Botox Or Bust

3 Pages 862 Words

Botox Or Bust
Botox is a new experimental drug wondering around the field of medicine. Being compared with the medical breakthroughs of penicillin, Botox has been found to help a wide variety of symptoms. From backaches to wrinkle relief, Botox has helped thousands of patients ease pain and look better. Yet, is this new-age drug – which is made from a deadly poison first developed for biological warfare – safe to use with only informal research? Although Botox must undergo more extensive studies, this new neurotoxin is intriguing doctors and creating medical breakthroughs.
How did scientists discover this amazing drug? It turns out Botox came from bacteria called clostridium, which is found in contaminated home-canned foods . Once this bacterium is swallowed, botulism – a poisoning that causes throat constriction, vomiting, and paralysis of the respiratory muscles – may develope. Without immediate treatment, the victim of botulism often suffocates to death within 24 hours. Scientists tried to use clostridium as a biological weapon. They found that it was extremely potent (100,000 times stronger than nerve gas), yet too volatile to be efficiently used. Then, microbiologist broke up the bacteria into 7 different botulinum toxins – serotypes A, B, C, D, E, F and G. They found that botulinum toxin type A, named Botox, targets certain muscle cells and relaxes them1. This new toxin was then tested on lab monkeys with
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misaligned eyes, and found that Botox effectively aligned their eyes with no severe side effects. This encouraged doctors to test Botox on a variety of muscle problems, including strabismus1 and blepharospasim2. It appeared effective for both fields, and – in 1989 – was approved for treating these problems by the FDA3.
Soon after this treatment was discovered, Botox was approached from a new angle. When using Botox around her patients’ eyes, Dr. Carruthers – an...