Hong Kong beauty clinic staff told to ‘seize the opportunity’ to sell risky cancer therapy, manslaughter trial hears
Prosecutor says employees were told that customers who had undergone the blood infusion reported reduction in pain and increase in sexual prowess
Staff at a Hong Kong beauty group accused of manslaughter were encouraged to “seize the opportunity” and sell an unnecessary, “amateurish” cancer treatment to healthy customers, the High Court heard on Wednesday.
The cell replacement therapy, which cost almost HK$60,000 a time, should target those with insomnia, pain and immunity problems, one notice instructed employees of the DR Group, even though it had only been tested in a “trial and error” way.
Another notice spoke of an open day that required both “overt” and “covert” salespeople to team up with Chinese medicine practitioners to try to increase sales when a customer only signed up for the trial session without making a purchase.
The process involved blood being taken, processed and reintroduced into a patient’s body. While only two employees had tried it themselves, one notice told staff that customers who had been treated reported a reduction in pain and an increase in sexual prowess, the court heard.
Staff were offered substantial commissions if they made a sale.