DEADLY DIET PILLS – DISTRIBUTOR TO BE CHARGED

The 21st February 2007 NST reported that slimming pill is believed to have caused the death of a woman was ordered off the shelves by the Health Ministry but this has been ignored. The distributor of Kintop Slimming capsule will be charged under the Poisons Act 1953 and faces a fine of RM3, 000 or a year’s jail or both.

The company in Subang was given several warnings to ensure the slimming pills were withdrawn from the market after the product was deregistered by the Health Ministry last August.

Housewife Normala Shahidan, 33, died at the Alor Star Hospital’s intensive care unit on Thursday from blood poisoning and kidney complications.

She had been taking the banned pills to reduce weight.

Comment: Normala maybe just one person out of a statistics of thousands who appear alright but the issue here is a human life is unnecessary lost because she continued to have access and consume a banned drug. As pharmacists, it is our duty to be very concern over such incident that results from careless, complacency and more so greed. Let us as pharmacists not be implicated with such negligence which can erode confidence and respect for the profession. In this case, it is believed to be a direct selling product, and it is the Society’s wish that health professionals whether pharmacists or doctors should never be involved with direct-marketing activities. To do so means we are putting ourselves at the same level as all the unqualified direct-selling members who would make use of our involvement as a testimonial to start selling to anyone they can convince to buy. It is indeed sad that we know of many healthcare professionals enjoying great income with their huge number of Multi-Level downlines who are spinning stories to make good sales ignoring any so-called code of ethics of Direct Sellign companies. In fact, DS companies should not be allowed to recruit healthcare professionals to be members.