer community and the transgender
community through a venal vicious debate which I wouldn't have won?
"I
did not have the numbers in this particular term of Parliament to
affirm that bill going through. And for what? For nothing. And we would
never touch it again for 20 years. Nothing like that would ever come up
again, I betcha."
Though she's never experienced overt rudeness
from her colleagues, except perhaps from former National MP Brian
Neeson - "He used to get a bit huffy puffy but he doesn't count. A
terribly conservative man" - she reckons most quietly respect the
enormity of her journey to Parliament. Nevertheless she considers
herself an outsider.
"Of course I'm a misfit. I'm a first in the
world. I'm a transsexual. Okay? And that puts me on the edges of
society to begin with. I'm not the only one. But in this particular
game I was the only one and I walked into the world of international
politics famous, in political circles.
"Can you imagine the
scrutiny of that? I've had to mould myself down into something more
acceptable in presentation, in the whole public life situation that I
lead, ensuring that my behaviour will always be of dignity and
integrity and sincerity, knowing that people are going to be
uncomfortable in some forums that I am a transsexual. I meet people
from countries where the death penalty applies to same sex anything.
And, while I may have my opinions, I have to temper them in those
forums.
"However, I never fail to state in my public addresses
when talking to international forums that I am a proud New Zealand
transsexual member of Parliament," she stiffens in her seat, breathes
through the nose and smiles. "To reinforce that I have had a fantastic
opportunity to up the visibility of significant minorities. I'm proud
of my country and everything that's enabled me to be who I am and do
what I do. So I've been a misfit in that sense, but in the happiest of
ways."
Next on the agenda is very likely to be a serious tilt at
the Wellington mayoralty. At the moment Beyer is all diplomacy and
"maybes" about the possibility of putting up her hand later next year.
Her last tilt at the mayoralty in Carterton 1995 was funded by her last stint on the stage - playing a transsexual shearer.
So
how did an over-the-top transsexual former streetwalker win the hearts
of conservative rural New Zealand? "Oh, just seriously
straight-up-ness. I was out. There was nothing not to know about me. I
never hid for one moment who I was and the background I came from so
they knew. They knew.
Hanana 
Royal Hawaiian Band at Iolani Palace and elsewhere
Queen
Mother House
of Sei
Richard
Aunty Anita
Shelley Quan
