Hadcorp News: Patients 'left mutilated by plastic surgeon' , court told

[Guest guest]

"At a House Government Reform Committee in 1999, Patti White, a school

nurse, said, “The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who

have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage. Vaccines are

supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of

nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very,

very wrong is happening to our children.”"Hadcorp News: June 4, 2008

PLASTIC SURGERY NEWS

Patients 'left mutilated by plastic surgeon' , court told

Times Online

UK

June 3, 2008

A doctor who claimed to be one of the world's top plastic surgeons went on trial yesterday accused of mutilating and endangering the lives of 90 patients with botched and traumatic operations.

Michel Maure, 59, who practised at an unlicensed clinic in Marseilles, is alleged to have left his victims - most of them women - physically and psychologically scarred with failed breast implants, liposuction, facelifts and nose remodelling. He operated in a dirty, run-down surgery and failed to administer enough local anaesthetic, inflicting severe agony on his patients, according to the prosecutors.

The remodelled breast of one woman slid to her armpit overnight, the court was told. Another, driving home, found her shoes filling with blood after a terrifying midriff liposuction, she said.

Dr Maure, an anaesthetist by training, was able to operate as a cosmetic surgeon under a loophole in French law that was closed only in 2002. He was struck off the medical register last year and faces a possible maximum four-year prison term if found guilty on charges of illegal practice, endangering life and wounding.

On his first arrest in 2004 Dr Maure boasted to police that he carried out 300 operations a year and was “one of the great aesthetic surgeons of the world”, prosecutors said.

Dr Maure, who won patients' trust with an ebullient, self-confident manner, denies any wrongdoing. Arriving in court, where 40 lawyers are representing his alleged victims, he said that he was the victim of a plot by jealous rivals. “There was no suffering. When you go to the dentist, you suffer. It's the same,” he told reporters. “The plaintiffs are women who refused to pay for their operation, simple thieves.”

One of his former patients, who said she was given a bungled facelift in 1999, said that Dr Maure must be punished. “I can't feel my ears any more. He made me suffer,” she said as she arrived in court.

Another, called , described the pain as Dr Maure operated locally to diminish a breast. “Throughout the operation, I was telling him that it hurt and I could feel and hear his instruments cutting ... at the end he said that he could not give me any more injections. He sewed me up raw.”

Prosecutors and victims' lawyers said that Dr Maure, who qualified as a doctor in 1974, attracted patients with smooth salesmanship and via an internet site called magicclinic.com. He offered relatively low rates and easy methods of payment.

“The patients cared about health and beauty and he cared about business,” said Jérôme Rambaldi, a lawyer for 12 patients. “He offered them cosmetic surgery like a hairdresser suggests a different hair colour,” he told La Provence newspaper.

Josiane, 58, another patient, described how she approached the surgeon for liposuction. “He said, ‘I am No 1. I have done this thousands of times.' He was very charming and he made the operation sound ordinary.”

She “heard and felt everything during the operation” and left the clinic in shock and later entered hospital. Another woman described hearing screams from a patient in an adjoining room while Dr Maure allegedly carried out two operations simultaneously.

His St Bernard's Clinic was a one-man office that was “dirty and badly maintained”, the prosecution said. Patients faced an “immediate risk of death or very serious after-effects”. The doctor is alleged to have continued to practise in another surgery in a shopping centre after the authorities closed his clinic in 2004.

Dominique , Dr Maure's lawyer, told La Provence that his client was “a likeable man ... a man of great culture, but a free spirit who has no caste or network”.

Dr Maure showed no remorse on the first day of his trial, angrily rebutting his accusers. “Everything she says is wrong; the operation was very successful,” he told one. “It's an implant. You have to accept the minor inconveniences that go with it,” he told another former patient. “You are lying. You are a great actress,” he told Dubrulle, another patient who said that she had been operated on without anaesthetic.

The trial is expected to last two weeks.

Dodgy doctors offer cut-price cosmetic surgery

, Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia

Indonesian women are playing roulette with their looks as they seek out unqualified doctors to perform cosmetic surgeries.

Countless beauty parlors in Jakarta's Glodok and Mangga Dua areas are offering cut-price procedures by "backyard quacks" under far from hygienic conditions.

The Jakarta Post visited several of these establishments under the guise that our reporter was looking to go under the knife. In doing so we found out what procedures were available, which were the most popular and how much they cost.

The first salon we approached claimed to have a two-week waiting list for women wanting botox injections: A bargain at Rp 500,000 a pop.

"The procedure is very, very popular. Many women come to see me every day. Face lifts and laser (surgery) are popular too," said Doctor A, who cannot be name for legal reasons.

Doctor A was quick to assure that he was an "expert" in cosmetic surgery, and that all his procedures were "very safe, not dangerous at all".

He also offered liposuction at the bargain basement price of Rp 2 million -- which would be performed in his dingy upstairs clinic in Mangga Dua.

When told of our findings, Edwin Djuanda from the Jakarta Skin Care Center said these kinds of procedures had been performed by unqualified practitioners in Jakarta for quite some time.

"(It's been happening) in that area (Mangga Dua) since long ago ... cosmetic procedures by non-medical personnel. Patients get referred by beauty salons," Edwin said.

He said the reason people sought "backyard surgeons" was simply because it was cheaper. And that's a claim Gentur Sudjatmiko from the Cipto Mangunkusomo Hospital in Central Jakarta agrees with.

"For instance, rhinoplasty (a nose job) with an implant in a hospital is about Rp 6 million. Elsewhere, it's about Rp 300,000," Gentur said. But, he warned that cut-price surgery was often more expensive in the long run.

"It seems cheap, maybe only by several hundred thousand, but if we have to treat the patient for complications, it's another story."

The next salon visited was located near the Lokasari Shopping Plaza, where botox and face lifts were advertised in the front window. Inside, a cabinet was crammed with trophies and certificates, all of which bear Doctor B's name -- but it's not clear what reason they were awarded.

During our consultation, it emerged that Doctor B was also a "specialist" in breast surgery and rhinoplasty. In actual fact, the only qualification she holds is a degree in acupuncture. And that doesn't surprise Gentur.

"A lot of doctors want the competency to do the procedures. They're jealous of us (cosmetic/plastic surgeons) -- general practitioners, general surgeons, dermatologists, dentists everyone. They want to do what we're doing," Gentur said.

He added the most frightening thing about these doctors was that a patient could be easily fooled into thinking they were in safe hands. He said thanks to cheap overseas "crash courses" in cosmetic surgery, many more doctors were looking to become a "jack of all trades".

"They try to learn outside this country. They train for only two weeks and pay Rp 15 million. They train in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China" he said.

Edwin advised patients to do some research before picking a surgeon, to guarantee a safe procedure.

"Check their qualifications, whether they're a specialist or not, where they trained and if they have a valid license."

Edwin said another important thing was the doctor's "track record, and how many patients they have already had". He added the best bet was to go by word of mouth.

However, it seems as though that advice is being largely ignored, judging by the number of people in Doctor B's Lokasari waiting room. The rickety stretcher where the operations are carried out and the grubby surrounds also don't appear to be a deterrent.

Doctor B says business is brisk and her gold jewelry and labeled clothing clearly reflects this. Face lifts here cost Rp 500,000, breast implants will set you back Rp 3 million and the incisions will apparently take as little as one week to heal.

But Doctor B is willing to negotiate: "There's lots of competition (for business in the area), so I will match prices by other beauty salons."

One of the other procedures Doctor B offers is probably viewed as being relatively harmless, but in reality is among the most dangerous: The injection of industrial grade silicon (bath-tub caulking material) to the breasts, hips and buttocks as a filler or "plumper" is a growing trend because it's relatively pain-free and produces seemingly good results.

But Gentur warns that while the patient's appearance may be enhanced in the short term, these types of injections can be disfiguring, as the silicon often moves around the body, changes shape and/or hardens.

"The young ladies (who are getting this done) are not well educated. As long as it's cheap and good it doesn't matter. But after two or three years it becomes a disaster."

He said once injected the silicone is impossible to completely remove and partial removal can result in heavy scarring. The procedure is also known to cause lung failure, autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, severe infections, open sores and HIV and hepatitis from non-sterile needles.

In terms of what's currently being done to stop these illegal operations, the answer is simply "nothing", with police turning a blind eye.

"That's the problem. The ones who do illegal plastic surgery, they're being protected. The police are paid to protect them, that's why there are so many in Glodok and Mangga Dua," Gentur said.

He said he believed education was the key. Gentur is now advocating a publicity campaign informing people of the consequences of cut-price surgery and urging them to go to qualified physicians instead.

BIG PHARMA

Thimerosal Risk Hidden by Feds, Big Pharma

Date Published: Monday, June 2nd, 2008

Newsinferno.com

New York, NY, USA

In 2005, F. Kennedy, Jr. published a lengthy examination of the history of Eli Lilly´s deadly mercury compound, thimerosal, in vaccines and its decades-long history of suppressed data about dangers to those receiving it. Following is the third in a series of information from that piece, which described the outcome of a 2000 meeting—The Simpsonwood Conference—in which a group of government scientists and health officials met for a secret, highly-secluded meeting convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the coming days, we will continue to provide more information from this important paper on this dangerous health issue.

According to Kennedy, “The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power, and greed.”

Kennedy said he was “drawn into the controversy only reluctantly” but notes that as both a lawyer and environmentalist, he “spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity” and “frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines.”

Kennedy said that he was skeptical and “doubted that autism could be blamed on a single source.” He also understood the government’s standing in reassuring parents that vaccinations are safe and necessary to rid society of deadly childhood diseases. Kennedy also added that he was often in agreement with known skeptics such as Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, who criticized his colleagues on the House Government Reform Committee for jumping to conclusions about autism and vaccinations saying, “Why should we scare people about immunization until we know the facts?”

Kennedy stated that he became convinced about the reality of the thimerosal link to the rising epidemic of childhood neurological disorders after reading the Simpsonwood Conference transcripts, studying the leading scientific research, and speaking with many of the nation´s pre-eminent mercury authorities on mercury. Kennedy notes that five of his children belong to what is often referred to as the “Thimerosal Generation,” the group of people born between 1989 and 2003 and who received heavy doses of mercury from vaccines.

At a House Government Reform Committee in 1999, Patti White, a school nurse, said, “The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage. Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children.”

As of the date of the Kennedy piece, written in 2005, over 500,000 kids were suffering from autism and pediatricians were diagnosing over 40,000 new cases annually. Until 1943, the disease was unknown. In 1943, autism was identified and diagnosed among eleven children born in the months after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in 1931.

Some dispute the rise in autism is caused by thimerosal-tainted vaccinations, arguing that the autism rise is a result of better diagnosis. Because most of the new cases seem to affect a single generation of children, this theory seems, at the very least, questionable.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 4:44 am and is filed under Legal News, Pharmaceuticals.

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