KMCA Withdraws Three Weight-Loss Products After Finding Hidden Sibutramine
The Medicines Control Agency says lab tests found the banned drug, which can raise blood pressure and risk heart attacks, in a tea and two coffees that listed no such ingredient
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The Kurdistan Region’s Medicines Control Agency (KMCA) said it has withdrawn three weight-loss and weight-gain products from the market after finding a hidden, dangerous substance called sibutramine in them. The products are Ginseng Tea, Roma Coffee and Milano Coffee, which were sold as food supplements and health products for losing weight.
Dr. Isa Abdulrahman Isa, head of the agency’s pharmaceutical awareness and health unit, told Kurdistan 24’s Hevrest Rajab that market monitoring teams took samples of the products and sent them to the agency’s laboratories, where chemical analysis found sibutramine.
He said neither the manufacturer nor the importer had listed the substance on the packages.
The substance can cause problems for the heart and circulation, raise blood pressure and cause heart disease, and may lead to a heart attack, he said.
Isa urged citizens not to use the three products and to stop using them at once if they have any, and told pharmacies and drug warehouses to stop buying and selling them or face legal action.
He said the products carried the agency’s quality sticker and had passed its filters, but withdrawals of medicines and health products are a legal and scientific process that takes place after products reach the market, and repeat laboratory tests later showed problems in their formulation. People who used them and feel unwell should see a specialist doctor, he said, and citizens should not buy slimming or weight-gain products themselves or online, but only through a doctor or pharmacist.
Sibutramine was approved in 1997 as a weight-loss drug, and was suspended in the European Union in January 2010 and withdrawn from the US market in October 2010, after research showed a significantly higher risk of heart attack and stroke. The agency has warned the public several times in recent years about hidden chemicals in weight-loss products, especially those sold online and outside official pharmacies.