February
2008
Is Botox Safe?
“Botox Can Kill!” There has been a recent large press play about Botox killing people. This was a huge and unfortunate media play intended to catch your attention during prime time. In fact, millions of people worldwide have received Botox for medical and aesthetic purposes, and there are 75 countries around the world who have approved the use of Botox. In the United States alone, more than 13 million aesthetic procedures have been performed with Botox Cosmetic since the product was first approved in 2002. In its entire history, there has never been a single reported death where a cause or link to Botox Cosmetic was established.
In the cases you heard about in the media, these few cases were reported in otherwise very ill children who received very large doses of Botox for juvenile cerebral palsy and other large muscle and lower limb spasticities. In the latter, this use is not even approved in the United States. Some of these doses were 100 times greater than what we would use for normal wrinkles: Some of these patients were frankly overdosed. In addition, other patients in this study died of other causes including pneumonia, and although they had received Botox to treat their underlying disease, it was the pneumonia that killed them and never the Botox. Nonetheless, it had to be reported.
One patient told me she heard that “Botox causes botulism.” Botulism is a disease wherein one is inadvertently exposed in massive doses of botulinum toxin accidentally. Botox injected cosmetically for wrinkles is placing a very tiny amount of this protein into specific muscles that cause wrinkles on your forehead - not muscles that control breathing. One is uncontrolled and massive - the other is controlled with minuscule doses in non-critical areas (your wrinkles). There is no relation - Botulism as defined in medical textbooks is not caused by cosmetic injections of Botox.