Pharmacies giving obesity drug to slim buyers
By Clair Weaver
February 18, 2007 12:00am
EIGHT out of 10 Australian pharmacies are breaking industry rules by selling a controversial anti-obesity drug to slim people, an investigation has found.
Chemists are breaching professional guidelines by failing to check that customers who want to buy Xenical are very overweight or obese.
The weight-loss drug, which was originally available only on prescription, can produce gruesome side-effects and is recommended only for those with acute weight problems.
Its manufacturer, Roche, came under fire last year for advertising the drug during the reality TV show
Australian Idol, popular with self-conscious teenage girls.
Last November,
The Sunday Telegraph revealed teenage girls were buying Xenical over the Internet to avoid being weighed and measured by pharmacists.
Criteria include checking for a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, or 27 if coupled with other risk factors, and health status and age.
The consumer magazine
Choice used a mystery shopper – a healthy, 19-year-old female student with a BMI of 24 – to evaluate the conduct of pharmacies.
She is 168cm tall, weighs 70kg, eats healthily, exercises and shows no risk factors.
Of the 30 pharmacies tested, 24 sold the drug to the teenager with little or no consultation involved.
Fewer than one-third of the pharmacies asked for her height and weight, which are needed to calculate BMI, and none asked about her waist circumference or her age.
Only half of the pharmacies mentioned side-effects of the treatment, and even fewer advised on diet and exercise.
Choice is campaigning to have advertising approval for Xenical revoked and for the drug to be restored to prescription-only status.
Xenical can cost as much as $79.95 for a two-week pack.
Diet Pill issues in Australia
How is this being allowed? All it's going to take is one skinny teen death and a big fat diet pill lawsuit to change all this IMO.
