Britain: Anti-aging therapy rules said lax

LONDON, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A legal loophole allows 160 injectable fillers in anti-aging injections to be certified for sale in Britain, compared to six in the United States, experts say.

Sally Taber, director of Independent Healthcare Advisory Services, a cosmetic surgery industry body, said no medical training is required to administer dermal filler injections -- used to smooth wrinkles and fill out cheeks and lips. Many are sold online, allowing patients to inject themselves -- something Taber said was "totally inappropriate," the Daily Telegraph report.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies the fillers as medicines, and advocates in Britain argue the fillers should be classified as medicines in Britain, as Botox is. The law should be tightened to ensure that only qualified surgeons were allowed to perform cosmetic surgery, advocates said.

"Some of the fillers are permanent and therefore if the patient develops a problem it will be lifelong," Taber warned. "There are hundreds of women having problems."

Twenty-five percent of members of The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons said they had seen patients with complications from permanent facial fillers that were so severe they required corrective surgery, a survey indicated.