Cosmetic Surgery Can Be Very Expensive and Dangerous yet Miami has become the Nation's Capital of Black Market Beauty Treatment
People from all over the world travel to Miami in an effort to get the latest and best in cosmetic surgery. But not all of the cosmetic care being provided is legal or healthy. Indeed, South Florida has become the nation's capital of black-market beauty treatments.
People are getting everything from silicone shots, Botox, and in some cases plastic surgery, at parties, or during private appointments in houses, hotel rooms, beauty salons and makeshift offices.
The unlicensed practitioners, who include doctors trained in other countries, nurses, medical aides and even beauticians, or worse, untrained amateurs simply looking to defraud a willing public for an extra buck, attract patients with low fees, a willingness to use illegal permanent wrinkle fillers, a congenial atmosphere or the convenience of not needing to make an appointment weeks in advance.
It's an epidemic, and it is growing. Take, for instance, the cruel case of a plastic surgeon patient who had her butt implants filled with cement and sealed with super glue by a transgender woman who had been accuse of unlawfully practicing medicine. This tale serves as a cautionary reminder to do your homework on the health care professional that you have selected to perform your cosmetic procedure.
According to news reports, the transgender woman posed in Miami as a plastic surgeon and filled her victims' implants with a miscellany of materials, mineral oil and "Fix a Flat" sealant among them.
In this case, the victim was hospitalized and the transgender woman was arrested and held on $7,500 bond, but police believe she probably had other patients who have suffered from her amateur procedures.
The transgender woman's patients are not the first to be injected with unsafe materials in the name of beauty.
Indeed, Miami offers perfect-storm conditions for cosmetic crime. Miami's proximity to Central America and South America, along with a huge immigrant population and a party scene that caters to sculptured models and bodybuilders make it an ideal hothouse for bootleg procedures.
