3 Women Suffer Kidney Failure After Derriere Injections

ByABC News
May 1, 2008, 2:58 PM

May 2 -- THURSDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Three women who received derriere-enhancing injections at an unlicensed clinic in North Carolina developed kidney failure after the procedure.

Not only was the facility unlicensed, the person administering the shots was untrained and not medically supervised, and investigators later could not even determine what, exactly, was in the injections.

All three women subsequently recovered, yet their travails highlight the hazards of getting cosmetic or any other kind of procedure at unlicensed facilities with untrained personnel.

"It's always good to ask for the credentials of the person who is going to be providing a service," said Brant Goode, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention career epidemiology field officer assigned to the North Carolina Division of Public Health in Raleigh.

"Being a savvy consumer of this kind of service takes some work, looking at labels, educating oneself about products. It's similar to anybody going for medical care, informing oneself, educating oneself about exactly what the procedure is, what the risks are, and the qualifications of the person providing the services," he said.

Goode is co-author of a report detailing the three cases that's published in the May 2 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

Countless women are undergoing cosmetic surgery procedures, including getting silicone injected into their posteriors to improve their bottom line, or their lips or their breasts. But procedures and injections administered by unlicensed practitioners have resulted in complications and even, in some cases, death.

The Los Angeles Times recently likened Priscilla Presley's post-surgery facial profile to a Picasso painting. (The work was performed by an unlicensed surgeon, the newspaper reported). And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced that certain flavors of the dietary supplements "Total Body Formula" and "Total Body Mega Formula" contained hazardous levels of chromium. Previously, Tropical Orange and Peach Nectar flavors of the products were shown to contain dangerous amounts of selenium. Almost 200 people have reported adverse reactions and the distributor has voluntarily recalled the products.