— Fabiola DePaula's quest for beauty took her to a condominium basement, where authorities say she paid an unlicensed doctor $3,300 for a nose job and liposuction performed on a massage table.

But something went terribly wrong, and the 24-year-old nanny died, exposing what investigators say was an underground cosmetic-surgery network used by immigrants from Brazil — a country whose women are world-famous for their beauty and their willingness to go under the knife to achieve it.

Authorities think a Brazilian doctor, Luiz Carlos Ribeiro, performed liposuction, nose jobs and Botox injections for three years in the Framingham area, mostly for the town's large Brazilian immigrant population and mostly for cash.

Ribeiro and his wife, Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro, were arrested July 31 and charged with manslaughter, unauthorized practice of medicine and drug counts. The couple pleaded not guilty and remain in jail.

— Bad news — but probably no surprise to parents — when it comes to young children and vegetables: A government study showed fifth-graders became less willing to try vegetables and fruits when more were offered as free school snacks.

The study is one of the first to measure the success of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, a federal initiative providing grants to schools to help them buy more produce and improve the eating habits of U.S. children.

— Government health advisers rejected a federal report that concluded dental fillings used by millions of patients are safe, saying further study of the mercury-laden amalgam is needed.

A joint panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers did not declare the so-called "silver fillings" unsafe. But they said uncertainties about the risk demanded further study.

The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It marks the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for that age group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Meanwhile, illicit drug use among young teens went down for the third consecutive year — from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.

— The government is taking steps to preserve data and biological specimens from a quarter-century investigation into the effects of Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans, having found an elevated risk for diabetes but no clear links to cancer from the soon-to-end study.

The independent Institute of Medicine concluded earlier this year that the material from the Air Force Health Study is valuable and should be preserved and made available to researchers and scientists.

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