Botulinum neurotoxin type A, sold as Allergan Inc.’s Botox remedy for wrinkles, can move from its injection site to the brain, a study shows. Scientists injected rats’ whisker muscles with botulism toxin. Tests of the rodents’ brain tissue found that botulism had been transported to the brain stems, the researchers said in the Journal of Neuroscience published April 2. Botox is Allergan’s biggest product, with $1.21 billion in sales last year. The drug, approved in 1989, became fashionable among aging celebrities seeking to smooth facial wrinkles and is used to treat some neurological disorders. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating whether patients contracted botulism, a muscle-weakening illness, from Botox and Myobloc, a product from Solstice Neurosciences Inc. ‘The idea that there could be some transmission of this to the central nervous system needs to be followed up,” said Mathew Avram, the director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Dermatology, Laser and Cosmetic Center, in Boston, in a telephone interview today. “But this treatment has been used on millions of people for years, and we’re not seeing major central nervous system uses with it.” Botulism neurotoxin can disrupt nerve cells’ ability to communicate and may change spinal […]