A plastic surgery group based in Albany, New York, has pled guilty to using fake Botox on 151 patients. Five doctors and two associates face fines and prison time.
The Plastic Surgery Group LLP, based in Albany, New York, has pled guilty to charges regarding the use and false branding of a cheap Botox substitute – incidents that spanned ten months in 2004 and involved 151 patients. The company faces fines and seven associates of the company, five of them doctors, face fines and up to a year in prison.
The defendants were charged with using a botulinum toxin manufactured by Toxin Research International in Arizona that was not FDA approved and was mislabeled as being Botox, the FDA said in a written statement.
In 2004, the Plastic Surgery Group, by its own admission, injected the knock-off Botox into 151 people who thought they were receiving the genuine product. The company has pled guilty to a felony count of misbranding drugs and the associates have pled guilty to misdemeanor conduct violations.
In addition to fines, the company has been ordered to pay restitution to the patients. And in light of the verdict, the company released a statement admitting responsibility for the mistake.
E. Stewart Jones, legal counsel for the Plastic Surgery Group, told reporters that though the patients will be repaid in full, their health and safety were never at risk and that Plastic Surgery Group misused the drug not deliberately but genuinely by mistake, believing it to be real Botox.
Sentencing in the case is set for mid-December.
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