Deadly Botulism
Uh-Oh. Looks like Botox is going down. Seems that injecting folks with botulinum toxin (a.k.a botulism) into ones face can have serious consequences if one isn’t careful. Imagine that.
The Food and Drug Administration’s warning includes both Botox, a wrinkle-specific version called Botox Cosmetic, and its competitor, Myobloc, drugs that all use botulinum toxin to block nerve impulses, causing them to relax.
In rare cases, the toxin can spread beyond the injection site to other parts of the body, paralyzing or weakening the muscles used for breathing and swallowing, a potentially fatal side effect, the FDA said.
They’ve included the warning, but I wonder if folks like Janice Dickinson (who will turn 53 on Feb. 15 and whose poor eyebrows haven’t moved in 5 years) and that guy that plays Roman Brady on “Days of Our Lives” will finally let their faces show expression by foregoing the risky procedure. Is having wrinkles really so bad that you’d risk paralyzing your throat muscles and basically giving yourself a death sentence? Really? Perhaps some self-love would be better.
I forsee commercials similar to the ones for mesothelioma, interrupting my daytime tv watching. Many a doctor will be biting his nails waiting to see how this turns out.
More:
he FDA said the deaths it is investigating so far all involve children, mostly cerebral palsy patients being treated for spasticity in their legs. The FDA has never formally approved that use for the drugs, but some other countries have.
However, the FDA warned that it also is probing reports of illnesses in people of all ages who used the drugs for a variety of conditions, including at least one hospitalization of a woman given Botox for forehead wrinkles.
The FDA wouldn’t say exactly how many reports it is probing.
“We’re not talking hundreds. It’s a relative handful,” said Dr. Russell Katz, FDA’s neurology chief.
Apparently, just a few incidents isn’t enough to pull the injections off the market. That’s fine. Most of the people that are getting it for cosmetic reasons are filthy rich and there’s not too many of them (you know, the ones that think not being able to move your eyebrows is a good thing).
There was a warning in place for people that suffered from certain diseases- that they would have worse side-effects than people without those diseases. However, the cases now are patients who don’t suffer from those particular ailments.
Nor is it the first warning. The drugs’ labels do warn about the potential for botulinum toxin to spread beyond the injection site and occasionally kill, but the warnings link that side effect to patients with certain neuromuscular diseases, such as myasthenia gravis.
That’s what’s different about these latest cases, said FDA’s Katz: The botulism toxin seems to be harming people who don’t have that particular risk factor. (Cerebral palsy involves a brain injury, not a disease.)
Isn’t that lovely?
The spokesman for one of the pharmaceutical companies said that the increase in dangers to patients with cerebral palsy are caused by the increased dosage of the injection.
Allergan spokeswoman Caroline Van Hove said children with cerebral palsy receive far larger doses injected into their leg muscles than the doses given adults seeking wrinkle care.
Which makes it that much worse. Unless, of course, the toxin gets into the bloodstream of someone like Janice Dickenson, with tons of cash and lots of lawyers. Then the investigation into the potential dangers of the drug will become more intense.
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