Photos of well-endowed women embellish the website of Frederic Corbin, a board-certified plastic surgeon with offices in Beverly Hills and Brea, California. What’s more surprising, however, is a shot of Corbin meeting with the Dalai Lama and a personal essay, titled “A Virtuous Act: Dr. Corbin’s Charitable Journey to India”, that chronicles his visit to the country to repair cleft palates. It remains to be seen if federal prosecutors will be swayed by Corbin’s virtue during his current trial. His alleged crime is smuggling illegal silicone breast implants from Mexico into the United States and falsifying patients’ medical records so they could receive American-made silicone implants that are typically available only through tightly regulated clinical studies. The reason for his backdoor methods: Silicone implants have been accessible only to select women who are part of a clinical trial since 1992, when the Food and Drug Administration pulled the devices from the market over concerns that leaking gel was causing a number of illnesses, including cancer and autoimmune diseases. Demand at the time slowed. But it never died, and over the years, silicone has rebounded and become increasingly coveted. “Silicone looks and feels more natural than saline, especially in women who are thin,” says Laurie Casas, associate professor of plastic surgery at Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
