A Black Box for Botox?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


botox.jpg
In a move likely to be protested by TV anchorwomen and medi-spas everywhere, the consumer group Public Citizen has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to place a black box warning label on Botox indicating that the popular anti-wrinkle treatment can be deadly. The FDA has received reports of at least 16 Botox-related deaths, including four in children under 18, as well as 180 cases of serious adverse reactions to the drug.

The adverse reactions are much worse than a few laugh lines. The botulism toxin, which smooths wrinkles by relaxing muscles, occasionally migrates far beyond the creased brow. Botox can paralyze the respiratory muscles or cause difficulty in swallowing, a problem that leads to food and liquids lodging in the lungs and causing life-threatening pneumonia.

European regulators have already widely publicized the risk, but the FDA has been slow to react, leaving Americans blissfully ignorant about the perils of vanity and doctors free to administer the drug for all sorts of unapproved uses. (The only cosmetic use of Botox approved by the FDA is for smoothing wrinkles between the eyebrows.) While the new FDA data are striking, didn’t we all sort of know, deep down, that paralyzing your face with a deadly poison was probably a bad idea? Here’s hoping that Public Citizen helps make wrinkles fashionable again.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate