How is botulinum toxin used for medical and comestic purposes when a very small dose can kill a person?
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Tiny quantities only in the right places.
Botox is only injected into the muscles, or salivary glands, or whatever else that need to be paralysed when used medically/cosmetically. It is a very tiny dose and care is taken to not inject it into a blood vessel, so that it is only in the desired place with negligible leak into the blood.
When you test something contaminated with botulinum toxin, it is a much bigger dose (this is relatively speaking when compared to the injections). That toxin gets absorbed from the GI tract and into the blood, where it then circulated everywhere and therefore to every muscle in the body. Boom, all muscles weakened then paralysed.
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