A damning investigation by the BBC programme Panorama has uncovered a hidden world of back street doctors and unlicensed plastic surgeons offering teenagers a fast track to adulthood.
In a growing move towards children’s desire to be adult before their time, a number of radical treatments have been exposed by an undercover reporter.
The police are set to investigate a series of treatments offered by these so called experts, based on the secret filming provided by the reporter who posed as a 15 year old boy to reveal the uncomfortable truth. In one surgery the doctor assured his patient he could add at least 30 years to his age. The proposed treatment plan included male pattern baldness achieved via laser treatment, gut implants, cartilage removal from the knee, teeth yellowing, and hair transplants to the nose and ears.
Despite the fact that such treatment is unlicensed the cost was staggering coming in at just over £19,000. The patient was reassured that this could be paid back on a monthly basis at 9.6% interest over 20 years, replicating the debt stress a real 45 year old male may feel, and thus increasing the overall effect of the treatment.
For those wanting to go one step further a course of cognitive behavioural therapy was offered, this promised to replace teenage dreams with a growing self of sense doubt and shame, fear of bowel cancer, cynical world view, nagging feeling that you’ve forgotten something and acceptance that your pension fund is not nearly big enough, but reluctance to do anything about it.
