Two of the first doctors to use Botox on their regrets about not securing a patent, its use by teenagers, and why it could be a generation’s penicillin (From the archive)
Vancouver ophthalmologist Jean Carruthers and her husband, Alastair Carruthers, a dermatologist, pioneered the cosmetic use of botulinum toxin, or Botox, in the late 1980s. It’s now been over 25 years since the FDA approved the use of the toxin, and the couple have strong views about the world’s most common cosmetic procedure and how it changed the world.
AC: The next day Jean injected our receptionist, Cathy Bickerton, who had a deep line [between her brows] which was like a crevasse by about two in the afternoon; she was quite frightening to look at. Three days later, I looked at the result and I said, “Wow!” We didn’t have anything to treat those lines. So we started collecting patients and treating them. By 1990, we had 10 patients; a year later when we presented data we had 18.
JC: A thunderous, thunderous non-reaction! One of our more esteemed colleagues came up to us afterwards and said, “That’s a crazy idea that will go nowhere.” So we did tons more research. We were invited all over the world to show people how to do the treatment. And gradually, the Europeans got it, then other North Americans, and then Asia.
AC: The worst complication of Botox treatment is reduced expressivity. In the early days we were interviewed with a psychologist who tore into us for our promoting the McDonaldization of North America, reducing expressivity—that everyone’s going to be wandering around looking like a zombie.
Q: Botox appears to be remaining ageless itself by becoming a treatment for a long list of medical conditions—juvenile cerebral palsy, migraine, over-active bladder, osteoporosis, even premature ejaculation. You saw benefits for migraine early on but faced opposition.
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