I need to comment on your last posting. But before I say anything I want to make sure that you and everyone else know that I am only responding to your comments and not to you. I am not trying to make this anymore than a response to your points which I feel need some clarification.
HB 3178:
[quote] The bill would permit the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to . . . administering the regulatory program.
…Was introduced because there were laser centers operating that needed to be more strictly controlled. This is something that was needed because lasers are very dangerous. That’s why you get this: (URL deleted)
And this: (URL deleted)
It’s all really very easy to understand why this House Bill was introduced. [/quote]
This is an example of making an inference without the facts. Your point is that lasers are dangerous and therefore this bill was introduced to protect the public from that danger. Which is not true, but before I tell you the real reason the bill was introduced, let’s talk about the danger. We are not talking about all lasers but just about hair removal lasers. The picture you show was actually not done for laser hair removal.
There is no question that hair removal lasers can cause skin reactions. The question is how serious are they. The problem with the photos that are widely circulated (the one you showed, I’ve seen many times before) is that they never ever show how it looks six month or a year later. Almost invariably everything is gone. This is not to say that there isn’t a handful of people with permanent scarring (generally very small indentions not unlike acne scars) but the statistics are very low. In fact, I would argue that the incidence of permanent skin changes (scarring) is less than results from injuries due to a) electrolysis, b) plucking, c) shaving, d) waxing, e) ingrown hairs (PFB), and f) even hair curler burns. But no one states that laser hair removal is perfectly safe.
Now about that regulation (which was submitted late in the last legislative session and has been resubmitted this year as HB174). That bill was submitted for the sole purpose of establishing mininum standards of training, education, and experience so that the people (physicians and non-physicians) doing laser hair removal could be held to a higher standard. One of the things that bill does is to establish that laser hair removal is not the practice of medicine and that laser hair removal does not have to done under the control of physicians, who are calling everything as patient safety, but are really trying to maintain economic control.
The bill was not submitted as a response to an outcry of danger from laser hair removal, nor was it submitted because laser hair removal was deemed dangerous. And I know that with 100% certainty. Why? Because I wrote the bill and was one of the parties who submitted it.
So let’s agree to some things. Let’s agree that electrolysis and laser hair removal are complementary and that neither is the final solution by itself. Let’s also agree that either system, in competently trained hands, are very safe. And finally, let’s agree that if we are going to state opinions as fact, that we back up those opinions with real data. Not inferences or assumptions or poorly conceived arguments.
If you wish to believe that laser hair removal is terrible and that it is a danger and does not effectively remove hair. That’s fine. It is your right. But if you are going to post here at least back that up with real facts to support your argument. Otherwise, you are doing a real disservice to those who are reading this site and who do not have the experience or knowledge to separate out fact from your fiction.
![http://www.laserhairremovaljournal.com/Before-After-Pictures/Fourth-Laser-Hair-Removal-Treatment/Minutes-After-Fourth-Laser-Treatment/Bikini-1.jpg[/image]](http://www.laserhairremovaljournal.com/Before-After-Pictures/Fourth-Laser-Hair-Removal-Treatment/Minutes-After-Fourth-Laser-Treatment/Bikini-1.jpg%5B/image%5D){kind=link}