In a joint inspection Thursday by Beijing's Board of Health, Industry and Commerce Administrations, and a materia medica surveillance department, 70 percent of beauty parlors in the city were found to have problems, the Beijing Morning Post reported Friday. Many are practicing plastic surgical procedures without proper licenses, instruments or properly sterilized rooms.

According to a recent survey report by the municipal heath department, 70 percent of 66 beauty parlors in Beijing's seven districts are performing medical procedures without a license.

Twenty percent of health-care parlors, which normally provide services such as massages, acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine therapies were also found to provide plastic surgery services such as mammoplasty and liposuction.

According to a health department staff member, these violations are punishable by a 10,000-yuan fine, quite small when compared with the profits from plastic surgery.

In Beauty Harbor on Chaowai Street, inspectors saw all kinds of medical instruments such as needles, scissors, pliers, and liposuction pipes which Dr. Chen Huanran, a plastic surgery expert at the Beijing Plastic Surveillance Association, said were for experiments on pigs.

Inspectors told the newspaper Beauty Harbor was registered as a health-care beauty parlor, and had no medical license to perform plastic surgery.

At another beauty parlor located on the Third South Ring road, a ten sqm glass-enclosed room was used as an operation room, which consisted of a bed, a lamp, a cupboard and a cart. There were one-use liposuction pipes in a disinfectant boiler, ready for reuse.

"Incompetent liposuction operations are very dangerous for patients," Chen said. According to Chen, in order to operate, doctors need professional techniques, special training, and six to eight years of operation experience.

Stricter management and amendments to current laws are needed to control the beauty parlor market in Beijing.