Beauty, Facial disfigurement and Social stigma PART 2

March 2, 2013 - PRLog -- We also know that symmetry of facial form leads to a person being considered beautiful, having more sexual partners and more satisfactory relationships and this standard of attractiveness is similar across every culture. In fact, symmetry appears to have an evolutionary basis for determining beauty in every human culture and suggest our stigmatisation of facial disfigurement may actually be innate and not at all comparable to similar attitudes towards people of differing race or sexual persuasion.

If our attitude to facial disfigurement was actually innate, what would the benefits to society that would allow it to remain in every culture and decade. Well, it could be a protective mechanism that makes us turn away from perceived ill health for the good of society. If this were true, it would certainly explain why we tend to shun patients with a cancer or a facial disfigurement who were suffering from a wasting disease like HIV-facial lipodystrophy syndrome. The HLS condition is a major problem for many HIV patients undergoing long-term use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). The psychological facial wasting effects of the condition can be quite distressing, as it is stigmatised by the larger community. This creates low self-esteem as patients with facial lipodystrophy are twice to three times more likely to feel recognisable as HIV-positive by their physical appearance. The psychological effects of this facial disfigurementinclude depression, suicide as well as social withdrawal and isolation. In fact, a recent UK study showed that 47% of patients with HLS had abnormal scores for severe depression. It was for this reason and the lack of an available pharmacological or proper aesthetic therapy to manage this complex condition that I recently pioneered a new *technique in the Ailesbury Clinic to restore dignity to these socially isolated patients.  

      However, if it is a protective mechanism, then it is certainly more difficult to explain our revulsion when we look at the photos of the faces of the casualties and fatalities in Fallujah taken by US military personnel on November 19, 2004. We instantly know that these persons cannot transmit any disease to us. We should actually try and help these people as the Iraqi Red Crescent announced that conservatively, 60% of the casualties in Fallujah, (which were over 2,000 people) were women, children, elderly and unarmed civilians. Yet, we turn away from these pictures, which are meant to shock, however they are minimal deformities compared to those seen on the “Highway of Death”. On that night of February 26-27, 1991, United States Air Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force) jets pursued and destroyed defeated Iraqi forces began leaving Kuwait on the main highway north of Al Jahra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jahra)in a column of some 1400 vehicles. I lived in Iraq in the months before the event and knew some Kurdish soldiers who died on that road. Yet again, we turn away from these people, even though we know they have no contagious diseases and worse still each one of us is complicent to these current events in our silence. Is it because of guilt or the feeling we should not get involved or it could happen to us.

    It cannot be guilt, because a similar feeling of revulsion overcomes us when we look at the picture of Welsh Guardsman Simon Weston in the accompanying picture. In reality, this was not our war and many Irish people including our Taoiseach spoke out against it. Yet, how many of us would offer Simon Weston an empty seat on a bus if he came down to sit beside us? Does it alter our perception when we learn he was one of the Welsh Guardsmen trapped in the tank deck of the Sir Galahad at Bluff Cove fighting for the rights of the Falkland islanders when it was hit by an Argentine missile? Do we really care that on that day twenty-two men from his own platoon of 30 were burned to death. Probably not!

A recent experiment by the BBC Inside Out team demonstrated this so well. During the study, presenter Julia Hankin was made up with tattoo ink by a make-up artist - to give the appearance of a prominent port wine stain. In the course of the programme she took a seat on a busy bus route. It took 65 minutes before someone would sit next to her.

Later, on the same journey with the make-up off, it was a very different story and someone took the seat next to Julia after about 30 seconds. Professor Nichola Rumsey, from the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of West England performed similar research on the London tube and found that people chose not to sit next to someone when they had a disfigurement on their face. Facial disfigurement and deformity are common causes of human suffering and this is one of the reasons that I enjoy changing people’s faces on a daily basis to make them look more aesthetically beautiful.

* PATRICK J. TREACY MD, DAVID J. GOLDBERG MD Use of a Biopolymer Polyalkylimide Filler for Facial Lipodystrophy in HIV-Positive Patients Undergoing Treatment with Antiretroviral DrugsDermatologic Surgery Vol. 32 Issue 6 Page 804 June 2006