JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Women across the U.S. are risking their lives for black market procedures to make their buttocks bigger, often involving home-improvement materials such as silicone injected by people with no medical training.
Some want to fill out a bikini or a pair of jeans. Others believe a bigger bottom will bring them work as music video models or adult entertainers. Whatever the reason, they are seeking cheaper alternatives to plastic surgery — sometimes with deadly or disfiguring results.
Deaths from black market buttocks injections have been reported in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New York. An interior decorator in Mississippi faces trial in the deaths of two women who were injected at her house.
Though there is little data on the procedures or injuries they cause, doctors and authorities say they are seeing them more often. Online forums used to set up the illegal procedures have attracted thousands of responses. Some men also seek out buttocks enhancements, but the procedures are much more popular among women.