The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) once again warned on Monday about slimming pills containing prohibited substances. This time, it concerns the slimming product My Lisaa. The pills were offered on bol. How is it possible that these pills were on sale?
The product contains sibutramine, among other things. This substance was developed years ago as a medicine for slimming. In 2010, the European Union banned the substance. Its use caused an excessive risk of side effects such as cardiovascular problems.
The product was on the Dutch market for a short time, even though it contains prohibited substances. This is because products sold at drugstores are not checked in advance.
That is different for medicines against diseases such as cancer. Approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is required before doctors can prescribe them to patients.
Usually, it is not a problem that drugstore products are not fully investigated for prohibited substances. In the vast majority of cases, there is no danger to public health. “If you take a vitamin supplement, it doesn’t necessarily provide health benefits, but it won’t kill you either,” says Canoy. “But that can of course be different if there is something harmful in it.”
And if that does happen, the seller is in violation. “There doesn’t have to be malicious intent behind it, but it is a violation,” he continues.
Sellers generally want to prevent such a violation. That is why sellers often keep a close eye on the fact that there are no prohibited substances in the drugstore products.
Prohibited substance was not on the ingredient list
Bol points in a response to the responsibility of the so-called sales partners. These partners use the website as a sales platform for their own products and are therefore primarily responsible, the company argues. My Lisaaa was not directly available for comment.
Bol also has a system to prevent the sale of prohibited substances. For example, the ingredient lists of products are scanned for possible prohibited ingredients.
According to Bol, the sales partner had not put the prohibited substances on the ingredient list. As a result, the website did not immediately see that there was a prohibited product. The product was removed from the website after the NVWA informed Bol about the prohibited ingredients.
The NVWA suspects that the prohibited substances have been added to My Lisaa because the products without the substances “do not work sufficiently”. “And that is bad for sales,” the authority replies to questions from NU.nl. “It seems likely that the pills are produced in places where people are not so strict about laws and regulations.”
The NVWA calls on people who have side effects to report to the Lareb side effects center. Lareb director Agnes Kant says that no reports of side effects after using My Lisaa have yet been received there.
Kant emphasizes that it is important to report side effects. She knows that there is often a taboo on the use of slimming products and that people may therefore be reluctant to report side effects. Kant emphasizes that the reports remain anonymous.
My Lisaa is not the first illegal slimming product in which the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) has found prohibited substances. The NVWA took various measures for previous products.
For the sake of clarity: this concerns a different type of slimming product than injections such as Ozempic. These are medicines that have been approved. Patients may only receive them on prescription from a doctor according to the law.