Doctor who injected fake Botox goes to prison
A Houston physician who committed medical malpractice and was convicted last year of injecting her patients with a Botox substitute has started serving her two-year federal sentence. Although she said the fake injections were a "mistake", Dr. Gayle Rothenberg was found guilty of conspiracy, nine counts of mail fraud, misbranding a drug for sale, and lying to federal agents. The doctor and her husband, lawyer Saul Gower, were accused of substituting the cheaper Botulinum Toxin Type A for the FDA-approved product Botox. The Type A product is similar but isn't approved by the FDA for human use.
The conviction is just another among several obtained as a result of an ongoing investigation by the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigation. "Someone who abuses a position of trust for financial gain and subjects patients to unknown safety risks from unapproved medications will be held accountable," says Kim A. Rice, FDA Special Agent in Charge of OCI's Metro Washington Field Office. "FDA will aggressively pursue those who willfully circumvent laws that are in place to protect the consuming public."
If you have been administered an unapproved substitute for Botox or any other FDA-approved product, you may be entitled to claim compensation for medical malpractice. If you have questions, contact a medical malpractice lawyer to learn more about your options.
Read more about how the FDA is cracking down on Botox scammers and about the FDA's investigation of Illegal Botox-substitution scammers.
