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Fatal slimming aid sold in pharmacies:
bending the spirit of the law

Slimming aids based on a compound containing powdered thyroid extracts, sold under a distorted interpretation of a 1980 law, are implicated in a death.

A Paris pharmacy sold slimming aids that resulted in several people being taken to hospital; one person died.

The pharmacists' association was quick to strongly condemn the sale of these preparations, and health authorities also acted rapidly. The French drug regulatory agency banned the prescription, delivery and use of compounds containing thyroid extracts.

But these types of compounds prescribed by some unscrupulous doctors represented a distortion of the spirit of a law passed in 1980 designed to put an end to unprincipled prescribing by some doctors specialising in slimming treatments.

Hopefully the Paris pharmacy case will be a wake-up call and will put an end to the prescription of dangerous drugs in slimming aids once and for all.

©Prescrire July 2006

Source: "Préparations d'extraits thyroïdiens : des mesures bienvenues. Enfin !" Rev Prescrire 2006 ; 26 (274) : 493-494.

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