Peru Police Claim Victims Murdered for Body Fat Sold to European Cosmetic and Pharmaceutical Companies

Forbes Fooled by Fake Plastic Surgeon’s Patient’s Body Fat as Diesel Fuel Claims

The Mysterious Craig Alan Bittner: Fake Plastic Surgeon Claimed He’s Returned to South America

This post began about a little story out of Peru, where Peruvian police claimed they’d made a grisly discovery of a new enterprise in the remote Huanuco province of Peru: bottles of body fat from murdered victims which the arrested suspects told police were sold to European cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies in Europe. While the police can’t confirm the body fat was actually sold to the companies, three suspects who confessed to five murders told police they sold the body fat for $15,000 to intermediaries in Lima.

“Medical experts contacted by The Associated Press expressed serious doubts about a global market for human fat.”

This story seems farfetched but then again, human fat tissue is used in biomedical research for gene therapy:

Boffins have developed a new gene therapy by using ’suicide genes’ derived from mesenchymal stem cells taken from human fat tissue, which hunt for and kill cancerous tumours.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers led by Cestmir Altaner at the Cancer Research Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava.

And pharmaceutical research:

Human fat cells produce a protein that is linked to both inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease and stroke

Craig Alan Bittner, “Famous Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon”

Even so, one wonders what happens to the gazillion pounds of excess body fat removed by liposuction in the U.S., whether there’s some sort of human fat “black market”. Typically, body fat removed by liposuction is considered medical waste while patients, when signing on the dotting line, agree to let the physician take care of the disposal.

It was through research that I discovered the mysterious saga of Hollywood “plastic surgeon” Dr Alan Bittner, his LipoSculpture Center in Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive, a mecca for fat extraction for wealthy patients. Bittner’s “eco-friendly” enterprise, “Lipodiesel” and, his claim that he’s returned to the jungles of Bogota, Columbia, due to threats from “religious extremists” upset over his turning human body fat into eco-friendly fuel.

I found Bittner’s “religious extremists” claim rather amusing as, to date, I’ve never encountered religious proclamations that lipo-ed excess body fat was considered “sacred”.

In 2008, the Daily Mail published an article on Bittner’s “eco-friendly” new enterprise “Lipodiesel”, where Bittner claimed he powered his “4X4″ and two other cars including his girlfriend’s Lincoln using his patients liposucked excess body fat. Bittner claimed his patients were excited to be involved in a new enterprise that was “eco-friendly” and which used their body fat to “save the planet”. DM reported that Bittner’s claims were under investigation and that Bittner had “disappeared to South America” after patients had filed lawsuits against his practice for allegedly allowing his unlicensed girlfriend to carry out consultations.

The Times Online filed a report on December 24, 2008, that the California Department of Public Health was investigating Bittner due to the fact that it’s illegal in California to use “human medical waste”, aka body fat, to power vehicles. And, that patients, who had found Bittner online, were consulted by Bittner’s office manager. The Times reported Bittner had shut down his website, Lipodiesel.org..

We discovered the site was up, and, that Bittner had posted a “goodbye” on December 25, the day after the Times and Daily Mail published their articles. Bittner claimed he had taken down the website “several months ago” due to “religious extremists”:

December 25, 2008

I took this Lipo Diesel website down a few months ago because religious extremists were making threats against me and my family. Unfortunately, there are people who are offended at the idea of using human fat to illustrate the potential for all of use to solve our energy problems – and I apologize for any offense as none was intended. I merely meant to show that alternative energy is all around us, if we open our eyes and have a sense of curiosity. My patients always loved the idea of using their fat for fuel and I enjoyed turning liposuction into something more meaningful. Despite the public hysteria, I assure you that there was never any danger to the public. In fact, medical waste in the US is incinerated for safety, just as it is in the sterilizing bio-diesel process. Unfortunately, a contingency attorney has already claimed to have clients who have suffered millions of dollars worth of “emotional damages” at the thought that their fat was used for fuel, which it was not. That’s the American legal system for you.

Due to the economy and frivolous lawsuits, I have closed my practice in Beverly Hills. In the future, I hope we all can look forward to helping people solve real issues, whether that be health problems or energy independence rather than arguing over lab experiments.

I wish all of you a prosperous and inventive 2009.

C. Alan Bittner, MD

PS – I am sad to announce that the rumors I have a private jet that runs on human fat are entirely untrue.

“My patients always loved the idea of using their fat for fuel and I enjoyed turning liposuction into something more meaningful.”

It turns out that Bittner had “enjoyed turning liposuction into something more meaningful”. The “more meaningful” meaning big bucks performing liposuction on unsuspecting patients who were later horrified to learn Bittner wasn’t a plastic surgeon, and, that his staff weren’t trained professionals.

On December 23, 2008, Bittner informed his patients on his DrAlanBittner.com site, that he was closing Beverly Hills Liposculpture and that he was moving back to South America where he’d “begun” his “medical career volunteering in a rural clinic outside Bogata, Columbia”. Bittner claimed he had treated over “40,000″ patients during his ten-year practice:

My journey has been an amazing one. I began my medical career volunteering in a rural clinic outside Bogata, Columbia that did not have enough equipment and was cursed with only sporadic electricity.After 10 years in practice, I have treated over 40,000 patients, including almost 7000 liposculpture patients. I am proud to be able to tell you that the record of my liposculpture practice has been impeccable; not one single serious complication or infection. Liposculpture is truly my passion and I have been extremely fortunate, however after 10 years of private practice, I am going back to South America to volunteer with a small clinic that is very similar to where my medical career began decades ago, where I can help those most in need.

In the end it wasn’t “religious extremists” who had “ended” Bittner’s Lipodiesel dream but the fact that he’d fled the company due to the fact that the investigation revealed he was a radiologist and that patients endured liposuction treatments by people who weren’t licensed to practice dog grooming, much less invasive surgical treatments. The site, My Dr. Bittner Story relates one woman’s story on having liposuction done by the “famous” Dr. Bittner.

Bittner was in trouble in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2003, where his Ameriscan Imaging Centers were shut down due to deceptive practices. Bittner resurfaced in Los Angeles as a “prominent plastic surgeon” who opened the “Liposculpture” center in Beverly Hills.

Amazingly, Bittner sucked in Forbes, who published a glowing article on Bittner’s “lipodiesel”, Fill ‘Er Up With Human Fat, How a Beverly Hills doctor powered his SUV using his patients’ spare tires. on December 21, 2008. Three days before the Times and Daily Mail published the news that Bittner was under investigation, and had “disappeared” to South America. So far, we’ve yet to uncover where Bittner has resurfaced, or what “enterprise” he’s undertaken.

We doubt Bittner has “returned” to the jungles of Columbia where “plastic surgeon” Bittner began his “medical career” hampered by lack of “equipment” and, the “curse of sporadic electricity”. Even so, it’d would be interesting to find out if the story out of Peru is true, that there’s a “black market” human body fat market, and whether “famous American plastic surgeon” Craig Alan Bittner may be involved.

By LBG