“Social networks must react”, calls on the president of the national union of reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgery

“Social networks must react”, calls on Wednesday September 13 on franceinfo Adel Louafi, surgeon and aesthetic doctor in Paris and president of the national union of reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgery. Two sisters were tried on Wednesday September 13 in Valenciennes for illegal injections of botox and hyaluronic acid on hundreds of clients, at least 30 of whom filed civil suits. The defendants proposed these acts on social networks.

These people who offer illegal injections “act with impunity on the networks”, deplores Doctor Louafi. The national union of reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgery has “alert the platforms, in particular Instagram” and has “succeeded in closing a certain number of accounts of these illegal injectors”, he specifies. Nevertheless, they ask the leaders of social networks to be “much more proactive on the subject and taking the initiative to close what, clearly, are not the accounts of two doctors”.

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Because there is a public health issue, he insists. “Since 2018, there has been an explosion of these serious complications that we have never seen in France.” Doctor Adel Louafi makes a link with the rise of influencers. “We carried out a survey at the level of the National Plastic Surgery Union: 60% of cosmetic surgeons have seen complications from illegal injections and more than a quarter have seen serious complications from illegal injections, that is to say complications requiring hospitalization or likely to leave lifelong sequelae”, he warns. Personally, the aesthetic doctor claims to have “seen dozens of patients with complications from illegal injections” and he adds, “I had six hospitalized”.

The president of the national union of reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgery also raises that “unfortunately, victims, and particularly serious victims, often do not file complaints because they are ashamed, because they are afraid of being judged”.