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Chicago — An Illinois woman died of a bacterial infection after injecting her face with hot beef fat in an apparent attempt to self-treat wrinkles, although the cause of death appeared unrelated, ABC News reports.
According to ABC News Chicago affiliate WLS-TV, Janet Hardt, 63, of Homewood, Ill., boiled beef, extracted the fat and injected it into her face earlier this month. Shortly thereafter she went to the hospital complaining that her face felt as though it were burning.
The woman had infections and scarring in her mouth and on her lips, but an autopsy attributed her death to peritonitis, according to the report.
“There are a lot people out there doing self-injections for wrinkles, but I don’t know of any medical associations that would recommend this,” American Society of Plastic Surgeons President Phillip Haeck, M.D., was quoted as saying. “It’s not worth taking a chance with your face to try to save money when it could ultimately cost you a lot more money.”
Ms. Hardt reportedly had injected her face with the beef fat several times and also had undergone several legitimate plastic surgery procedures. Because she injected herself multiple times with the animal fat, she was at risk of developing an allergic reaction, ABC News quotes Dr. Haeck as saying.
“One of the injections could cause the skin to erode or ulcerate,” he said. “We know that injections of animal proteins do not cause systemwide failure, but it tends to cause local reactions. A lot of people who have allergic reactions to animal proteins will say that their face is burning, like this woman did. That’s probably what was going on here.”
By: Bill Gillette
