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<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...

<p>A couple of disparate events sent ripples of satisfaction through our editorial-page offices last week. A Massachusetts parole board at long last recommended Gerald Amirault for parole, and a Food and Drug Administration panel recommended that silicone breast implants be returned to the market.</p>

Silicone breast implants (SBIs) are back. A Food and Drug Administration committee recommended last week that the implants be available to women who want them. The real story, though, may be the stealthy efforts of some personal injury lawyers to prevent FDA approval. Based on new evidence of connections between activists and lawyers, it appears that the lawyers might be surreptitiously using anti-SBI activists to scare the FDA and public about SBIs. The SBI controversy is the poster child of 1990s junk-science fueled tort litigation. That decade saw personal injury lawyers generate about 170,000 plaintiffs, now in the final stages...

Our Bodies, Our Silicon, Ourselves By GINIA BELLAFANTE Kiné Corder before and after surgery for "Extreme Makeover" on ABC. Last winter, Tammy Guthrie, a 40-year-old mother of three from St. Petersburg, Fla., took a brief leave of absence from her family to undergo some self-improvement in Los Angeles. Five and a half weeks later, she returned, reawakened, to her husband and her three children, all in elementary school. "Throughout my marriage, I'd taken a passive role, thinking that was what my husband wanted," Ms. Guthrie said. Now, three months after coming home, she said: "I'm no longer afraid of his...

Prosecutors say botched silicone injections killed Vera Lawrence suddenly during a back-alley cosmetic procedure in Miramar on March 20, 2001. The defense says vanity slowly killed the 52-year-old Miami grandmother. After getting industrial-grade silicone illegally pumped into her hips and buttocks for years, the substance had slowly leaked into her blood system and stopped her breathing. The trial for the couple accused in Lawrence's death, Mark Hawkins and Donnie Hendrix, began Monday in Broward Circuit Court. They are charged with manslaughter with culpable negligence, third-degree murder and unlawful practice of medicine without a license... Hawkins and Hendrix would buy a...

Ananova: Demand for breast implants causes silicon shortage in Brazil Plastic surgeons in Brazil say they are running out of silicon because so many women want breast implants ahead of the world-famous carnival. Paulo Matsudo, director of the Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery, says demand for breast - and buttock - implants is at record levels. He told Terra Noticias Populares: "The summertime plus the proximity with carnival, that starts on March 1, are increasing the demand for silicone breast implants. Imports are not sufficient to meet so many requests. "Brazil is a tropical country with a huge seaside and...

A Brazilian woman, shot in the crossfire between police and drug dealers was saved by silicone breast implants.Doctors said the silicone had slowed the bullet up enough to prevent it from causing her serious injury.Jane Selma Soares was caught up in shooting between police officers and drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro.She told Las Ulitmas Noticias newspaer, even though she tried to hide the bullet hit her in the chaest.

DETROIT (AP) _ A federal judge has authorized a $9.8 million settlement between Dow Corning and the federal government for medical expenses stemming from breast implant-related injuries. U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood approved the settlement on Thursday. The federal government sought reimbursement on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, Veteran Affairs, Health and Human Services, the Indian Health Service and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ``We are pleased to be closer to providing relief to suffering women,'' said Sybil Niden Goldrich, founder and executive director of the Command Trust Network, a group for women with breast...