Health Canada reviewing safety of Botox

From CTV News:
Health Canada says it's reviewing safety information about the popular wrinkle treatment Botox and a similar product, Myobloc, following reports out of the United States about side effects and deaths.

The U.S. consumer advocacy group Public Citizen is asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require Allergan Inc. to write to doctors warning them that their product Botox and other botulinum toxins marketed in the United States have resulted in "hospitalizations and deaths."

It also wants the FDA to order that Botox and Solstice Neurosciences Inc's Myobloc carry the strongest possible warning, highlighted in a "black box."

Public Citizen said it has reviewed 180 reports submitted to the FDA by manufacturers since the late 1990s involving patients injected with Botox or Myobloc. The reports detailed cases of muscle weakness, difficulty swallowing or aspiration pneumonia -- a serious condition caused by breathing a foreign material into the lungs. ...more