Miami Herald - December 3, 2004
Ashley Fantz, Jacob Goldstein and Gabrielle Banks afantz@herald.com

Four South Floridians remained critically ill Thursday, more than a week after receiving what they thought were Botox injections at an Oakland Park clinic. "Pray for her. That's all I can say," said Florence Evermon, the sister of Alma "A.J." Hall, one of the patients.

Meanwhile, despite a raid at the clinic late Wednesday and early Thursday by Food and Drug Administration investigators, state and federal officials remained tight-lipped about the case.

Still unanswered: who administered the shots, what the shots contained and whether the patients are sick with botulism, as doctors suspect.

"I have no idea what happened the day that those four people were injected," said Steven Chess, a Fort Lauderdale chiropractor who owns the Oakland Park clinic where the shots were administered.

Chess, who does not practice at the clinic, rents the facility to Tom Toia, a Palm Beach Gardens chiropractor. Toia has routinely contracted with physicians to administer Botox at the clinic, Chess said Thursday.

State and federal officials did not disclose any new information Thursday.

One of the practitioners at the clinic is Shelly Wolland, an osteopathic doctor, who, records show, had her licensed suspended in 2002 for diluting HIV medication while working at an AIDS clinic in Miami. "I have talked to Shelly," insisted Chess. "I don't think she did those injections [of the four hospitalized patients]."

Calls to Wolland and a visit to her home went unanswered Thursday. Calls to Toia also were not returned.

Doctors Thursday continued to treat the patients for botulism -- a sometimes fatal disease caused by botulinum toxin, the same ingredient in Botox. Lab tests from the Centers for Disease Control are expected to confirm whether the patients are indeed suffering from botulism.

Experts suspected that Botox was probably not the cause of the illness. The drug is administered in very small doses and has never been linked to the disease, they said.

Instead, they suggested, unregulated Botox imitators could have been to blame.

Plastic surgeons in New York and Miami said Thursday that they recently received promotional materials from a company selling cheap botulinum toxin licensed only for research purposes -- not for use in humans.

A spokeswoman at Allergan, the California-based company that manufactures Botox, said the company last year referred reports similar to these to the Food and Drug Administration for investigation. The FDA would not comment on the issue.

Hospital reports Thursday indicated that the patients' conditions hadn't changed dramatically.

Palm Beach Gardens chiropractor Eric Kaplan and his wife Bonnie were in critical but stable condition and attached to breathing machines, according to a spokeswoman at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center.

The other two patients -- Bach McComb and Hall -- were in the critical care unit at a Bayonne, N.J., hospital, where they had traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday.

McComb, who used to work at the Oakland Park clinic, is an osteopathic physician who had his license suspended last year after he was charged with illegally selling painkillers. Hall is an employee at the clinic.

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