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ANTI-AGEING PRODUCTS IN UK |
British women warned against
‘cowboy’ cosmetic fixes
2 October, 2007
Women in Britain seeking to trim down
the signs of ageing with quick-fix
cures, beware. You could be acting as
guinea pigs for unproven and
ineffective cosmetic treatments that
have been banned in the United States.
From “lunchtime breast augmentation”
to “fat-melting” treatments, scores of
untested new products are freely
available and putting consumers at
risk, according to the British
Association of Aesthetic Plastic
Surgeons.
Meanwhile, a lack of regulation of
non-surgical treatments such as Botox
injections and dermal fillers has
allowed “cowboy” practices to thrive,
the association said.
Every year, 415,000 people in the
United Kingdom have non-surgical
cosmetic treatments, but concerns have
been raised about hairdressers,
dentists and beauticians administering
injections and fillers without proper
training.
Britain’s Ministers decided in 2007
against introducing legislation to
control the market and instead opted
to let the industry regulate itself.
But surgeons say that this has
resulted in useless or dangerous
products being marketed directly to
shoppers in salons or via the
internet.
At a meeting of the of the British
Association of Aesthetic Plastic
Surgeons in London on September 30,
2007, Douglas McGeorge, its chairman,
highlighted those products that had
few scientific credentials, including
a breast-enlargement procedure known
as ‘celution,’ whereby fat or stem
cells from the body are injected into
the breast.
Fat-melting treatments known as
‘lipodissolve’ or ‘lipostabil’ are
available on the internet despite
having been banned by the Medicines
and Healthcare Regulatory Authority,
Douglas McGeorge said.
Other “anti-ageing” injections of
vitamins, minerals and herbs (known as
mesotherapy), or treatments involving
radiowaves, are being offered despite
a lack of scientifically valid studies
showing that they worked or had any
long-term effects.
Isolagen, a dermal filler withdrawn
from the US market in 1999 but offered
to British customers three months ago,
has been the subject of a legal action
against the manufacturers by a group
of 50 women who spent thousands of
pounds on the product but found that
it was ineffective or caused health
problems.
Norman Waterhouse, specialist tutor in
aesthetic surgery at the Royal College
of Surgeons, said: “In no other
industry or branch of medicine would
such a situation be tolerated.
Treatments like isolagen are not
subjected to the proper testing or
analysis because they are not classed
as a drug and in many cases we do not
have evidence to show their effects or
whether they are safe for even 3 to 5
years.”
Botox injections, which are used to
reduce facial wrinkling, were also
cited as a treatment where lack of
regulation could be harmful.
According to Mel Braham, chairman of
Harley Medical Group, a chain of 17
clinics, the United Kingdom needs an
equivalent of the United States’
Federal
Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure
that all new treatments have a single
approval channel for both safety and
efficacy before being introduced to
the
UK. The lack of regulation was letting
UK patients down, he alleged.
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