MW Medical is the only manufacturer of a microwave hair removal device. This device appears to be not only ineffective, but unsafe according to consumer and practitioner comments I have received

I have received two reports of consumers who were burned by these devices. In addition, the company is in the dumps financially and probably won't have any money to pay if you sue once you're injured.

Their stock is hovering around .02 dollars a share and their website hasn't been updated since 2000.

Definitely one to avoid!

Interesting post on MW Medical. There was a story on WGN-TV news in Chicago about a year ago about the various hair removal methods including laser and microwave. They said that microwave hair removal is the wave of the future as it works on all skin types and skin colors.

There was also an interview on WebMD with a dermatologist on laser hair removal and he said that the preliminary results were promising and that it looked like microwave hair removal would be more efficient and would require fewer treatments than laser. He used lasers in his practice not microwave.

It looks like the news media and even some in the medical profession were fooled too or were just jumping to premature conclusions.

Thanks for the great info.

RJC2001

Journalists, it turns out, do a lot of silly and irresponsible things.

They all want to be the first to report a "medical breakthrough," so they often hype things that are untested. Think about how many times a year you hear them breathlessly report about some new study that cures something or another, only to report later that the original report was premature. It turns out this is great for journalists, because they get two stories for one.

Journalists can be pretty lazy. I've seen them regurgitate press releases and sales pitches almost verbatim, without bothering to check the facts or anything.

Here's an example:

David Kushner's lazy report on GHR

TV journalists are even worse than real journalists. I strongly recommend that you verify anything you see on TV about hair removal with another source. Those guys are hacks of a whole new magnitude!

You mentioned the WebMD comment on microwaves. It was made by Dr. Jesse Mitchell of Cosmetic Surgical Art in California. Dr. Mitchell was paid to do clinical studies for the device, which might explain his excitement.

Link: 1999 WebMD transcript

quote:

---

live_moderator What type of research is being done in the field of lasers?

Dr_Mitchell There are some new lasers that are becoming available. There is one in particular that I've been doing some studies on: microwave hair removal. And, we've done studies about over the past year and a half. It appears to be a very exciting treatment. We don't have to worry about skin colors or tans. It can treat all hair colors as well, gray, white, red, light brown or black. It appears to be more effective than the current treatments available. It's in the FDA studies, pending FDA approval. It doesn't hurt as much as electrology.

---

You can read about Dr. Mitchell's unpublished report on my site:

Mitchell (1998) Microwave hair removal

Take care,
Andrea

[ May 04, 2002, 08:01 PM: Message edited by: Andrea ]

2002 Bankruptcy update...

On November 29, 2001, the Board of Directors of the Company accepted the resignations of the following members of the Board of Directors: Jack Friedland, Nigel Parker and Elliot Smith. The Directors reported no disagreement with the Company on any matter related to the Company's operations, policies or practices.

As of January 2002, CEO Jan Wallace stopped funding MW Medical with the exception of extraordinary expense. Unable to raise additional capital, and with no ability to meet our obligations to debtors, MW Medical filed for Chapter 11 on January 22, 2002.

Since the filing of the Bankruptcy, the company has not been actively selling any machines.

I never received a positive report from a consumer or practitioner who had used this device. Let's hope if they try to bring it back, they do some serious testing for safety and effectiveness first.

I didn't realize that Jessee Mitchell was part of the microwave clinical study. That sheds a lot of light on the matter! So then the medical community as a whole was not taken with the concept of microwave hair removal. My dermatologist and practitioner were not at all sold on the concept of microwave hair removal. Turns out they were right.

Even a laser industry magazine, Laser Focus World, I believe, was impressed with the initial reports about microwave hair removal and said it would take a lot of market share away from lasers.

RJC2001

Trade mags and doctors paid to do "ongoing studies" are rarely the most objective sources of info. Both derive income from the manufacturers, which makes them less likely to present the downside, such as disfiguring burns reported by consumers. You know, little stuff like that.

You are very well-versed in all this, RJC2001!

Microwaves can not work because the follicle is surrounded by live cells that are comprised mostly of water. You may have noticed when you cook in a microwave oven the food gets hot but the plate does not and the reason for this is the food has water in it but the composition of the cooking utensil does not. Therefore, there is no way to selectively treat the papilla without also treating large amounts of tissue that does NOT have hair but does have water. The water will boil and patients will get scalded and will burn and scar severely.

There is absolutely no way you can use microwaves to treat hair follicle unless someone invents a method to introduce this heat directly into the follicle in a manner similar to what electrologists do....one hair at a time. It takes the same amount of heat to cook a follicle whether it is done by electrocoagulation or microwaved to produce heat to coagulate the papilla.

how about millimeter wave?

geek777, PhD in Millimeter Wave Science

I don't know if any reasearch has been done using mm waves. Which specific wavelenths were you thinking of?
The effect of RF energy on human tissue varies tremendously with frequency. The Aurora operated at 150Khz if I remember right, but that is far away from microwave.

Andrea, do you know what frequency the MW used? There are varying definitions of what a microwave frequency is.

RJC2001

I believe they used 13.56 megahertz.