We Were Told to Be Afraid | The propaganda that paralysed UK aesthetics

Dearest Practitioner,

Let us begin with the point that matters most: there has been no change in UK law that bans or excludes non-medical aesthetic practitioners. No announcement. No statute. No legislative ambush quietly waiting to be sprung.

And yet, across the industry, fear has travelled faster than the truth.

Many practitioners have found themselves anxious, second-guessing their legitimacy, hesitating to grow, or shrinking their ambitions, not because the law has moved, but because commentary has. Compelling commentary, often delivered with confidence and authority, has been mistaken for legal truth. It is understandable, but it is NOT correct.

There is a reason the most extreme proposals you see circulating online never become law. Not because governments are timid, but because reality intervenes. If aesthetics were handed wholesale to one sector, costs would rise sharply, access would shrink, innovation would stall, and thousands of small businesses, high street beauty & aesthetics clinics, predominantly female-led, would disappear almost overnight. The industry would not become safer; it would become smaller, more expensive, and far less accountable.

That is not ideology. It is basic economics.

Those responsible for legislation understand this well, which is why so much of what circulates remains exactly what it is: opinion, advocacy, or pressure, not law. Persuasive at times, emotionally compelling at others, but not legally binding. The distinction matters.

It also matters that we speak honestly about what cosmetic aesthetics actually is. Dermal fillers and cosmetic toxins do not treat disease, cure illness, or address medical pathology. They are elective, non-permanent cosmetic enhancements chosen by consenting adults. Anti-ageing interventions. Luxuries, not necessities.

A syringe does not become a scalpel simply because one wishes to sound important.

Injectables are not comparable to surgery under general anaesthetic, operating theatres, or permanent anatomical alteration. In fact, it is worth quietly observing that far more invasive practices, such as tattooing, involving thousands of micro-punctures, blood exposure, and permanent implantation of pigment, attract remarkably little professional alarm. Perhaps because they are artistic, time-consuming, and low-margin. Perhaps because they do not flatter status. Selective concern, however, is not safety; it is optics.

Now, a word to our HCP colleagues and it is said with respect.

Many of you entered aesthetics after careers spent caring for the most vulnerable in society. That work commands genuine respect, and society places great trust in you because of it. But trust is fragile. When HCPs sneer at, dismiss, or publicly undermine non-medical aesthetic practitioners who are operating lawfully, insured, and competently, something important is lost. Not just collegiality, but credibility.

Aesthetics is not healthcare. It is not emergency medicine. It is not a surgery under anaesthetic. And when medical authority is used to belittle lawful colleagues, it contradicts the very principles of professionalism, proportionality, and respect that healthcare training instils.

It is also worth pausing on a practical reality few seem eager to acknowledge. If cosmetic aesthetics were absorbed entirely into the medical domain, the consequences would be felt immediately by an NHS already under historic strain. An elective, commercial, non-essential sector would compete with genuine healthcare needs for time, resources, and oversight. That outcome is neither sensible nor inevitable, which is precisely why it has never happened.

Different paths brought people here. HCPs arrived via healthcare. Many non-HCPs came from beauty, wellness, self-care services, or entirely different professions. Different beginnings, same destination, same legal footing.

And this is where the industry either matures or fractures.

The UK aesthetics sector works because it is collaborative. Non-medical practitioners refer to prescribers. HCPs offer treatments others cannot. Clients benefit from access, continuity, and choice. Standards rise not through hierarchy, but through shared learning, education, and accountability.

Fear-based narratives do not raise standards. Exclusion does not improve safety. And pretending one lawful group is inherently less legitimate only fractures trust while doing nothing to protect the public.

The loudest critics and self-appointed know-it-alls, once convinced of their own cleverness, have slowly revealed only their emptiness, a performance so repetitive that even they appear bored with it, just as much of the industry has quietly moved on.

There is no legal purge coming. No secret statute waiting in the wings. No announcement hiding in the shadows.

What exists instead is an industry learning to separate authority from volume, law from opinion, and safety from theatre.

Education matters. Qualifications matter. Future-proofing your career matters. But fear does not.

So, dearest practitioner,

Whether you arrived here through healthcare, beauty, wellness, or an entirely different road, lift your eyes from the noise. Build your business. Invest in your skills. Choose collaboration over conflict.

The future of UK aesthetics will not be written by propaganda. It will be written by professionals who understand that clarity is stronger than fear, and unity far more powerful than division.

Yours faithfully,

The Injector’s Quill

The Propaganda of the Durham Botulism Case

When influence eclipsed evidence, and the aesthetics industry paid the price

Dearest Practitioner,

Last summer of 2025, following the Durham “botulism outbreak”, fear tore through the aesthetics industry faster than truth ever did.

Headlines screamed botulism. Councils murmured. EHOs frowned. Social media filled the gaps with implication and alarm. And quietly, almost gleefully, certain individuals relished the moment, loudly proclaiming “we told you so”, not because the evidence demanded it, but because the narrative suited them.

What followed was not clarity, but chaos. Commentary raced ahead of facts. Assumptions hardened into belief. An industry was judged before the evidence had even settled.

The ambiguity on the Durham Botulism no one wanted to talk about

UKHSA FOI confirms that injections were carried out primarily in residential settings, with some occurring in clinics or salons. More than one botulinum toxin product was involved, and crucially, the specific product used was not identified in all cases.

🪶 There is no definitive pattern here.

🪶 No single setting.

🪶 No single product.

🪶 No consistent chain of causation.

Yet the absence of a clear pattern did not slow the narrative. It accelerated it.

What the investigation actually says, in plain English

The investigation explicitly states that it cannot conclude whether illness was caused by the product itself, the method of administration, a combination of both, or something else entirely.

Put simply: they do not know.

This is not because the question was answered and ignored, but because the data required to conclusively “close the loop” was not available.

Severity, data gaps, and what was never measured

All cases attended A&E. Fewer than five required ICU care. There were no deaths.

UKHSA also confirms that it does not routinely collect long-term outcome data for incidents of this nature. That means there is no comprehensive follow-up dataset capable of definitively linking cause, severity, practitioner background, or setting over time.

So while the incident was clinically managed and contained, the data required to support the more dramatic claims simply does not exist.

When FOI data doesn’t line up and questions go unanswered

When this FOI is placed alongside the MHRA’s failure to meaningfully contextualise Yellow Card data, and councils implying catastrophic risk, a pattern begins to emerge.

Requests for clarification have been made. The responses, where given, do not align cleanly with the Durham case and fail to provide the granularity needed to support the conclusions being implied publicly.

Some may reasonably question whether this approach sits comfortably with the spirit of FOI legislation itself.

We actively encourage practitioners to submit their own Freedom of Information requests, review the responses critically, and observe for themselves how often the facts are skirted, diluted, or redirected.

🪶 Transparency should calm an industry.

🪶 Opacity breeds fear.

The missing question no one wanted answered

One detail has been conspicuously absent from public discourse: who was actually responsible for administering the treatments?

There has been no confirmed disclosure as to whether the practitioner involved was an HCP or a non-HCP.

Industry word suggests the treatments were likely carried out by a healthcare professional operating in private practice, although this has never been formally addressed.

🪶 Instead, the silence allowed implication to do the damage.

🪶 The vacuum was filled with assumption.

🪶 The assumption targeted non-HCP practitioners.

🪶 And the divide within aesthetics deepened.

This is what propaganda does. It does not need to state a lie outright. It only needs to withhold balance, amplify fear, and let bias do the rest.

The real damage

This is a textbook example of how limited facts, amplified without context, can paralyse an industry.

🪶 Not through evidence.

🪶 Through influence.

🪶 Through omission.

🪶 Through selective outrage.

The result was not public protection, but fear, division, and discrimination across sectors of a profession that never received a fair, evidence-led assessment in the first place.

Dearest Practitioner, a final word

Do not surrender your authority to noise.

Challenge the status quo. Question narratives that rely on implication rather than evidence. Continue to submit Freedom of Information requests. Read them carefully. Compare them. Share them responsibly. Truth does not arrive fully formed, it is built through persistence.

And then, when the truth is clear, consider something even more powerful: collaboration.

This industry does not need more division. It needs calm, informed professionals willing to work together across titles, backgrounds, and sectors to restore balance, integrity, and peace.

🪶 Fear fractures.

🪶 Truth steadies.

🪶 Unity heals.

Yours faithfully,

The Injector’s Quill 🪶

JCCP influence that functioned as a DeFacto Regulator without Legal Authority

The DeFacto Culture of Hostility We Were Told Was “Safety”

Dearest Practitioner,

This is not a victory lap.

It is a reckoning, and an invitation.

If you are an aesthetic medical professional who entered the JCCP orbit believing you were protecting patients, raising standards, or doing “the right thing,” only to find yourself in the toxic cycle of opposing non-HCP practitioners, monitoring colleagues, or quietly questioning the hostility it created, this is for you.

And if you are a non-HCP aesthetics practitioner who has been monitored, trolled, reported, isolated, frozen out, or professionally bullied for existing, collaborating or refusing to bow to intimidation, this is especially for you.

Take a breath.

Something important has shifted.

The Charity Commission has issued four formal reports relating to the JCCP.

That alone matters.

More importantly, those reports were followed by:

• Leadership restructuring

• Changes to governance terms

• The retirement of David Sines

This is a regulatory correction.

In Charity Commission language, this means material governance failings were identified, and corrective action was required.

Not suggested.

Required.

This is what happens when a charity:

• Exceeds its lawful remit

• Blurs governance boundaries

• Concentrates influence inappropriately

• Or presents itself as something it is not

Which brings us to an uncomfortable but necessary truth.

The JCCP Was Never a regulator.

It never had legal authority or enforcement powers.

It should never have been framed or treated as:

• A regulatory body

• A regulatory influence

• A Lobbying authority

• Or an arbiter of who “should” or “should not” practise

That framing was overreach, and it has now been corrected.

The Charity Commission does not intervene like this unless lines have been crossed.

This moment marks the end of the illusion of authority, quietly, formally, and permanently.

To the Aesthetic Medicals Who Were Drawn In

Some of you genuinely believed you were defending safety.

Some of you were told non-HCPs were dangerous by default.

Some of you were encouraged to see collaboration as a compromise and support as betrayal.

And some of you now recognise that the hostility, online pile-ons, monitoring, whisper campaigns, and professional freezing were never about patient safety.

They were controlling you.

If you felt uneasy but stayed silent, this is your moment to step forward without shame.

You were not stupid.

You were influenced.

And influence cuts both ways.

The future of this industry does not need saviours.

It needs educators, collaborators, and grown-ups.

To the Non-HCP Practitioners

Read this twice.

You were not paranoid.

You were not imagining it.

You were not “unsafe by default.”

What you experienced was systemic exclusion, amplified by an organisation that was permitted to speak louder than it should have.

• Monitoring.

• Trolling.

• Reporting campaigns.

• Professional isolation.

• Medics were being warned not to support you, prescribe for you, or educate alongside you.

That pressure did not come from the law; it came from influence.

And that influence has now been curtailed.

You are allowed to feel relief.

You are allowed to stop shrinking.

You are allowed to be in the room.

You are safe.

What This Now Means

It means:

• No single body gets to posture as the moral or regulatory authority over this industry

• No profession gets to bully another under the banner of “safety”

• No practitioner gets erased for failing to fit a preferred narrative

It means the industry must return to what actually protects the public:

• Education.

• Competence.

• Accountability.

• Mutual respect.

Without sneering, intimidation or fear.

The Only Way Forward

Education is the bridge, mutual respect is the foundation, and public safety is the shared goal.

HCPs who wish to mentor, prescribe ethically, educate responsibly, and collaborate openly, now is the moment.

Non-HCP practitioners who have built skill, ethics, experience, and client trust under relentless pressure, your voice matters now more than ever.

This is about ending a culture that thrived on division.

It will be built by practitioners who respect each other enough to learn together.

So, Dearest practitioner, wherever you sit in this industry, consider this your invitation:

Choose collaboration over control, and education over ego.

That is how the public is protected, how the industry grows. Together.

— The Injector’s Quill

What is a DeFacto regulator?

A de facto regulator is not a real regulator.

It is an organisation or group that acts as if it has regulatory authority and is treated as if it does, even though the law never gave it that power.

“De facto” simply means in practice, but not in law.

So when we say de facto regulator, we mean:

They weren’t officially in charge, but people behaved as if they were.