Madrid – A Spanish man has been arrested and accused of using veterinary equipment to perform cosmetic surgery.

Catalonian regional police say they arrested the 63-year-old Barcelona native for allegedly practicing medicine without a license in filthy conditions at his home. The police statement says the illegitimate doctor worked in the company of his three dogs, a cat and a parrot.

The police say in a statement released this past Wednesday that the man charged his human patients between €250 and €500 ($330 and $660, USD) to perform breast augmentation and buttock implants, using veterinary tools normally used to inject animals.

It is also believed the man was administering direct injections of liquid silicone, without the benefit of using actual implants.

Police arrested the man on Friday after authorities received a complaint about a defective breast implant.

There are probably few things scarier than discovering an un-diagnosed but life-threatening medical condition. Being the only person in the world to ever suffer from such a condition would make most people downright petrified!

This was the case for a Florida woman — a condition so rare that it has no medical name — her heart was found to be moving around in her body. Doctors found it stuck in her rib cage under her kidney, on its side.

According to local news reports, the 35-year-old woman was born prematurely and has suffered numerous life-long complications, including an underdeveloped and diseased lung. The lung was removed when she was only 4 years old but not before the disease had spread to the remaining lung. As an adult, she’s had to endure chronic lung disease, which triggers chronic asthma, chronic bronchitis and chronic pneumonia. An onset, treatable for most adults, could easily send her to the emergency room. The empty lung cavity is what allowed her heart to shift and float in her body.

Because her doctors had never seen the condition before, they were initially at a loss to come up with a treatment. One doctor said the patient was the only person in the world with the disorder. Doctors were left to ponder the course of action for this situation. The solution? Breast implants.

“She calls herself a freak of nature because most doctors she’s seen have never seen this condition before,” according to her husband.

It required a four and one-half hour operation, she describes as life-saving, but breast implants — used in the traditional breast augmentation procedure — successfully filled the space where the lung used to be and holds the heart in the correct position.

In spite of the degenerative nature of her condition, she remains upbeat and positive, even though her health is deteriorating exponentially faster than a healthy adult of the same age.

“I coughed, sneezed and farted all at the same time and broke six ribs a few months ago. I guess it’s a talent,” she says with a hearty laugh. “They say I’ll eventually sever my spinal cord, but that’s okay, I’ll just run people over with my wheelchair and leave tire marks to prove I was there,” she added, also saying that she wants her chair motorized with a horn.

One of the UK’s largest cosmetic surgery providers, The Harley Medical Group, have released new figures that reveal 75% of women who have had a Breast Augmentation procedure in the last six months opted to go up just one or two cup sizes.

The new figures reflect the less-is-more attitude now taken by many celebrities, with many women now opting for a more natural look.

The new sort of breast augmentation patients, keen to keep things in proportion, are going for the “lower profile implant” in favor of two other available breast implant shapes – the “contoured” breast implants, which are designed to reflect the slope of the breast and the “round high profile”, which produces a more rounded appearance to the upper breast.

The Brittish medical group also reveals that breast enlargement remains the most popular of all cosmetic surgery procedures, making up 30% of all procedures across its 23 clinics.

“The ‘Boob Job’ has always been the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure we perform. These days women come to us looking for a natural result, not a look-at-me statement d colletage, which can sometimes cause too much attention. Contrary to popular belief, most cosmetic surgery patients want to fit in – not stand out!” according to Liz Dale, Director of The Harley Medical Group.

Last week a judge in Canada ruled that two women have no legal rights sue Health Canada over implants that leaked, ruptured and caused them catastrophic medical conditions and permanent health disabilities.

Alexandra Tesluk and Joyce Attis were implanted with Dow Corning silicone gel breast implants. Tesluk received two implants in 1980 that were removed in 1994. Attis received one implant in 1972 and it was removed in 1992.

The two ladies claim that the government was negligent in the regulation of breast implants and liable for their resulting injuries. Justice Warren Winkler of the Superior Court of Justice ruled against the suit on May 3, 2007, and awarded the women $125,000 in court costs. Health Canada did not directly misrepresent or assure the long-term safety of the breast implants to individual consumers, the Ontario Court of Appeal said, when rejecting the case.

“This is a case where Health Canada acted within its mandate in exercising its discretion regarding the enforcement of its regulatory regime,” the judges wrote. “It had no interaction with the appellants in the course of that role.”

The Appeal Court upheld the awarded costs. Attis and Tesluk had claimed medical costs of more than $1 million. Both women were members of a class of plaintiffs that sued Dow Corning Corp. and other breast implant manufacturers in an earlier and separate class proceeding. Attis opted out of that proceeding in 1994. Dow Corning was granted bankruptcy protection in 1995.

The manufacturer agreed to pay up to $3.2 billion, US, to settle claims from more than 300,000 North American women who said they had been harmed by the product. According to those court proceedings, Tesluk only received nominal damages from the settlement.

After the settlement, Attis and Tesluk began the action against Health Canada on behalf of a reputed class consisting of plastic surgery patients of Canada — excluding British Columbia — who received Dow Corning breast implants between 1962 and 1992.

This class is said to include approximately 29,500 individuals. They had claimed Health Canada failed to test, ban, recall or warn the plaintiffs about the potential risks and side effects of the breast implants. But the Appeal Court ruled regulatory governing bodies should not be held liable for a private company’s negligence.

Manufacturers, not government officials, are responsible for product safety and reliability, the court said in both cases.

“This could lead to decreased vigilance by the regulated entity, in this case the manufacturer, importer, and distributor of the product,” the judges said. “Diminished deterrence for a regulated industry is to be avoided particularly when it is the industry, and not the regulator, that holds critical knowledge regarding product safety.”

According to new reports from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, almost 400,000 breast augmentations were performed in 2007 — an increase from previous numbers since silicone breast implants were approved by the FDA in 2006. Still, many women are still choosing saline breast implants, known as the “workhorse” of breast enlargement surgery.

One of the many benefits of saline breast implants for breast augmentation is the many different saline profiles and shapes available, which allows your doctor to achieve a better match to your individual body frame.

Saline breast implants also have a flexible fill volume, and are not prefilled. This provides more options for incision placement, as well as a smaller incision necessary for the breast enhancement surgery.Because saline implants are filled after insertion, their final volume can be adjusted making it easier for the surgeon to correct for existing breast asymmetry.

Saline breast implants are widely endorsed by plastic surgeons for women who need correction for asymmetry, or that have reservations about silicone breast implants. Each patient is different however, and you should always consider the option that is best suited for your body type.The best way to be certain is to consult your plastic surgeon (or 2, or even 3) and find out which breast implants will work best for your breast augmentation.

Fountain, Colorado. There are more strange elements surfacing related to what police say was a botched murder for hire attempt. The apparent goal was getting money for breast implants.

Eighteen year old Nikita Weis allegedly offered to pay two men a total of seven thousand dollars to break into his own home, kill his mother, and steal her money and car. Police say it was all to pay for breast augmentation surgery for his girlfriend, twenty-one year old Sophia Alsept.

Juan Antonio Velez Gonzalez, 18, is accused of striking Weis’ mother in the head with a baseball bat, while Brandon Soroka, 19, waited outside during the attack, acting as lookout and driver.

When police questioned Weis and his girlfriend there stories didn’t match. During further questioning the story came out. Charges include attempted murder and kidnapping.

Court records show Nikita Weis had been bailed out of jail by his mother a couple of weeks earlier for attempted kidnapping with a deadly weapon. The victim listed is the girlfriend in this case.