Lemondrop

Every time we think breast implants are going out of fashion (Sharon Osbourne's planning to get hers removed in July, and gift them to hubby Ozzy as paperweights for his desk), another public figure goes under the knife (most recently: Did Sarah Palin or didn't she?) and statistics show that the numbers among young people are on the rise.

Other than the risk of looking like Heidi Montag (who is almost a perfect Barbie), issues about the safety of implants haven't been discussed much of late, with many assuming that the dangerous days of leaking silicone were a thing of the past.

According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, those enhanced assets could be faulty, with up to 50,000 British women at risk of having been injected with implants filled with a silicone gel intended for mattresses (perhaps that explains why they were so bouncy?), which hasn't undergone the relevant safety testing. What's more, a crucial protective coating which prevents implants from splitting (and stops any leaky gel from spreading to other body parts), may be missing. These Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) implants were some of the cheapest on the market and widely used in the U.K. and elsewhere; in fact, surgeons in France brought attention to the issue when they noticed that PIP implants were rupturing more frequently than other types.

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) has urged women with implants -- including those with reconstructive ones -- to contact their surgeons to determine what kind of implant was used. If they were PIP, women should schedule an ultrasound within the next six months to check for any problems. Any sign of damage or rupture in one implant and it is advised that both are removed.

To add insult to (potential) injury, PIP, formerly the third-largest manufacturer of implants, is now in liquidation, so patients may need to foot the bill themselves. (Although in the U.K., the National Health Service will remove damaged implants for free.)

The president of the BAAPS, Dr. Nigel Mercer, told the paper that, "so far there is no serious cause for alarm." Most worrying, however, is that the PIP manufacturer allegedly told an inquiry with French aesthetic surgeons that there were no studies done on the safety of the silicone gel, because he thought it was being used for mattresses.

For those still considering the procedure (25,000 women had implants in the U.K. alone last year, according to the Mail), do your homework -- you want to end up with a spring in your step, not in your chest.