Friday, July 2, 2010

Botox

You know that infants aren't supposed to eat honey, right? It's because of botulism, a toxin released by the bacteria called Clostridium botulism. It's a spore that is very hard to kill and is found in honey. It can also be found in some sausages, too. What the toxin does is paralyze the muscles it comes in contact with. Babies don't have enough of an immune system to combat it, so if they get this toxin in their system, they could die from having their diaphragm being paralyzed. According to Wikipedia, it is the most toxic substance known. This toxin basically is the reverse of the tetanus toxin, which causes all the muscles in the body to clench (like lockjaw).

A disturbing thing with botulism is that the FDA said in 2002 that it's OK for a doctor to inject it in your face. The toxin then paralyzes certain muscle groups in the face so that the skin will sag in a certain way to reduce the appearance of wrinkles. That is what botox is. "Botox" is just short for botulism toxin.

Pretty sick. Although this doesn't compare with supermodels and actresses getting their bottom two ribs removed to get a skinnier waist. That is the most disturbing thing I have heard of people doing to their bodies for fashion.

4 comments:

Sylvia Louise said...

I worked at an office where we did Botox injections. We were instructed to tell people that the Botox "relaxed" the muscles, ha ha!

Katie Lewis said...

Sick sick sick. What a horrifying abbreviation. Makes me a little (a lot) weary of other abbreviations. Hmm. Also, that bit about super models having ribs removed is absolutely disgusting. And sad.

Raymond Teodo a.k.a. was_bedeutet_jemanden said...

I think I know now why sausages don't always agree with me....

David Mayer said...

Speaking of abbreviations, how many people know that "blog" is just an abbreviation for "web log"?

So how does this sound for a new ad campaign?
"Botox: It's more than an abbreviation, it's an abomination!"