They probably wanted to imitate Kim Kardashian, by treating themselves to a makeover in an institute, but they painfully regret it today. In the United States, four women contracted HIV in a spa in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after having a treatment called “vampire lift”, which consists of receiving injections of blood products into the face to rejuvenate it.
In a investigation report published on April 25, the American health authorities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), indicate that these would be the very first documented cases of HIV contamination via procedures using needles for cosmetic purposes. Under what conditions were these women contaminated? Are there other victims? And does this treatment exist in France?
Several contaminated customers
The case dates back to the summer of 2018, when a woman in her forties tested positive to HIV during a stay abroad. A contamination that is incomprehensible to the patient, with no history of risky sexual practices or use of narcotics, nor blood transfusion and whose only sexual partner has tested HIV negative.
After reflection, the only risky practice that the patient then identified was “exposure to needles during a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) microneedling procedure in the spring of 2018 in a spa in New Mexico,” report the CDC. A treatment received a few weeks earlier during the spring at the VIP Spa in Albuquerque. Enough to trigger an investigation by American health authorities.
During the investigations, investigators discovered that other clients had been infected: two of them tested positive for HIV as part of a routine test required for their life insurance, one in the summer 2016 and the other in the fall of 2018, add the American health authorities. The last only learned of her HIV status in the spring of 2023, during hospitalization for a related illness. to AIDS. “These are people who had no known risk of contracting HIV,” Washington Post Anna Stadelman-Behar, a CDC epidemiologist and investigator who investigated the case. It was a shock for them,” the only thing in common being that they had received a vampire lift in the establishment in question.
Serious shortcomings noted
According to investigations carried out by the health authorities among the five cases of HIV linked to the establishment in question, a client of the spa contracted the virus before attending the establishment. The advanced stage of the disease in her and her partner, also HIV positive, indicates that they contracted the virus well before the woman visited the spa for a vampire lift. She could thus be “patient zero”, but the CDC has not been able to formally determine this.
In addition, the investigation demonstrated serious breaches of hygiene and health safety rules within the establishment.
“In fall 2018, an inspection at the spa revealed several unsafe infection control practices,” the CDC reports. A centrifuge, a heated dry bath, and a rack of unlabeled tubes containing blood sat on a kitchen counter. Unlabeled tubes of blood and medical injectables (botox and lidocaine) were kept in the kitchen refrigerator with food. Unwrapped syringes were found in drawers and on counters, and were thrown into ordinary trash cans, instead of specific collectors for perforating health care waste (DASRI) (needles, syringes, lancets, pens, catheters, etc.). Additionally, “no steam sterilizers were found at the scene,” the report states, which indicates that single-use devices “were reused.”
It was after the discovery of the first contamination that the health authorities closed the VIP spa in the fall of 2018. Its owner, a 62-year-old woman, is currently serving a three and a half year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2022 on five counts of illegal practice of medicine, reports the Washington Post.
Popularized by Kim Kardashian, but banned in France
If the vampire lift reminds you of something, it’s because it was popularized in 2013 by the Queen of reality TV: Kim Kardashian, always looking for the latest innovations in aesthetic medicine to maintain a youthful appearance. In practice, “the procedure involves drawing blood from a client, separating the blood into its plasma and cellular components [à la centrifugeuse] and using sterile single-use, disposable or multi-use equipment to inject the PRP into the face for cosmetic purposes, such as skin rejuvenation and reducing the appearance of acne scars,” describe the CDC.
To date, the vampire lift is banned in France, in accordance with article L1221-8 of the Public Health Codewhich provides that “with the exception of labile blood products intended for research involving humans, only labile blood products whose list and characteristics are fixed by decision of the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products”, thus prohibiting the use of PRP for aesthetic purposes.
But what are labile blood products (LBP)? These are “products resulting from a blood donation and intended to be transfused into a patient,” indicates the French Blood Establishment (EFS). In France, PSLs come exclusively from voluntary blood donors. They respect strict rules for donor selection, transport, analysis and storage, in order to guarantee the safety of the transfusion chain.” In France “the EFS has the monopoly on sampling, preparation, biological qualification and distribution to PSL health establishments”.