Doc Shot Her Up With Fake Botox, Woman Says

FAIRFAX, VA. (CN) - A woman claims a doctor injected her between the eyes with an experimental botulinum toxin not approved for human use, and misrepresented the stuff as Botox. Leslie Smith demands $3.5 million for fraud and battery from Dr. David Berman and Dulles Cosmetic Surgery and Skin Care Center, both of Sterling, Va.

Smith claims Dr. Berman knew he was injecting her with an unapproved drug but did it anyway, and misrepresented the drug as Botox, when he injected her in February 2004. She says she was unsuspecting until May 2007, when two FBI agents told her they were investigating Berman.

"During this meeting, Mrs. Smith was advised and discovered for the first time, that the serum injection which she received in or around February 2004 was not Botox, but Botulinum Toxin Type A product sold and distributed by Toxin Research International Inc., an Arizona corporation ('TRI-toxin') which had not been approved nor licensed."

And, she claims, "In or around May of 2007, Dr. Berman pled guilty in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to introducing into interstate commerce a drug that was misbranded."

She is represented in Fairfax County Court by Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker of Rockville, Md.

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