Botox as a bioterror threat

Published 16 June 2010

Botox may be used to straighten wrinkles and lift sagging body parts, but the proliferation of counterfeit Botox worldwide — fueled by consumer demand — has made the toxin, which is deadly in sufficient quantities, far more easily available for would-be bioterrorists than it was in the past

Botox injection method // Source: healthtrition.com

Botox may help you straighten a few wrinkles and lift some sagging body parts, but the Los Angeles Times’s Rosie Mestel notes that scholars at the Monterey Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies see the material as a security threat. Writing in the June issue of Scientific American, they argue that the proliferation of counterfeit Botox worldwide — fueled by consumer demand — has made the toxin, which is deadly in sufficient quantities, far more easily available for would-be bioterrorists than it was in the past.

The fake cosmetic products generally contain real toxin, albeit in widely varying amounts,” a release from the Monterey Institute notes. One little vial would pose no threat, they say — but what if some group with ill intent decided to buy in bulk or go into the botulinum-toxin production business for themselves?

The article, by institute faculty Ken Coleman and Raymond Zilinskas, is available at the Scientific American Web site — for a fee, if you are not a subscriber. You can read the top of the story for free.

Botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) is grouped with the world’s most lethal potential biological weapons agents, sharing Select Agent status with the pathogens that cause smallpox, anthrax and plague,” the authors note. “This biowarfare potential puts the existence of illicit laboratories churning out the toxin and of shady distributors selling it worldwide through the Internet into a more disturbing light than most pharmaceutical fraud.”

Also see this 2006 article by the Los Angeles Times’s Shari Roan on that topic — the basics have probably not changed much.