Sometime around 1996, Medical Director Carlos Puig had a bitter split with the other co-owners of the Cleveland Hair Clinic, and the two parties were involved in a precedent-setting lawsuit, where Puig's legal team was slapped with record-setting fines for lying to a federal judge.

This "Our Experience Will Grow On You" booklet shows that the Cleveland Hair Transplant Clinic continued to mislead the public, approximately one year after Dr. Puig had left.

This booklet makes several false or misleading claims: This booklet repeatedly implies that a hair transplant will create a full head of hair, which is impossible. This booklet claims that "most men have an overabundance" of donor hair, which is a lie. This booklet falsely implies that a hair transplant will "eliminate baldness" and uses misleading phrases like "Move it or lose it." This booklet claims that radical Scalp Lifts and Juri Flap procedures give a patient "instant gratification", which misleads patients about how serious and invasive these procedures are. This booklet claims that a crude "Line Graft" (aka "slot graft") hair transplant will result in the patient looking "the way Mother Nature meant you to look."

Throughout the booklet, the clinic refers to their use of crude Line Grafts as a "state of the art technique". But it's not enough to just claim you use "state of the art" techniques, you must then actually use them. When this booklet was written, in 1997, the true "state of the art" approach was to dissect "Follicular Unit" grafts under stereomicroscopes, and that approach had already been considered "state of the art" by ethical surgeons for several years.

A biography of Dr. Puig calls Line Grafts a technique from the "80's". So why was the Cleveland Hair Transplant Centers still using a technique from the 80s (Line Grafts) and calling it "state of the art" in 1997? Because clinics will make more money when they LIE to patients.

The hair transplant "industry" is completely unregulated, with no established or enforceable standards whatsoever, so clinics can make blatantly false claims, with no disciplinary action or legal repercussions. The only result of lying to patients is increased profits.

Unfortunately, that continues to be true of the hair transplant industry today.

Below, we see the front cover of the "Our Experience Will Grow On You" booklet.

The inner liner is a semi-transparent sheet with an illustration on it, (which we also saw before in the Puig Medical Group's 1994 booklet.) The illustration shows a man with a full head of hair, transforming into a totally bald man. But when you turn this page to begin reading the booklet, the illustration is reversed, and it now shows the totally bald man transforming into a man with a full head of hair.

This creates the false premise that a totally bald man can reverse the process of hair loss and regain a full head of hair, by getting a hair transplant. However, hair transplants do not create any new hair, they simply move hair from the back to the front.

The dramatic "before and after" results shown in this illustration are PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE with a hair transplant.

So WHY is the Cleveland Hair Transplant Center deliberately creating this false premise in the minds of potential patients? Because building false hopes in patients is good for boosting sales.

Page 1 of the booklet claims that a hair transplant using Line Grafts is "totally natural". This is patently false.

First of all, there is absolutely NOTHING natural about a hair transplant. It's not any more "natural" than a face lift is.

Secondly, a hair transplant cannot honestly be claimed to LOOK "totally natural" if it doesn't duplicate the way hair is naturally patterned on a human scalp. Hair does not "naturally" grow in "Line" formations, so it is ludicrous to call Line Grafts "natural". A visual inspection would reveal that a patient had had a hair transplant, when these crude techniques are used. So that is NOT a "totally natural" look.

While surgical techniques might change, the definition of a "totally natural" appearance does not change from year to year.

It is false advertising to say that these hair transplant are "totally natural" or LOOK "totally natural".

Page 2 makes the bogus claim that "most men have an over-abundance" of donor hair. This is a completely false and harmful lie. It deceives patients into thinking that they will always have "more than enough" donor hair available to satisfy their needs. Unfortunately, the truth is that the vast majority of patients will eventually run out of donor hair, before they are able to achieve the coverage that they hope for.

This false claim of "over-abundance" deceives potential patients into thinking that the limited supply of donor hair is not a problem, when actually, it has always been universally recognized as one of THE major limitations in the hair transplantation process. Creating this false premise encourages otherwise-reluctant patients to go forward with a hair transplant procedure, because it creates an unrealistic expectation of potential success.

Instead of educating patients about the limitations of the donor supply, and how that factor will limit the patient's results, this booklet deliberately LIES by claiming that there is more than enough donor hair.

A patient cannot make an informed decision about getting a hair transplant without being told about the real limitations of the patient's donor supply. Yet here is the Cleveland Hair Transplant Clinic intentionally misleading patients into thinking there is an "overabundance" of donor hair.

The following page shows a fellow who claims that a "Hair Transplant equals Freedom".

This is a bizarre statement to include in a booklet that is presented in a disguise of "educating patients". Where are the facts?

On the next page we see the second person allegedly claiming "When you look good, you feel good" or words to that effect.

Coincidence?

The phrase "When you look good, you feel good" was one of the Cleveland Hair Clinic's advertising "catch-phrases" for many years. Could anybody believe that these statements were actually written by the models themselves?

On the next page, the model claims that he "ended his thinning hair days" by getting a hair transplant.

Even if the model is actually the person responsible for this false claim, it is irresponsible of CHTC to print it. Hair loss is PROGRESSIVE, and it is IMPOSSIBLE for a hair transplant to prevent future hair loss.

A hair transplant can NOT "end thinning hair days".

The model claims that "no one will ever know" that he "would have been shiny bald." This false claim misleads the public into thinking that a hair transplant prevents future hair loss, which is not true. A hair transplant is not a "cure" for hair loss, despite the misleading claims in this booklet.

Is this next fellow wearing a cosmetic concealer like "Dermatch" or "ProThik"?

It is illegal for cosmetic surgeons to retouch photographs, yet many clinics have broken the law this way. And it may or may not be illegal to use cosmetic concealer on a model, but it would certainly be unethical.

Notice how this fellow makes the bogus claim that his hair transplant will "end baldness". Even if the model is actually the person responsible for that misleading claim, it is totally irresponsible and deceptive of the CHTC clinic to print it.

This fellow also claims the clinic is doing hair transplantation "more naturally than ever. " Why then has the Cleveland Hair Clinic ALWAYS advertised that their hair transplants were "totally natural looking" since the late 70's? How could the "more natural" transplants advertised in this booklet be MORE natural than the "totally natural" results that were claimed in the past? Both of those advertising claims cannot be true.

Then there is the ridiculous statement "Move it or lose it". Moving hair and losing hair are two completely UNRELATED processes! "Move it or lose it" misleads patients into incorrectly thinking that they should HURRY UP to get a hair transplant soon, because a hair transplant can prevent them from losing hair. If anything, hair transplants actually accelerate hair loss by causing "shock fallout"

What a bunch of BALONEY !

Next we see more bogus claims of a "state of the art" procedure: Line Grafting. In 1997 (when this booklet was printed) Line Grafting was NOT 'state of the art'.

The next two pages discuss scalp reductions, scalp lifts, and flaps. These horrid procedures are less popular because of the horrific damage they can cause, but they are still being done, even today. (See the section on Scalp Lifts for more information). A few surgeons will admit that Scalp Lifts, Flaps and Reduction procedures actually HARM TOO MANY PATIENTS, in relation to the small number that can actually be HELPED by them. The fact that the Cleveland Hair Transplant Center was STILL mass-marketing these radical disfiguring surgeries in 1997 is sickening.

Here the CHTC clinic falsely claims that serious surgeries like scalp lifts and flaps will result in "immediate gratification".

DOES THIS LOOK LIKE "IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION" TO YOU ??? Because that's EXACTLY what the booklet claims a Scalp Lift is... "immediate gratification." "Obviously the scalp lift creates an immediate gratification for the patient..."

"It's my medical opinion that much of the work in scalp reductions and flaps are tantamount to malpractice at the present time in today's culture. And when things go wrong, I think the doctor has very little grounds to stand on. Unfortunately, things go wrong too often. I think the patient's safety is critical. And those two operations have too many things that go wrong. When I had the complications associated with my scalp reductions, which was accelerated hair loss and scarring, I called one of the world's experts, and I said, "Hey, this is what happened to me. Have you ever seen that before"? And he chuckled. He said, "Yeah, we see it all the time." And I said, "Well, really." I said, "How come you didn't publish this"? He says, "Well that's not good for business." And I was appalled by the comment because I was suckered in. And I was suckered in because people all talk about the good things. Nobody talks about the bad." Dr. William Rassman, Hair Transplant Surgeon, Medical Director at New Hair Institute http://www.thebaldman.com/Interview_rassman.htm

The next page makes the similar FALSE CLAIM of "immediate gratification" regarding Juri Flap surgery.

Any claim of "immediacy" in the world of hair transplantation is a LIE. The invasive Scalp Lifts and Juri Flap procedures require months to heal.

Here's another bogus claim by CHTC that Line Grafts will result in a totally "natural" look... "the way Mother Nature meant you to look." This is another example of the clinic "over-selling" hair transplantation with false claims. If this claim were true, everyone's hair would naturally grow in line formations in people's scalps, in between larger "pluggy" clusters. Obviously that is not how hair naturally grows. There is also nothing "natural" about hair transplant surgery, any more than a face lift surgery is "natural".

The CHTC clinic also claims that line grafts are so "precise", that it makes ladies into suitable candidates for hair transplantation. Line grafts are a crude technique that was abandoned, and the claim that line grafts can be used "in and around" naturally growing hair without damaging those existing hairs, is bogus. Even with the most modern techniques, ladies are usually not good candidates for hair transplants to begin with, because they are prone to diffuse unpatterned hair loss, and do not have a stable "donor area". The idea that Cleveland Hair Clinic would try to target a female clientele with these crude techniques is revolting.

On the next page, the clinic stoops to using humiliation, to prey on a balding man's insecurity: "You know your hair loss is a problem..."

A legitimate doctor does not take advantage of peoples' insecurity, in order to boost their profits.

SLEAZY!

This page shows the number of chains in the Cleveland Hair Transplant Center operation, at that time still one of the largest hair transplant franchises in the world.

In my opinion, their dishonest approach to medicine was the key to their success.

Note at the bottom, how in very small print, it says that if you continue to lose more hair, that CHTC will be available to perform more surgery on you. In all of the promotional material I have seen from Cleveland Hair Clinic, this is the first hint they've ever made about how additional surgery might be necessary, and it comes at the end of the booklet and is in unreadable "fine print".

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