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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Nicola Davis Science correspondent

Obesity surgery to butt lifts: UK concern over unregulated plastic surgery expo

Surgery United Kingdom Obesity London BAAPS ASA
Leaflets and promotional materials on a table
The Health Tourism Expo, held in London last month, has been perceived as an indicator of the boom in people travelling abroad for cosmetic surgery. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

The list of services on offer ranges from the fantastical to the painful, the eye-watering to the bizarre.

There are organ replacement procedures to obesity surgery, Brazilian butt lifts to hair transplants and full body MOTs. This is not the body modification menu of a sci-fi novel, but packages for sale at the Health Tourism Expo – a two-day sales conference for surgical alterations held in London last month.

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