This little scenario was eventually confirmed when laboratory tests revealed the presence of the toxin in the baby鈥檚 serum and feces as well as in the jar of honey. The little boy eventually recovered although he spent five weeks on a respirator. That鈥檚 what botulinum toxin can do to you. If you鈥檙e lucky! Want to know how poisonous the substance is? Picture a grain of salt. Now imagine dividing this grain into roughly a million pieces. Each piece will weigh about one nanogram, the amount of botulinum toxin it takes to kill a human! How did the toxin get into the honey? Easily. Spores of this deadly bacterium are everywhere. They鈥檙e in the earth, in the air and in the pollen and nectar the bees gather. And what are spores? Forms of the bacterium that are in a sort of 鈥渟uspended state of animation.鈥� They do not feed and do not reproduce until they encounter the right conditions. Low acidity, moderate temperatures and the absence of oxygen make them come alive and start spewing out venom. It seems that conditions in the gut are favorable, but the bugs do encounter a problem. Other bugs! The human gastrointestinal tract harbors numerous species of bacteria which compete for food and luckily for us botulinum bacteria do not fare well and cannot establish themselves. Unless of course, there are few competing bacteria, as is the case in the immature gastrointestinal tracts of newborns. That鈥檚 why children younger than one should not be fed bee regurgitation.
While adults don鈥檛 have to worry about botulinum spores germinating in the digestive tract, we do have to be concerned about eating food in which the bacteria have multiplied and produced their toxin. In a classic case back in 1985, in Vancouver, thirty-seven people were poisoned when a restaurant used contaminated garlic to make garlic bread. Dirt that adheres to garlic bulbs commonly contains botulinum spores. If the cloves are stored under oil in an anaerobic environment, and the jar is kept at room temperature, the bacteria come alive and produce the toxin. When this enters the bloodstream it binds irreversibly to nerve endings and prevents the release of acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that triggers muscle activity. The result is droopy eyelids, double vision, difficulty speaking and swallowing, progressive weakness, and, finally, paralysis of the chest muscles and respiratory failure. If the victim survives the initial onslaught of the toxin, recovery is likely because the affected nerves will eventually sprout new branches capable of acetylcholine release.
