New Wrinkle

Lasers for sags and bags

Lasers have been used to cut cloth, cauterize ulcers, measure air pollution and guide bombs. Now comes a new wrinkle: laser beams for facelifts. A painless, nonsurgical laser-beam therapy, said to improve facial muscle tone, was developed in the Soviet Union, popularized in Europe, and is currently winning a large following in California and Florida. "It's like taking your face to the gym," says one satisfied customer. But according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, it is more like being taken to the cleaners.

The method employs a very low-powered laser, somewhat like the one used to read price codes at supermarket check-out counters, and directs it at sags, bags and furrows. The full course often to 16 treatments can cost as much as $1,000, and considerably more when the recommended monthly "booster" sessions are included. Yet, says Dr. John Munna, chairman of the A.S.P.R.S. committee for false and deceptive advertising, "all it does is run an electric current through the skin that heats up body tissue and produces swelling. When you produce swelling in the area of a wrinkle, the wrinkle appears to diminish."

The FDA has sent letters to chiropractors, who operate the majority of laser clinics, warning them that the procedure cannot be advertised as "safe and effective" and that prolonged use of the laser near the eyes can lead to retinal damage. Further action is hindered by the absence of complainants. Says Munna: "Try to get a patient to say, 'I went for a facelift, and it didn't work.' " .

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