On February 7, 2012 two clinics affiliated with 1-800-GET-THIN said they have temporarily halted Lap-Band surgeries.
In 2011, a class action lawsuit was filed by relatives of two patients who died after Lap-Band surgeries at clinics affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN campaign.
Here, she awaited a consultation on Lap-Band surgery in December 2010 with Dr. Danny Sherwinter, chief of bariatric surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.
In early 2011, however, the FDA approved the Lap-Band restrictive surgery for those with a BMI of 30 or higher who have at least one obesity-related condition, such as diabetes.
"There are doctors out there who set up outpatient clinics, perform Lap-Band surgery on tons of patients, and don't provide proper postoperative care," explains Marc Bessler, MD, director of the Center for Minimally Invasive and Metabolic Surgery at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.
The ads-splashed on billboards, bus placards, newspaper advertisements, the Internet and elsewhere-feature slender, smiling men and women claiming they lost massive amounts of weight and gained control of their lives after Lap-Band surgery.
The FDA's approval means Lap-Band surgery will now be available to patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher who have at least one obesity-related condition, such as diabetes.
About 84% of patients in the study lost at least that much weight within a year of the Lap-Band surgery.
The push toward operations like Lap-Band surgery on the young has brought some resistance from doctors who say it is too drastic on patients whose bodies might still be developing.
