Botox beauty fad to get big lift

DAVID USBORNE on a cosmetic boost for an anti-ageing treatment.

NEW YORK - Watch, and marvel, as America goes bonkers for Botox. It should happen this northern spring, when the Government is expected to acknowledge what women in Hollywood and all over Manhattan's Upper East Side have known for years: nothing beats the ageing process better than Botox.

More than a decade has passed since Botox was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for neurological and ophthalmic uses. By deadening the muscles temporarily, it was useful in treating patients with bad twitches, in the shoulder for instance, or lazy eyes.

The FDA apparently did not see the connection between Botox and beauty. Or, rather, vanity.

Now it does. The administration is poised to announce that it is granting the main maker of Botox, Californian pharmaceuticals firm Allergan, a licence to market the drug as a cosmetic treatment. And the Botox Big Bang will be ignited.

Federal approval will allow the makers to promote the injectible drug commercially. Many expect an even more extravagant television campaign for Botox than was unleashed for Viagra.

The procedure does not sound promising. The patient sits upright while the doctor injects into the forehead tiny quantities of a solution related to the killer disease botulism.

The effects wear off after about three months and, in what doctors call the Dorian Gray effect, the wrinkles return.

Yet customers are queuing in their thousands in America, and in Britain too, where a single treatment costs about £250 ($846).

One of them is Judy Manning, who had hers done at the clinic of Dr Debra Jaliman in New York.

Looking calm, she closed her eyes as Jaliman took her needle - "as thin as a hair", she insisted - and made a series of pricks in the area between the eyebrows.

"I had this frown line in between my eyes from always squinting and from having headaches, and everyone thought I was angry all the time," said Manning.

Now, presumably, they will see her as placid. And pretty. And young.

Publicity for Botox, whose generic name is botulinum toxin A, has been driven underground.

There has been no regulation prohibiting physicians from using the drug to help women smooth out their faces, but advertising its anti-ageing effects has not been permitted.

Yet, without a single television advertisement or a pamphlet in the doctor's waiting room, the drug has a huge following. In 2000, Botox injections accounted for 19.1 per cent of all cosmetic procedures in America. That compares with 3.5 per for breast implants.

Botox used on facial wrinkles renders the top half of the face almost entirely expressionless. Hollywood directors and producers are among those who have grumbled that too many women aged 35 or over have turned to Botox.

The concern was voiced most recently by directors Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrmann. Many actresses in Hollywood overdid the injections, Luhrmann said. "Their faces can't really move properly."

Interfering with nature has become almost de rigueur among television personalities in America. A brouhaha erupted last week when Greta Van Susteren, recently of CNN and now with Fox News, revealed she had just had surgery to remove the bags under her eyes. She was instantly reported to have had Botox injections, which she denied.

She may not have used the Botox needle, but she thinks she is almost alone. "I'm not going to out anyone, but every person on television has had it done," she said.

The obsession with Botox has upset people such as Dana Adams, a former network reporter who coaches newsreaders. "You not only have to get it, you have to admit it. As we age, women become hags and men become seasoned," she said.

If she wants anyone to blame, she might choose Dr Jean Carruthers of Vancouver, Canada. She was using Botox in 1987 to treat patients with bad squints. She noticed how it also made crow's-feet wrinkles vanish and told her husband, a cosmetologist. In 1990 they began medical trials and published a report on the unexpected benefits Botox as an anti-ageing aid.

In 1994, the FDA published a note in its official register denouncing anyone who was tempted to use Botox as a cosmetic treatment. The agency said it was "an egregious example of promoting a potentially toxic biologic for cosmetic purposes".

But views change. Botulinum toxin has "an amazing safety record", said Bill Habig, the retired deputy director of the FDA's division of bacterial products in the Centre for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "Considering it's one of the most toxic materials known and there was a lot of concern about it, it's turned out to be very safe."

Once the FDA licence has been issued, it would be no surprise if Allergan spent between $US100 million ($239 million) and $US200 million advertising Botox in the first year.

We can only guess at the nature of the advertising campaigns and what the slogan will be. "Beauty first with Botox?" "Turn back the clock with Botox?" Or perhaps we'll get used to this: "And the main headlines again - sponsored by Botox".

- INDEPENDENT

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