Dr. Ashley Alker

And unfortunately, once the toxin is formed, it will last several months.

And the weakness is not reversible in that kind of acute phase.

So once the toxin is in you and you have certain weakness, you basically have to wait for the nerves to grow back to regain those muscles and those faculties.

So for instance, if a botulism patient was completely paralyzed, you would have to intubate them with a breathing machine, a tube down their trachea and breathe for them until their nerves basically grow back and they're able to

to move and breathe again.

So it's a very scary disease, one that unfortunately we see in very specific populations a lot of times.

And one of those populations is infants.

And, you know, Byhart had a huge recall of botulism found in formula.

And people are like, oh, how could this happen?

Botulism is everywhere in our environment.

You know, we navigate it, you know, daily.

But for kids, it's very different.

Kids under the age of one, they have less acid in their stomachs.

So when we, you know, ingest botulism most of the time, you know, it just passes.

It's not a big deal.

You can't generally get botulism that way as an adult, unless it's in very, very high quantities, such as found in like homed canned goods that are infected with botulism and stored for years.

And the bacteria, you know,

it proliferates in that situation and then you have an issue.

Whereas with kids under the age of one, it's a very small amount because their body cannot fight it in the same way and their GI tract basically creates an environment where it can proliferate and grow.

And so that's one of the reasons we don't give infants honey.