每日英语听力

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Howard Phil suffers from spasmodic torticollis, a painful disorder caused by hyperactive muscles that twist the neck and can permanently tilt a person's head to the front back or side.

About a hundred and fifty thousand Americans suffer from this condition. Dr. Schatz wondered since the toxin paralyzes muscles, perhaps a tiny amount would relax overactive muscles.

At one one-thousandth the lethal dose, the deadly toxin becomes a healer. In the minute I got my first injections, the pain was gone.

I mean it was just it was a great great feeling my life had been given back to me. It's ironic when you take a toxin that can kill people and all of a sudden it's saving lives.

It's ironic and it's it's a great thing. Clostridium botulinum is a strange organism.

Under the right conditions, it grows quickly into a large population. Then the cells destroy themselves, the bacteria die and the deadly toxin is released.

To start a batch of toxin and completed for medical use, it takes about three weeks. And in that time we can prepare enough toxin to supply the medical profession for many many years.

And all of it in a tiny tube as you see on the bench. There is promising research that botulinum toxin will help millions of people suffering from conditions associated with hyper active muscles,

such as Parkinson's disease, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and stuttering. Did you know one of the leading causes of food poisoning is bacteria?

Bacteria often does an effect of foods appearance or flavor. So it's important to make sure that food is kept away from harmful bacteria during its processing and preparation.

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