December 1, 2004
BOTCHED ANOTHER ONE:
Anti-aging activists ill in bootleg Botox probe (ASHLEY FANTZ, JACOB GOLDSTEIN AND CURTIS MORGAN. 12/01/04, Miami Herald)
Two of the men sickened by suspected injections of bootleg Botox at an Oakland Park clinic may be victims of the same anti-aging and alternative treatments that they promoted to their patients.Posted by Orrin Judd at December 1, 2004 9:48 AMBach McComb and Eric Kaplan shared something besides a potentially lethal dose of what could be botulism poisoning, possibly from a knockoff of the popular wrinkle-erasing drug.
McComb, 47, an osteopathic physician who was in a New Jersey hospital on Tuesday, lost his medical license in April 2003 and faces trial in February after being accused of running a ''pill mill'' in Sarasota.
Kaplan, 52, a chiropractor, wellness business consultant and author of Dr. Kaplan's Lifestyles of the Fit and Famous, also had his license revoked in October 2002, but over a paperwork blunder he had been fighting. Kaplan was in critical but stable condition at the Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center.
The other victims were Alma ''AJ'' Hall, 34, an employee and girlfriend of McComb's hospitalized in Bayonne, N.J., and Kaplan's wife, Bonnie, 53, hospitalized with her husband in Palm Beach Gardens, where they live.
Trying to looking young by getting injected with micro-amounts of the deadliest poison in the known universe never struck me as that brilliant an idea. Sort of the 21st Century version of goat-gland and monkey-testicle transplants. Or the ancient Chinese version of drinking magickal (and poisonous) immortality elixirs of mercury and cinnabar for Those Who've Evolved Beyond All That Primitve Superstition.
Even beside the risk, Botox works by totally paralyzing your facial muscles (relaxing out the wrinkles). YOUR FACE CAN'T CHANGE EXPRESSION -- IT IS PARALYZED UNTIL THE BOTOX WEARS OFF. YOUR FACE IS DEEP IN THE UNCANNY VALLEY ALONG WITH WACKO JACKO'S.
Posted by: Ken at December 1, 2004 2:57 PMTwo attaboys for allopathy.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 1, 2004 8:18 PMDo you remember when Colin Powell asked the UN what Saddam was going to do with all that Bottulinin toxin?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 2, 2004 1:56 AM