The FDA on Wednesday announced the approval of Johnson & Johnson's new dermal filler, Evolence, for the correction of moderate to deep facial wrinkles and folds, such as nasolabial folds.

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Tuesday's New York Times story, For Botox Users, a Few Words of Caution, is a relatively well-informed feature article that is aimed at consumers in a plain-talk kind of way, not sensationalized. The topic is a follow-up to the FDA's recent concerns over Botox.

The author, Jane E. Brody, is a seasoned journalist who covers healthcare regularly in print and online. Brody keeps the tone and content of the piece dryly journalistic. Although she reiterates the flawed March 2008 report by Public Citizen that led to the FDA's new investigaton of Botox toxicity in off-label, medical uses, her overall conclusion is that Botox has been a huge success in cosmetic applications.

Hymenoplasty has been practiced for decades in the Middle East and Latin America because of social and religious customs that stress virginity.

Recently, some leading newspapers reported that hymenoplasty, or restoring a woman’s virginity by surgically reattaching the hymen, is becoming more common among women of Muslim origin who live in France, Germany, Canada, and other parts of the world, including the United States.

For example, on June 11, 2008, The New York Times published an article titled, “In Europe, Debate Over Islam and Virginity,” in which the head of the French College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, Jacques Lansac, was quoted as saying there is no place for this kind of surgery in secular French society, where the procedure goes against equality of women, human rights, etc.

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