When teeth look crooked or discolored, a procedure called veneers can make the front teeth whiter and straighter by bonding thin coverings onto the tooth surface. In the United States, a string of incidents has come to light in which people damaged their teeth after booking veneer procedures they found through Instagram or TikTok ads, rather than through a dental office.
According to the Associated Press, police in Atlanta, Georgia, arrested Brandon Diller in October 2024 on charges of practicing dentistry without a license. Diller had promoted himself on an Instagram account with 158,000 followers as "Atlanta's top veneer specialist and trainer." According to Fulton County's District Attorney's office, the training courses and certificates Diller had been selling turned out to carry no legal weight whatsoever.
Half-Price Veneers in Salons and Hotel Rooms and a String of Arrests
These practitioners call themselves "veneer technicians" and see clients not in a dental office but at beauty salons, hotel rooms, or their own homes. Some even advertise multi-city tours and take bookings along the way. A dental office typically charges between 1.4 million and 2.8 million won (1,000 to 2,000 dollars) per veneer, but these technicians advertise a flat fee of 5.6 million or 7 million won (4,000 or 5,000 dollars) for a full set covering several front teeth, less than half of what a licensed dental office charges. Earlier this year, a woman in Illinois who had been posting videos under the name "Veneer Experts" was also arrested on charges of practicing dentistry without a license. She had previously been arrested on similar charges in Nevada.
The Irreversibility of Enamel Removal and the Risk of Pulp Damage
Fitting veneers requires first shaving down a thin layer of the tooth's outer enamel. Because this step cannot be undone, the American Dental Association classifies veneers as an irreversible procedure.
Dr. Zach Truman, who runs an orthodontics practice in Las Vegas, told the Associated Press, "You can also go too deep into the tooth and penetrate what's called the pulp chamber, which contains blood vessels and nerves." He also explained that improper anesthesia can cause severe pain, and that placing a veneer over a tooth with an undiagnosed cavity or gum disease simply seals the problem in, which can eventually lead to tooth loss.
The American Dental Association's Call to Check Licenses and Korea's Medical Service Act
The American Dental Association has repeatedly warned about the dangers of unlicensed veneer procedures in recent months. "Quality control is lost without the involvement of a licensed dentist," said Dr. Ada Cooper, a New York-based dentist and ADA spokesperson. The association explains that becoming a dentist requires years of education and training along with licensure from multiple regulatory bodies, and it directs people to the license-lookup sites in their own state so they can verify credentials before getting a procedure done.
Korea's rules are stricter than those in the United States: Article 27 of the Medical Service Act flatly bans anyone who is not a licensed medical professional from performing medical procedures at all. Violators can face up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won, and if the practice was done for profit, the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Health Crimes imposes even harsher penalties of life imprisonment or a minimum of two years in prison. Operators who advertised unlicensed skin procedures through Instagram and blogger review campaigns were caught one after another in May and June of this year as well. No case of veneer procedures being advertised on social media has yet come to light in Korea, but the same law applies equally to dental procedures.