Five thousand doctors and aesthetic medicine specialists published an open letter to Health Minister Stéphanie Rist on Sunday, demanding stronger action against illegal cosmetic injections following the deaths of two young women in four months, including the Nice case that left a 25 year old dead after an unlicensed botox injection last month.
Published in Le Parisien and signed by members of the Syndicat des Médecins Libéraux and the Cercle des Bonnes Pratiques en Médecine Esthétique, the letter poses the question directly: "How many more deaths will it take, Madame la Ministre?" The doctors point to a growing black market of unqualified practitioners performing hyaluronic acid and botox injections, warning that 40 percent of people seeking aesthetic injections in France now turn to providers who are not doctors at all.
France's medicines safety agency, the ANSM, has repeatedly warned that injections performed by non-doctors are both illegal and dangerous, capable of causing severe complications including infections and tissue necrosis in addition to death. The letter's signatories are calling on the health ministry to toughen sanctions against unqualified practitioners as a matter of urgency.