Thanks to Angelica for sending us the following article...Myrl
More doctors suspended over bootleg Botox
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/02/11/botulism.probe.ap/index.html
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AP) -- Florida health officials Thursday moved to
suspend the licenses of three more doctors in a widening investigation
into the use of a dangerous Botox knockoff that has paralyzed at least
four people.
The action brings to nine the number of Florida physicians accused of
using an unapproved form of the botulism toxin to remove wrinkles.
The state Health Department issued emergency license suspension orders
against three doctors accused of injecting at least 68 patients with
the toxin. Health officials said they do not know of any injuries to
those patients.
The doctors' names were found in invoices of Toxin Research
International, an Arizona company under indictment on charges of
supplying the bootleg Botox.
Earlier this month, two Arizona doctors connected to the company were
arrested on charges of creating and selling the substance. Also charged
was a Florida doctor who investigators said accidentally paralyzed
himself, his girlfriend and two others with injections of the toxin.
While the doctor got toxin from TRI, the toxins he injected himself and
the others with came directly from the company's supplier.
Botox is the brand name for a government-approved wrinkle-remover. It
uses a weakened version of the lethal botulism toxin to tem****arily
paralyze nerves that cause wrinkles.
