Word: toxin
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...look years younger or at least "well rested"? Maggie, a 52-year-old who wants to be identified only by her first name, would say yes. And so she is sitting in a Manhattan doctor's office having her forehead injected with a dozen or so shots of botulinum toxin A, or Botox, as it is known commercially. The toxin paralyzes local facial muscles and thus eliminates wrinkles caused by muscle contractions--in this case the worry lines in Maggie's forehead...
...makes her office seem more like Oprah than a dermatology clinic. The injections she administers--"Don't worry! It's only a baby needle!"--leave a series of bloody little welts across Maggie's forehead. Though they look like nasty mosquito bites, they will disappear within minutes as the toxin is absorbed into the muscles; within four or five days, Maggie's forehead will be immobile, about which she is unconcerned. "People aren't that observant," she notes. "They don't say, 'Hey--you can't raise your eyebrows...
...less publicized wonders of modern medicine that the planet's most lethal toxin--the one that causes botulism in badly canned vegetables and can make a capable germ-warfare agent--now offers hope for the vain. A less messy alternative to face-lifts and chemical peels, Botox was first approved by the FDA in 1989 for the treatment of spastic eye muscles. It didn't take long, however, for doctors to discover its "off-label" cosmetic applications. Last year, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, more than 65,000 Botox procedures were performed--mostly on women...
FISSURE FIX Relief is reported for the painful skin tears known as anal fissures. Injecting the area with a tiny amount of botulinum toxin--yes, the stuff that causes botulism--seems to allow the sphincter to relax. That creates more blood flow--and helps the fissure heal...
...Concerned about biological warfare in the weeks and months preceding the Gulf War, the Defense Department pumped soldiers full of vaccines designed to protect against everything from botulinum toxin to anthrax ? a chemical cocktail that some charge caused illnesses after...