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Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Cosmetic cowboys running 'pop-up clinics in public toilets', watchdogs warn
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has called for tighter regulations such as a Minister-led task force to tackle rogue outlets dishing out Brazilian Butt Lifts, botox and fillers Cosmetic cowboys are dishing out dangerous procedures in "pop-up" clinics in public toilet cubicles and hotel rooms, watchdogs warn today. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) said rogue outlets dishing out Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBL), botox and fillers must be subject to tighter regulations to stop them posing a danger to life. Experts said there is a "wild west of untrained, unlicensed and uninsured individuals". A probe by Trading Standards officers discovered shocking "pop up" shops on high streets, cubicles in public toilets and hotel rooms. It means unscrupulous providers of cosmetic surgery - including the soaring popularity of fat injections - are able to vanish before they face action. And the officers also uncovered "unsafe and unregulated filler products" being sold online to everyday consumers for as little as £20. Richard Knight, CTSI Lead Officer for Cosmetics and Beauty, said: 'Trading Standards have warned that in most cases the products and services in the aesthetics injectable sector are unregulated. "Because of the big gap between the lack of hard and fast safety rules, and consumer expectations of their protection under the law, we are gathering evidence of harms to the public as part of a joint initiative to urge law-makers to adopt a cross-Government approach to tackling this Wild West situation.' Last year The Mirror launched a campaign to ban cosmetic cowboys. We are calling for beauty clinics offering potentially dangerous procedures such as Brazilian butt lifts and liposuction to be licensed by the Quality Care Commission. It is over a decade since the Government was warned about the need for control of the market in aesthetic procedures. But the CTSI says there "remains a vacuum which has already put lives at risk". Last September, we reported mum-of-five Alice Webb, 33, became the first to die after a liquid Brazilian butt lift in a UK clinic. Meanwhile mum-of-two Jodie Nicholson, 30, was taken to A&E with sepsis after a BBL. In light of a wave of Brits facing terrifying health complications, the CTSI are today calling for a licensing scheme to help regulate the sector and the establishment of a Ministerial-led government Task Force. Ahead of the UK's Trading Standards' Annual Conference this week, the Institute is now working with a coalition of national charities. And they are demanding an extension of underage legislation to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as the removal of unsafe products sold online Kerry Nicol, External Affairs Manager at CTSI, said: 'I am genuinely shocked by the scale of potential harm facing the public due to the alarming lack of regulation in the aesthetic industry. "Consumers' lives are being put at risk every single day. What's worse is that many of these unregulated practitioners are preying on people's vulnerabilities and the pressures they feel around body image, they are taking advantage of those who are often just looking for a boost to their confidence or self-esteem. 'Alarm bells would ring if someone was offering a tattoo in someone's kitchen or a public toilet at a cheap price - so those are the alarm bells we need ringing for people offering facial injections in these kinds of settings. "Action is urgently needed to crack down on the bad players operating in this sector. This isn't an issue that Trading Standards alone can fix, it's a Government and multi-agency responsibility that requires coordinated activity. 'A logical and immediate first step is the introduction of a national licensing scheme, giving the public a clear indication of who is qualified to carry out these procedures. It's time the UK takes public safety seriously and weed out those putting lives at risk.' Ian Andrews, Head of Environmental Health at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), said: 'We're concerned about CTSI's findings and would welcome clarity from the Government on when further legislation will be consulted on because what our members currently work with is outdated. The creation of a national licensing scheme would ensure that all those who practise are competent and trained, improving safety for members of the public.' Ashton Collins, Director at Save Face, said: 'We are delighted to join forces with CTSI on this campaign. Since 2023, we have been campaigning for the government to ban liquid BBLs from the high street and restrict their administration to qualified plastic surgeons. "We cautioned that without urgent action, lives would be at risk, and sadly, in 2024, Alice Webb tragically lost her life after undergoing a liquid BBL procedure. Alongside CTSI, we are determined to ensure our call to restrict liquid BBLs is acted upon. "Additionally, we are focused on reinforcing existing legislation that has long failed to protect patients from unscrupulous practitioners who continue to flaunt the law with impunity. "For too long, regulations intended to safeguard patients have been inadequately policed and enforced. Together, we aim to address the illegal importation of unlicensed products, remote prescriptions, and misleading advertising on social media. "We strongly believe that by successfully implementing these measures, we can significantly improve industry standards and safeguard the public.' Cheryl Barton, Lead Nurse at Aesthetika Clinic, said: 'It is very important that any untoward or adverse effects, events or reactions from taking or receiving any medicines, injections or from treatments using medical devices are reported to MHRA."
Telegraph
15-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Botched cosmetic surgery places ‘significant burden' on NHS
Cosmetic surgery patients are placing a 'significant burden' on the NHS because of the high level of complications, MPs have been told. The women and equalities committee was told that the current regulations surrounding certain procedures were insufficient with Brazilian butt lifts (BBL) often carried out in living rooms and Airbnbs. Prof Vivien Lees, the consultant plastic surgeon and vice-president at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: 'The global market cosmetic surgery is going to grow threefold, it's estimated, within the decade. 'So we're going to see a lot more problems in terms of absolute numbers. We need to set up a structure that will adequately support legitimate work. 'If what happened to all these other women happened in any other context these perpetrators would be behind bars. Out of all of the women we are supporting, we urge all of them to go to the police and make formal reports, and not one of these cases, outside of Alice Webb who lost her life, has been taken seriously by police departments. 'And women are constantly being perceived as silly individuals that are making decisions through vanity, and therefore their complaints are not being taken seriously enough by regulators, and they're being failed.' Alice Webb, a 33-year-old mother of five, died in September 2024 when she suffered complications following the BBL procedure, which involved cosmetic fluid being injected into her buttocks. Campaigners are calling for the enactment of Alice's Law, which would make it illegal for anyone other than a registered plastic surgeon on the GMC specialist register to perform buttock augmentation procedures using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers. 'Crisis waiting to happen' On the impact on the NHS, Prof Lees said: 'We regularly [see] people both from this country and from overseas who've got acute problems that cannot be sorted out by the people who originally did the treatments. 'In the case of practitioners here, because they don't have the skill set to sort them, and in the case of overseas tourism, because the patient's too poorly or has otherwise lost confidence in the facility that treated them, so aren't going to go back again, and it will probably be unsafe for them to travel in any case.' She added: 'So I've seen things like a young woman with infected filler injection in the lips having to have chunks of her lip cut out ... we can imagine what that will be like for her over a lifetime. 'I've seen infected buttock implants coming out, abscesses, bleeding problems in the middle of the night from clinics, actually medical clinics here that don't have the ability to treat their own complications. 'So that lands up with the NHS, and it's turning into a significant burden of work, particularly for the plastic surgeons, also for the breast surgeons on their service and clearly that's something that needs to be thought about.' Ashton Collins, the director of Save Face, a register of accredited practitioners for cosmetic surgery, said there is a 'crisis waiting to happen' because of 'grey areas' in regulation. It comes as leading nurses raised concerns that surgical procedures abroad are too easily being sold as 'holiday packages', as they called for companies providing the operations to foot the NHS bill when things go wrong. 'Countless deaths in the UK' Ms Collins said: 'These are surgical procedures that should not be being carried out on the high street – they are being carried out in people's living rooms, in Airbnbs, in hotel rooms, by people who are using products that they're buying unlicensed from places like China and Korea. 'They are decanting them from huge vats into individual syringes and inject thousands of millilitres into people's breasts and buttocks. 'And then when things go wrong, they are misdiagnosing these problems and telling them there's nothing to worry about, and luckily, all of these women have taken themselves off to hospital, because if they hadn't, there would have been countless deaths in the UK because of this, and it shouldn't be allowed to happen.' Nykoma Hamilton, an infection control nurse of the RCN Fife branch, suggested companies that provide packages that include hotels, surgery and transfers to appointments should pay insurance for the NHS to seek financial compensation when complications arise. 'We've seen some horrid complications – the NHS should then be able to seek financial compensation from that company,' she said. She also raised concerns about antibiotic resistance linked to surgical tourism. 'Our concerns relate to the fact that a lot of people are colonised with a lot of extensively drug-resistant organisms,' she said. 'Now that is a global health problem that affects us here in the UK, as well as abroad, but the infection control teams are getting slightly worried. 'So we've had a near 30 per cent increase in the detection of carbapenemase resistance – now that's your absolute granddaddy of resistance ones.'
Metro
14-05-2025
- Health
- Metro
Plastic surgeons share the common cosmetic procedure they'd never get
From labiaplasty and labia puffing, to pubic hair transplants, penile implants, and monsplasty, it seems there's nothing we won't do to our nether regions. But there's one procedure that many plastic surgeons would never get done themselves: a BBL. In a recent Reddit thread, cosmetic practitioners were summoned to share the body altering surgery they'd avoid and why — and out of more than 2,000 responses, the Brazilian Butt Lift was by far the most common. 'BBL is the only aesthetic procedure that has its own autopsy technique,' wrote one, while another added: 'It carries a surprisingly high mortality rate and the recovery is brutal.' Plastic surgeon Dan Marsh, co-founder of The Plastic Surgery Group, tells Metro that a BBL involves liposuction to remove fat from the abdomen waist flanks – what we might know as 'love handles'. This fat is then collected in a canister before being injected into the buttocks to change their shape and size. 'You can inject up to two litres of fat per buttock either between the skin and muscle or into the muscle itself,' he explains. 'The risk is if you inject it into the muscle you could accidentally inject it into one of the big veins in the muscle which can be fatal, because fat will lodge in the patient's lungs.' The method is primarily used in South America and the US but is less common here in the UK. Practices that do perform fat transfer buttock augmentation here typically use an ultrasound while injecting between the skin and muscle, in an effort to decrease the risk. However, the BBL still has the highest mortality rate of all cosmetic procedures, and regulatory body BAAPS recommends its members refrain from offering it altogether, claiming the results can be 'disturbing'. Just last September, 33-year-old mum-of-five Alice Webb died from complications of a 'liquid BBL' using dermal filler. This saw Save Face campaign for 'Alice's law' to make it illegal for anyone other than a registered plastic surgeon on the GMC specialist register to perform the treatment. Dan himself stopped performing BBLs once reports of serious complications began to rise. 'I decided it was too risky,' he says. This was echoed by a nurse on the Reddit thread who wrote: 'From blood clots to sepsis, it's just not worth it. If the fat travels into the bloodstream, it's over. Not worth the risks.' Despite the risks, in 2023 a blinding 771,333 BBLs were performed, making it the eighth most popular surgical procedure across the globe, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. There's a death for every 4,000 of the procedures performed according to the inquest of Alice Webb, and it seems people are gradually realising its not worth the dangers. Nearly 50,000 fewer BBLs were performed in 2023 than 2022 – and according to Dan, it's becoming less and less popular. Geordie Shore's Chloe Ferry even had her BBL reversed in February, announcing on TikTok: 'I'm really happy. It just looks so much better, I look more in proportion and more like me. 'The surgeon couldn't get all the fat out he wanted to because the previous surgeon might have put the fat too close to the muscle, which is really dangerous, so he took out as much as he could.' While of course there are those who still want that coveted Kim K aesthetic, the £7,000 price tag of the procedure along with more widespread news of potential complications could finally be turning us off. The BBL wasn't the only procedure copping heat from surgeons on Reddit – rib removal was also widely criticised. Dan says the treatment – known as the 'Barbie waist' in the plastic surgery world – is 'coming back into fashion' in recent years. More Trending 'It's pushed by South American surgeons a lot in tandem with a BBL so you get a small waist and big bum,' he explains. 'You don't actually have a rib removed, they break the lowest rib and put a tight waist trainer on, so when the rib heals it looks much narrower.' Dan would never do rib removal, as the 'excessive' complications include the broken rib puncturing the liver, spleen and lungs and in some cases even causing pneumothorax (collapsed lung). View More » 'Plastic surgery should be safe and never put you at high risk,' he adds. 'First, do no harm is the rule of a doctor.' Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: The four real reasons there are so many virgins in 2025 MORE: Cannes' new dress policy is yet another way of policing women's nipples MORE: Inside Kim Kardashian's 'terrifying' robbery hell as she testifies in Paris court trial
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Brazilian butt lift ads banned by UK regulator
Adverts from six companies selling liquid Brazilian butt lifts (BBLs) have been banned in the UK for trivialising the risks and exploiting women's insecurities around body image. All of them appeared on Facebook or Instagram and used time-limited deals to "irresponsibly pressurise" customers into booking, says the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). One ad, for example, tried to entice customers with an "exclusive opportunity" to get a "perfect peachy look". Liquid BBLs involve injecting filler into the buttocks to lift them and make them look bigger or rounded. The ASA says because of the risks involved, cosmetic surgery should be portrayed as a decision that needs time and thought, rather than urgency to book quickly and grab a deal. Clinics must be socially responsible and should not trivialise procedures or play on consumers' insecurities, it says. One ad said: "Get the curves and contours you've always wanted with our safe and effective body filler treatments. Feel confident every step of the way! Safe, proven, and beautifully natural results." Another claimed a 0% infection rate at its sterile clinic, with minimal pain. The ASA says liquid BBLs would carry some level of risk to the patient, such as infections. It adds: "Marketers must not suggest that happiness or wellbeing depends on conforming to a particular body shape or physical appearance." The advertising watchdog says it has been using AI to proactively search for online ads that might break the rules. Three of the clinics - Beautyjenics, Bomb Doll Aesthetics and Ccskinlondondubai -did not respond to the ASA's inquiries. Rejuvenate Clinics said it has reviewed ASA guidance and will remove all references to time-limited offers and state in ads that the surgery is carried out by a medical professional with ultrasound, to minimise risks and enhance safety. EME Aesthetics said all its clients are given a full consultation and are under no obligation to book any procedures, and it therefore considers that its ad had not pressured consumers or trivialised the risks of cosmetic procedures. Dr Ducu said it will ensure it follows the ASA's rules and guidance, that the time-limited Black Friday offer was intended to provide consumers with an opportunity to access the company's services at a discounted rate, and it always encourages consumers to make informed decisions without pressure. Plastic surgeons say liquid BBLs can carry significant risks and require expert skill and training to perform The UK industry is not regulated though - beauty clinics offer them Large amounts of filler may be injected with possible serious side-effects, such as blood clots and sepsis The recent death of mum-of-five Alice Webb has highlighted safety concerns around BBLs Brazilian Butt Lift can be made safer say surgeons Celebrity butt-lift injector who left women with sepsis exposed by BBC
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Brazilian butt lift ads banned by UK regulator
Adverts from six companies selling liquid Brazilian butt lifts (BBLs) have been banned in the UK for trivialising the risks and exploiting women's insecurities around body image. All of them appeared on Facebook or Instagram and used time-limited deals to "irresponsibly pressurise" customers into booking, says the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). One ad, for example, tried to entice customers with an "exclusive opportunity" to get a "perfect peachy look". Liquid BBLs involve injecting filler into the buttocks to lift them and make them look bigger or rounded. The ASA says because of the risks involved, cosmetic surgery should be portrayed as a decision that needs time and thought, rather than urgency to book quickly and grab a deal. Clinics must be socially responsible and should not trivialise procedures or play on consumers' insecurities, it says. One ad said: "Get the curves and contours you've always wanted with our safe and effective body filler treatments. Feel confident every step of the way! Safe, proven, and beautifully natural results." Another claimed a 0% infection rate at its sterile clinic, with minimal pain. The ASA says liquid BBLs would carry some level of risk to the patient, such as infections. It adds: "Marketers must not suggest that happiness or wellbeing depends on conforming to a particular body shape or physical appearance." The advertising watchdog says it has been using AI to proactively search for online ads that might break the rules. Three of the clinics - Beautyjenics, Bomb Doll Aesthetics and Ccskinlondondubai -did not respond to the ASA's inquiries. Rejuvenate Clinics said it has reviewed ASA guidance and will remove all references to time-limited offers and state in ads that the surgery is carried out by a medical professional with ultrasound, to minimise risks and enhance safety. EME Aesthetics said all its clients are given a full consultation and are under no obligation to book any procedures, and it therefore considers that its ad had not pressured consumers or trivialised the risks of cosmetic procedures. Dr Ducu said it will ensure it follows the ASA's rules and guidance, that the time-limited Black Friday offer was intended to provide consumers with an opportunity to access the company's services at a discounted rate, and it always encourages consumers to make informed decisions without pressure. Plastic surgeons say liquid BBLs can carry significant risks and require expert skill and training to perform The UK industry is not regulated though - beauty clinics offer them Large amounts of filler may be injected with possible serious side-effects, such as blood clots and sepsis The recent death of mum-of-five Alice Webb has highlighted safety concerns around BBLs Brazilian Butt Lift can be made safer say surgeons Celebrity butt-lift injector who left women with sepsis exposed by BBC
