National Post (National Edition)
19-year-old accused of botching injections
Posing as a plastic surgeon named Dr. Kitty, a 19-yearold Toronto woman allegedly performed at least one bogus cosmetic procedure that caused an infection requiring corrective surgery.
The woman, with a high school diploma and no specialized training, apparently advertised her services through flyers, including one posted on a wall inside a Chinese restaurant in the city’s north end, Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu, a Toronto Police spokesperson, said Monday.
In April, a woman responded to the ad and received “face-slimming injections,” first in what appeared to be a clinic. She then received further injections in followup appointments in Dr. Kitty’s basement, Sidhu said. Within weeks, the patient had to seek medical help for an infection caused by the proceedure.
Dr. Mitchell Brown, a spokesperson for the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, said “face-slimming injections” likely refers to a procedure that shrinks the clenching muscles in the jaw, called the masseter muscles.
“A common treatment in Asia is to inject Botox into those muscles to shrink those muscles which gives the face a more angled and narrower appearance,” said Dr. Brown, a plastic surgeon and University of Toronto associate professor, who stressed he had no knowledge of this particular case.
The treatment requires regular followups for further injections to maintain the desired effect.
A litany of things can go wrong when injecting Botox — a trademarked name for a neurotoxin that paralyzes or weakens muscles. Too much can overly paralyze a muscle, Brown said. Misplaced injections can paralyze the wrong muscle, or worse, damage an artery or kill tissue in the area. And it can lead to serious infection, as police said happened in this case.
“But that risk is extremely, extremely low when being performed by a certified, trained individual in a proper facility in a proper sterile environment,” Brown said. Drugmakers in Canada, he said, only sell the drug to licensed physicians.
Det. Charles Lee, lead investigator on the case, declined to discuss specifics about the investigation. He did say that he had released the accused photo in an attempt to find other victims. As of Monday evening, he said there was only one victim to have come forward.
Police arrested Jingyi “Kitty” Wang, 19, on Friday. She is charged with aggravated assault — defined in the criminal code as an act that “wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers the life of the complainant.” Wang is next to appear in court on Nov. 9.