Beverly Hills Botox Bust: Business Doing Cosmetic Procedures Searched After Patients Allege They Were Injured

Someone should be arrested for this.

Those Botox parties you hear about, where you can go get a shot in the lips and look like a Frankenstein version of Angelina Jolie? Well, unless a doctor or a registered nurse under a doctor's supervision is plunging that needle into your Hollywood face, it's illegal. (And it has to be done in a medical facility, unless a doctor is there).

That according to what Christine Valine of the California Medical Board told the Weekly today.

In fact, the occasion of our conversation was a Botox bust right here in West Hollywood Beverly Hills:

Medical Board authorities (do these people have badges and guns?) served a search warrant this week at Calayan Medical Clinic in WeHo B.H. after it was alleged to be offering "cosmetic surgical procedures" without a license.

One of those procedures included Botox treatments, according to board statement. Another was described as laser treatments.

Our reading of the board's statement: People who were not doctors were allegedly doing this stuff.

Dear rich old white ladies: You're really going to let someone who is not a doctor take a laser to your face?

Well, somebody complained. And some patients, says the board, were injured by the frigging lasers.

According to the board statement:

Investigators from the Board's Operation Safe Medicine conducted surveillance and an undercover investigator, posing as a patient, obtained evidence that an unlicensed female represented herself as a licensed medical doctor, diagnosed a medical condition, and performed laser treatments.

The case was referred to the L.A. County District Attorney's office for possible prosecution (or not).

So the next time you're at a Botox rager, be careful. That woman next to you with the huge, fake lips and permanent look of surprise might just be an undercover agent.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]