NBC just said someone in Albuquerque contracted HIV this year from getting a facial with their own plasma, a ‘vampire facial’ they called it. I feel sad for the patient who didnt know what questions to ask before they went in.
Do you have a link? That doesn’t make any sense to me.
They got HIV from their own blood?! Wouldn’t that mean they already had it?
Link - New HIV cases linked to New Mexico salon that gave vampire facials
Perhaps mods could move these posts to a new thread. There is no point in leaving this thread about blood transfusion in 2004 active.
It’s not clear how they HIV was transmitted but it seems like it would be an easy way for it to happen with contaminated instruments or lack of proper hygiene by infected personnel.
HIV is not “easy” to transmit under any circumstances. Even people engaging in thousands of instances of the highest-risk behaviors will ultimately only raise their chances of contracting HIV from near-0 to around 10%, with a lifetime of unprotected anal sex or sharing needles with IV drug users. A 10% chance of getting HIV is of course very significant, even more so in past times when it was a death sentence and not a manageable chronic condition, but it should be kept in mind that the risk of getting HIV from a single exposure to anything at all that you can imagine is vanishingly small.
Which means that it’s pretty unlikely that muiltiple people with no other risk factors got HIV from whatever was going on at the “vampire facials” clinic (which, one imagines, could only be “re-using needles from patient to patient” - I can’t conceive of anything else that would apply here). As the article states, the idea that the clinic was spreading the virus is just a guess based on finding a common factor among a few patients. I think it’s entirely likely that this is either a coincidence, or that the type of person who gets botox injections and weird blood transfusions at a shady semi-legal clinic is probably also more likely than a randomly selected person to be engaging in other risky behaviors.
Done.
The original thread that these posts came from is here:
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-still-get-hiv-through-blood-transfusions/276508/17
From CNN:
“The spa closed in 2018 after a state inspection found unsafe practices that could spread blood-borne infections to clients…
A vampire facial, also known as a plasma-rich protein facial, involves injecting plasma into the skin on your face using a tool called a micro-needling pen. That plasma typically comes from your own blood. Infections could occur if micro-needling tips or syringes were reused, or if another patient’s blood was used to perform the facial, for example.”
“Unsafe practices” thus could mean improper or lack of sterilization of needles or syringes. And while a single stick from an HIV-contaminated needle has very low odds of transmitting the virus, those odds would obviously go up if plasma from an HIV-positive patient was injected.
To me it would be safe if the practitioner’s equipment and treatment room were professionally cleaned. But I’ll bet there’s no regulations for this and yet an unassuming person who knows the practitioner might assume everything was clean. I mean I would if I were that patient. I can identify with people who make bad assumptions like that or don’t know about blood-borne pathogens and other hazards.
“Ramos De Ruiz was busted running an illegal medical spa back in 2018. At least two of her patients who received the treatment were diagnosed with HIV. Her cosmetology and business licenses had long since expired. An investigation showed Ramos De Ruiz had done a good job at creating the illusion that she was properly trained in these practices, forging numerous certificates, and even a fake degree from the University of Phoenix.”
“In June (2022), Ramos De Ruiz pleaded guilty to five counts of practicing medicine without a license. Wednesday, she received a three-and-a-half year sentence.”
Gee, with an illustrious background like that, what could go wrong?
Isn’t the University of Phoenix one of those diploma-mill schools? It’s going pretty low, if you have to fake a degree from there.
And the odds go up further because this process involves many injections into facial tissue.
Ahhh, but that’s why it’s brilliant! No one would suspect a UoP degree of being forged!
No. It’s a mostly online for-profit school with a lot of dubious practices in its past that provides questionable benefits to its students at a high price. However, it is fully accredited by the Higher Learning Commission a regional accrediting organization. That’s the same organization that accredits almost all the legitimate public and private colleges and universities in a 19 state swath in the middle of the country, including Northwestern, the University of Wisconsin, and Oberlin. That’s not to say the University of Phoenix is as well regarded as those schools; it clearly isn’t. But regional accreditation guarantees that students actually enroll and learn stuff before getting a degree.
In contrast, a diploma mill will give you a “degree” in return for money, no real studying or learning required. If it’s “accredited” at all it will be by a quasi-fraudulent (but not outright illegal) accreditor that has no real academic requirements.