A class action lawsuit has been filed against a prominent Toronto doctor by patients who allege he injected a banned substance into their faces for cosmetic purposes. The doctor had already been investigated for more than three years for using the liquid silicone, a product not authorized for use in Canada.

Some patients say they are now suffering health problems and think the liquid silicone may be to blame. One of those patients is Anna Barbiero. She says her Toronto dermatologist told her he was using liquid silicone to smooth out wrinkles. What she says he didn’t tell her is that it isn’t approved for use in Canada. After her last treatment, Anna discovered Dr. Sheldon Pollack had been ordered to stop using the silicone two years earlier by Health Canada.

“My upper lip is always numb and it burns,” Barbiero says. Barbiero is spearheading a lawsuit against the doctor, who her lawyer thinks might involve up to 100 patients injected with the same material. “The fact, a physician of his stature would use an unauthorized product on a patient because he thought it was okay, is really very disturbing,” says lawyer Douglas Elliott.

Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons (OCPS) is also investigating Dr. Pollack to see if, in fact, he continued to use the silicone after agreeing to stop and whether he wrote in patient records that he used another legal product when he used silicone. However, in a letter to the College, Dr. Pollack wrote that he had always told patients that the silicone was not approved for sale in Canada, and had warned them of the risks. And in Barbiero’s case, “…I specifically informed her that the material was not approved for sale in Canada… I would like to emphasize that, as is evident on Ms. Barbiero’s chart, I drew a specific diagram on the chart which I carefully discussed with and explained to Ms. Barbiero as I did with every other patient… to explain the nature and likelihood of complications and the reasons and consequences of those possible complications.”

Dr. Pollack declined to speak to CTV News, or to have his lawyer discuss the case. None of the allegations have been proven in court. But the case raises questions about the ability of governing bodies to monitor doctors. “There’s a larger message and that is: buyer beware,” says Nancy Neilsen of Cosmetic Surgery Canada, “It’s incumbent (负有义务的) on consumers to do their research.”

Which of the following is true according to the text?