Beauty and the risk to vision

Lack of regulation in laser hair removal at beauty clinics could lead to the risk of permanent blindness or scarring.

A report in The Daily Telegraph (May 10) stated that regulations were scrapped in October 2010, enabling beauticians to set up business with cheap Chinese laser machines costing as little as £1,600 without any training.

Stanley Batchelor, a laser protection specialist, Professor Harry Mosely, president of the British Laser Association, and Graham Hart of the Society for Radiological Protection said they were aware of many cases where people had been scarred by lasers operated by poorly trained beauticians.

Professor Mosely warned that a single flash of a laser could cause blindness, if it burnt the retina and there had been cases where people had lost sight in an eye as a result.