Olympians pushing Botox - an "outrageous caper"

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, released this statement yesterday:

"It is a sad day when two superb Olympic athletes - whose performances earned a total of 14 gold medals combined - prostitute themselves for undisclosed amounts of money to help Allergan sell Botox. Instead of tens of millions of people watching the athletes’ performances in the past as they strived for their personal best, people will now be able to watch videos of doctors’ performances as they inject former swimmer Mark Spitz and former gymnast Nadia Comaneci with Botox.

This sends a terrible message to athletes, young or old, and to others that they should not accept the way they look as they age but, rather, should try to look their "personal best" by the Botox-enhanced pretense that they are younger than they really are.

Another trouble with this slick marketing campaign is that botulinum toxin (available as Botox and Myobloc) can cause life-threatening adverse reactions. In January, Public Citizen petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to immediately increase its warnings about Botox and Myobloc; adverse reactions can include paralysis of the respiratory muscles and difficulty swallowing (dysphagia), a condition that can allow food or liquid to enter the respiratory tract and lungs, causing aspiration pneumonia. While the data in our petition mainly related to problems associated with the medical use of Botox, adverse reactions can occur with cosmetic use as well. Since when did "personal best" involve subjecting oneself to a risky procedure?

Two weeks after we filed our petition, the FDA issued a press release warning of the dangers of injecting botulinum toxin but stopped short of forcing drug makers to send out warning letters to doctors or putting a black box warning on the drug as we had requested.

By peddling a product that can seriously injure people, these athletes are tarnishing their past athletic achievements. Botox is nothing to play around with. The public should not be lulled into a false sense of security by Allergan’s outrageous caper."

Read the Allergan news release for a lesson in disease-mongering and marketing. They're coining a new condition called "The 11" - as explained by Comaneci: "About five years ago, I realized that while I exercised and ate right most of my life, there was nothing I could do on my own that would get rid of those two stubborn frown lines stamped on my forehead. They looked like an '11' and made me upset with the way I looked, and that's when I decided to talk to my physician about BOTOX(R) Cosmetic treatment. I attained a perfect '10' at age 14, and I'm working hard to stay close to that in all that I do." Then they go on to describe "How the '11' makes people feel." Including Spitz saying, "As a financial advisor and motivational speaker, my facial expression is a very important part of my message. When I am serious, my '11' makes me look angry and unapproachable rather than congenial. I knew I had to do something about it, but for a long time, I just didn't know what my options were. Then I heard about Botox."

I've always loved the Willie Nelson song lyrics:

This Face is all I have, worn and lived in
And lines below my eyes are like old friends...
This face of mine
And I kept believing the reflection on the wall
Who needs to be the fairest of them all
I never looked like you, cool and streamlined
I have this honesty that grows with time
And when cracks appear they suit me fine
Like a good old dog you won't hear me whine
And this face is all I have, worn and lived in.