Are you having a laugh at the market’s expense?
On the 15th October, the trade body representing British “aesthetic surgeons” issued a press release with the screamingly inappropriate headline:
“Exhibit DD: Plastic Surgeons submit evidence to Government review”
For those not in the know, the Government has been reviewing industry practices following on from the PIP implant scandal that blew up last year. And for the avoidance of doubt, this is a hugely serious issue involving, according to the NHS, potentially 50,000 women in this country.
So you’d have thought that the trade body which represents the people who are in part responsible for this situation, would take the matter a lot more seriously, especially when there are so many women affected, wouldn’t you? But no, they couldn’t help getting a big breast joke in their press release.
I shouldn’t really be surprised. This is the organisation that decided to form itself under the acronym BAAPS. I don’t know if this was some homage to Barbara Windsor (nicknamed BABS Windsor for obvious reasons) or just a silly joke but it certainly doesn’t instill me with much faith in their ability to take their responsibilities seriously.
I was surprised to see they had not managed to work a pair of breast into their brand identity but a snake seems an apposite image for them to use. Disappointingly however, they are proud to tell web visitors that they are based inside the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) which undermined my faith in this august body. What is the RCS doing associating themselves with this sort of behaviour?
I don’t know what MP’s think about BAAPS after all their dealings with them in their enquiries. And I wonder if they experienced the BAAPS sense of humour or if BAAPS took this matter a lot more seriously than they do their press releases. Apart from anything, there is a massive cost to rectifying the breast implant problem and I suspect that people who behave like this can’t be trusted to take responsibility to pay the bill. Indeed, should they be entrusted to represent this industry at all?
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