Fake Botox suspected in dozens of poisoning cases
Botox injections are a common cosmetic procedure given to reduce facial lines and wrinkles. The product is made from small, purified doses of botulinum toxin, produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Larger doses can cause botulism. According to the UKHSA, the evidence so far suggests clinics involved in the cases have used unlicensed Botox-like products.In the most recent cases, recorded in East England and the East Midlands, patients had difficulty swallowing, slurred speech and breathing difficulties requiring respiratory support.Other symptoms of botulism can include droopy eyelids, double vision and weak facial muscles. Dr Gauri Godbole, of UKHSA, said botulism related to aesthetic procedures was rare but could be serious. She added that symptoms could take up to four weeks to develop and urged anyone who suspected they were suffering to contact the NHS 111 service.Dr Alison Cave, chief safety officer at the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said botulinum toxin was only available through prescriptions written by qualified healthcare workers. "Buying botulinum toxin in any other circumstances significantly increases the risk of getting a product which is either falsified or not licensed for use in the UK. "This means that there are no safeguards to ensure products meet the MHRA's standards for quality and safety." The Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners says it receives numerous reports of the "illicit supply and use of unlicensed botulinum toxins".It suggests those considering Botox injections ask for information about the product, including its brand and intended dose, before accepting a procedure.People should check these details again with the person carrying out the procedure on the day of their treatment. The prescription for Botox must be in the customer's name. The UKHSA recommends the following precautions:Make sure a practitioner is qualified, is wearing appropriate protective equipment and washes their hands. Practitioners should be happy to discuss their qualificationsThose seeking a procedure should be offered a consultation beforehand that covers checks for medical conditions A consent form outlining the risks should be discussed and signed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
Thousands of patients miss out on weight loss jab due to NHS ‘postcode lottery'
Thousands of obese patients are missing out on a key weight loss jab due to a 'postcode lottery' of provision in the NHS, according to a report. Mounjaro, dubbed the 'King Kong' of weight loss medicine, was supposed to be available through GP surgeries from 23 June under an agreement between NHS England and NICE. But just eight out of 42 NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England were able to provide treatment to patients, according to Sky News, who obtained the data using a Freedom of Information request. Many other ICBs were reportedly unable to confirm when treatment would be available. Dr Jonathan Hazlehurst, an endocrinologist and obesity physician at University Hospitals Birmingham, said patients were 'set up for failure' and have been treated unfairly. "Giving people open promises and setting them up for disappointment and failure is clearly grossly unfair. That's what the current system is doing,' he told the broadcaster. NICE said in December that the NHS should offer Mounjaro to patients with a BMI of over 40 and at least four clinical conditions related to their weight, such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes. It calculated from NHS England data that there were 97,500 patients who should be treated in the first year. But Dr Hazlehurst claims NHS England has only provided funding for just over 22,000 patients. The Independent has approached NHS England for comment. A spokesperson told Sky News that NHS England had "fully supported the rollout" of Mounjaro. "We issued guidance and provided funding in March to all Integrated Care Boards to support treatment costs, enable scaling of services and provide wrap-around care, including digital support services,' they said. It comes after NICE warned many individuals might regain weight if not adequately supported after ceasing treatment. It stressed that those coming off the drugs should be offered "structured advice and follow-up support" to mitigate weight gain. This guidance applies to individuals receiving these treatments through the NHS. However, an estimated 1.5 million people in the UK are currently using weight-loss injections, with the vast majority paying privately. These individuals will not be eligible for NHS support once their treatment concludes. The new 'quality standard' from NICE says that NHS patients should be monitored for at least a year after they complete treatment, and extra support should be offered if needed. It emphasises building 'long-term behavioural habits, use self-monitoring tools, and draw on wider support – from online communities to family-led interventions and local activities'. This standard, a type of guidance for the health services in England and Wales, sets out expectations for health providers including how they should support patients. 'Successful weight management doesn't end when medication stops or when someone completes a behavioural programme,' said Professor Jonathan Benger, deputy chief executive and chief medical officer at Nice. 'We know that the transition period after treatment is crucial, and people need structured support to maintain the positive changes they've made.'
The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Burn notice: Gen Z and the terrifying rise of extreme tanning
Hannah Clark got her first spray tan for her school prom and has never looked back. 'I'm not proud of it, but I have used sunbeds,' says the 29-year-old graphic designer from Plymouth. Her goal is 'that glow you get when coming back from holiday. You know, when you walk around and people say: 'Oh, you look really healthy.' It's that feeling I'm chasing.' Clark is far from alone. On TikTok and Instagram, posts with the hashtag 'sunbed' number more than 500,000. Last year, a survey from skin cancer charity Melanoma Focus found that 28% of UK adults use sunbeds, but this rose to 43% among those aged 18 to 25. This new generation of younger tanning obsessives will go to extreme lengths to darken their skin. Some track the UV index – the level of the sun's ultraviolet radiation – and deliberately sit in the sun at the most dangerous times of day. Others use unregulated nasal tanning sprays and injections, which rely on a chemical to darken the skin. All the people under 30 I spoke to for this article know how dangerous tanning is. NHS guidance states that there is no safe or healthy way to get a tan and advises keeping out of the sun between 11am and 3pm, wearing sunscreen of at least factor 30, and covering up with clothing, hats and sunglasses. Dr Zoe Venables, a consultant dermatologist at Norfolk and Norwich University hospitals, with an interest in skin cancer epidemiology, says that when skin turns darker after UV exposure it 'suggests you're damaging those cells in your skin'. Sunbeds are categorised by the World Health Organization (WHO) as 'dangerous' – with their cosmetic use increasing incidences of skin cancers and driving down the age at which skin cancer first appears. It says people who have used a sunbed at least once at any point in their lives have a 20% greater chance of developing melanoma – the deadliest of the three most common forms of skin cancer – than someone who hasn't. For someone who has used a tanning bed for the first time before the age of 35, there is a 59% greater chance of developing melanoma. Despite this stark reality, having a tan is still presented to many young people as aspirational – whether it's faux tan-lines appearing on catwalks or bronzed influencers on holidays in Dubai. Many sunbed shop owners sell tanning as a form of 'self-care', while influencers post 'come for a sunbed with me' videos. Perhaps most perniciously, some sunbed shops even make light of the known risk associated with them. One meme shared on Instagram by a tanning salon overlays the text: 'When someone tells you sunbeds are bad for you' with a clip from the sitcom Benidorm, in which the character Madge Harvey says: 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with AB: absolute bollocks.' Emily Harris, 23, from Leeds, uses sunbeds. Her parents both work for the NHS and have warned her about the risks. But she says that having spent most of her teenage years in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by various global conflicts and the ever-looming presence of climate breakdown, the dangers of a sunbed seem small by comparison. 'You can die of anything – do you know what I mean?' she says. While Harris, who works in sales, can't afford to use sunbeds all the time, she uses them whenever she has 'a bit of spare money', making use of the deals that salons offer. Before a recent holiday, she bought a package that gave her unlimited minutes, with a daily limit, for four weeks. 'I was going every day,' Harris says, which she admits 'is a bit silly', but adds: 'I was trying to make the most of the package.' As well as using tanning beds, Harris is 'obsessed with tracking the UV', and has the index on the lock-screen of her phone. She and her colleagues plan their breaks around times when the UV index is highest, so they can maximise their exposure to the dangerous radiation. A number of her friends also use nasal tanning sprays, which were the subject of a Trading Standards warning issued earlier this year that stated: 'These products can cause nausea, vomiting, high blood pressure, and even changes in mole shape and size … studies have shown a potential link to melanoma, a type of skin cancer.' Harris tried one when her friend had a spare bottle, but 'didn't see a result' so hasn't used one again. Was she worried about what might have been in it? 'To be honest, not really. I know it's bad, but at the time, I was more bothered about getting a tan.' Nasals, as they are known, usually contain a lab-made substance called melanotan II, a chemical that darkens skin pigmentation. Though it is illegal to sell medicinal products containing melanotan II in the UK, cosmetic products fall outside that remit and are easily available on social media. Dr Suraj Kukadia, a GP known to his 282,000 TikTok followers as 'Doctor Sooj', is concerned about the popularity of nasal sprays. He says melanotan II can also lead to 'painful and sustained erections in men, kidney damage, acne and muscle-wasting'. Holly Feldman, 25, lives in Surrey and is the CEO of a swimwear boutique. She has more than 10,000 followers on Instagram and is often sent free tanning products such as nasal sprays and injections. 'I think that was why it was so addictive for me,' she says. Though she had no idea what was in these products, and the injections in particular made her feel unwell, she says: 'I was just trying to turn a blind eye to it because I was so obsessed with how it made me look.' Feldman recently appeared on former Love Island contestant Olivia Attwood's ITV documentary series The Price of Perfection, in which Attwood explores the risks of various cosmetic treatments. Being on the show made Feldman realise how much potential damage she could be doing. She hasn't used a tanning injection for four months, and has reduced her use of a nasal spray to a couple of times over the past month, when previously it would have been four inhalations a day. 'I do still use sunbeds,' she says. 'But I have cut down. There was a time when I was going on them four, five, six times a week and now I only go on them once or twice.' Data from the UK and Ireland's Sunbed Association suggests that tanning beds are most popular among 25- to 45-year-olds, and more women than men use them. But that's not to say gen Z men are free from the pressure to sport a tan. Craig Hopkins, a 29-year-old dance teacher based in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, says he uses sunbeds to 'look like I've just come back from holiday'. He prefers the look of a 'real' tan to a fake tan, which ties in to existing social media trends such as 'looking expensive' and 'quiet luxury'. 'On Instagram especially, everyone is always on holiday, always super brown. So it's probably just trying to keep up,' Harris says. Like Harris, Hopkins also tried a nasal spray once, via a friend who used to sell them, but it made him 'feel really sick'. Despite the known risks and side-effects, most of the young people I spoke to for this article were still willing to give nasal sprays a try. Megan Urbaniak, a 23-year-old nail technician from Rotherham, says: 'I feel as if I know a million people who use them and everyone seems to have been fine. It does kind of weird me out that they don't tell you what's in them, but I'm sure there's worse in the world.' Urbaniak is a regular sunbed user – and has even encouraged friends to use them before going on holiday 'because it stops you from burning immediately when going in the sun'. Venables is quick to debunk claims such as this, saying that all it does is put your skin through even more 'excess UV exposure'. She points to another type of common skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, which is thought to be due to cumulative UV exposure. While Urbaniak does not seem to be put off by any safety concerns, she is keen to stress that there is a 'cultural line that you probably shouldn't cross' when it comes to tanning as a white person. 'I don't think that my body is capable of going that colour, but if it was, I'd like to think someone would tell me to stop.' That said, it isn't just white people who like to tan. Melissa Jones, 19, from Chester, says she has 'seen way more people of colour – including south-east Asian girls like me – getting into tanning. For me, it's not about being darker – it's about adding that warm, radiant glow and evening out my tone'. Like Feldman, Jones uses the word 'addictive' in relation to her tanning habit, and thinks it helps her in her job as a content creator. Tanned skin 'looks amazing on camera and in content', she says. However, she has recently switched from using tanning beds to using only fake tan. 'I became more aware of the risks, like ageing, skin cancer, all of that.' The WHO has urged countries to consider banning sunbeds: Australia banned all commercial sunbeds 10 years ago and Brazil banned them in 2009. Kukadia and Venables both say they would like them banned in the UK. Jak Howell, a 26-year-old content creator from Swansea, has been urging his followers to stop using sunbeds since he was diagnosed with stage three advanced melanoma when he was 21, which his doctors were surprised to see in someone so young, and said was probably due to his use of sunbeds. Howell had been using sunbeds regularly since he was 15 (it has been illegal for under-18s to use tanning beds since 2010, but the ones Howell used weren't staffed. Customers bought tokens from a machine and slotted them into the beds). When a mole appeared on his back that 'kept bleeding and scabbing over but never healing', he sent a photograph of it to his GP and was immediately referred to hospital. He underwent radiotherapy and surgeries to remove his lymph nodes, but these failed to remove the cancer. Eventually, after a year of immunotherapy, which 'completely knocks you for six', he went into remission. Howell now wants to see sunbeds banned. He tells young users: 'OK, it hasn't happened yet, but it could happen. And when it does happen, it is far, far worse than anything I could ever describe and you could ever imagine.' For many young people, though, the allure of the sunbed's 'instant fix' is too great to resist. And it's not as if this is the first time young people have put themselves at risk. As Kukadia points out: 'If alcohol was discovered or invented now, it would be illegal.' But tanning does feel different from other classic rebellious pursuits such as binge drinking, cigarettes and drugs because people don't do it for fun, but to achieve a certain aesthetic – a symptom, perhaps, of our screen-filtered lives. 'If I wasn't on social media, I probably wouldn't use sunbeds,' Feldman admits, but because her job requires social media use, she can't see herself stopping. A few years ago, Clark noticed a dark, 'pretty scary-looking' lesion on her leg, and was referred to a dermatologist. Though it didn't turn out to be skin cancer-related, she had to have it removed, and the experience has stopped her being so 'frivolous' with tanning beds. Urbaniak can't see herself giving up either. 'If something were to go wrong, then maybe I'd reconsider,' she says. 'But I feel as if I'm in that generation where we all just live in denial until something happens.'
Telegraph
26 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Ozzy Osbourne died of a heart attack
died of a heart attack, his death certificate has revealed. The Black Sabbath frontman, who was 76, died last month, two weeks after playing his farewell concert at Villa Park in Birmingham. A death certificate gave his official cause of death as acute myocardial infarction and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, according to The Sun and The New York Times. It also listed coronary artery disease and Parkinson's disease with autonomic dysfunction as 'joint causes' of his death. Osbourne was one of rock's great characters, a heavy metal icon who revelled in being known as the Prince of Darkness.
