May 20, 2024: “I woke up and my arms had fully stopped working,” fake Botox victim says
Major Stories
A counterfeit Botox victim described her illness. News about weight loss drug sales on TikTok. Almost half of fentanyl seizures in the U.S. are in pill form.
One of the 11 Americans hospitalized because of counterfeit Botox told Glamour Magazine that she developed double vision, dizziness, shortness of breath, and arm paralysis within a week of receiving injections at a New York medical spa in February 2024. By the time her illness plateaued four weeks later she was bedridden. Although the medical spa advertised itself as licensed and the victim had been a client there for three years, investigators with the Department of Health told her that the esthetician who treated her was not licensed to perform Botox injections.
The Digital Citizens Alliance and Coalition for a Safer Web published Ozempic Scams on Tiktok, which warns about fraudulent sales of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs on the social media platform. The report comes in tandem with TikTok’s March 17 ban on the “trade or marketing of weight loss or muscle gain products.”
A study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy on May 13 reported that the percentage of U.S. fentanyl seizures in pill form rose from 10% in 2017 to 49% in 2023. The sharp increase underscores the continued threat counterfeit pills made with fentanyl poise to the U.S. public.
Keep up with this outbreak - including RSS feeds - on our Botox warning page.
Domestic News
A California man allegedly imported and sold etizolam, a non-FDA approved depressant.
Etizolam purportedly purchased from one of the Folsom man's websites in 2020 (Source: rc-scene.com)
Federal courts in Massachusetts charged a resident of Folsom, California with selling etizolam, a non-FDA approved nervous system depressant, to online buyers across the United States. Court documents allege the man imported the drugs from suppliers in China and sold them with labels that stated that the products were research products that were not for human consumption.
Law enforcement seized pill presses during seizures of fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs in Ringgold, Georgia, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Cleveland, Ohio. Investigators in the Cleveland case reported recovering nearly 600,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills made with fentanyl.
International News
Counterfeit injections found in India.
India’s Drug Control Administration in Telangana warned that a counterfeit version of Pulmosil, a sildenafil injection used to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension, was circulating in the market. Regulators also found fungus in sealed vials of the fake drug.
Health Canada warned residents not to use UMARY brand Hyaluronic Acid because the product contained undeclared prescription drugs, the NSAID diclofenac and the antacid omeprazole.
DCA Telangana warned about counterfeit Pulmosil on May 17, 2024.