Cautionary features on ‘Taboo USA’

SHOCKING show has wider range of topics.

RIGHT AFTER we reviewed “Botched,” the TV show about plastic surgery gone horribly wrong, we caught a similarly “shocking” show on NGC, “Taboo USA.”

The program has a wider range of topics than “Botched,” but the telecast we watched last Tuesday, June 21 included one cautionary feature related to cosmetic surgery: It detailed the case of Rogie, a transgender woman who made the big mistake of being operated on by a fly-by-night cosmetic “doctor”—with “monstrous” results.

In trying to save money, she was left with disfiguring lumps on her face, due to the use of cheap injectibles.

Instead of becoming more beautiful, she’s so ugly that she terrifies people who see her, and the best plastic surgeons she’s consulted are still trying to make her looks “normal” again.

So, the word’s out: If you’re going in for plastic surgery, avoid fly-by-night quacks and cheap injectibles—or suffer the sordid and decidedly un-beautiful consequences!

The “Taboo” show next featured Patrice, whose problem was that she was allergic to—everything! She couldn’t go out, had no energy, and felt that she was a burden to her loved ones.

Worse, her doctors believed that her illness was more psychosomatic than physical. She swore that she wasn’t imagining it, but they weren’t convinced.

The telecast’s third featured subject was a young woman, Shayna, who is the first reported patient suffering from an extremely rare disease that has altered the behavior of the Keratin in her body: Instead of being used for follicular growth, it’s been hardened and behaves like—tiny fingernails!

Chemical behavior

It’s difficult to comprehend the chemical behavior gone so painfully mixed-up and wrong, but it’s a harsh reality for the patient-victim.

Her ongoing medical intervention has racked up medical bills that have impoverished her family, but a happy solution is not yet in sight.

Finally, the fourth “unique” person in the telecast was not a patient, but a guy named Mo who has achieved his goal of having the biggest arms in the world!

Billed as the embodiment of Popeye, Mo spends hours and hours lifting weights to make his upper arm muscles even bigger, and has a Guinness Award to show for it.

As you can see, “Taboo USA” seeks to hook viewers with “shocking” cases, so some people can’t be faulted for regarding it as yet another example of exploitation TV.

For our part, however, we benefited enough from some of the facts it communicated that we’re prepared to watch it again, from time to time.
That may not be an out-and-out endorsement, but the show gets a passing grade from us: No boo for “Taboo”!