How much risk does "Internet celebrity" diet pills imply?
After eating all kinds of adverse reactions, the body stopped gaining weight
● In recent years, "thinness" has become an important indicator pursued by many beauty lovers. Many people are attracted by "net red" diet drugs and food, and they are caught in the whirlpool of "diet pills" and cannot extricate themselves. Some people have not lost weight. , the body is broken
● In order to achieve weight loss quickly, some weight loss medicines contain banned ingredients such as sibutramine and ephedrine. Long-term use is prone to heart palpitations, insomnia, gastrointestinal adverse reactions, liver and kidney damage, and endocrine system disorders.
● Multiple government departments such as health and market supervision should establish and improve joint law enforcement mechanisms, intensify the supervision and investigation of illegal weight loss drugs and food, and impose strict penalties on weight loss advertisements such as exaggeration and false propaganda, and order them to stop publishing and impose fines
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Chen Lijia, an intern of this newspaper
Thick dark circles under the eyes, a sallow complexion like ashes... Standing in front of the "Rules of Law Daily" reporter, 36-year-old Beijing resident Chen Lu looks very tired, and his overall image is much older than his actual age.
Two years ago, she bought and took a weight loss pill from the Internet. She lost 15 pounds in two weeks, but various adverse reactions occurred in her body. After stopping the drug, she gained 45 pounds. She still feels headaches and palpitations from time to time, and she also loses a lot of hair. .
She took the diet pill for testing and found that it contained sibutramine (a prohibited ingredient).
Chen Lu's experience is not an exception.
In recent years, "thinness" has become an important indicator pursued by many beauty lovers. Like Chen Lu, many people are attracted by "net red" diet drugs and food, and have since been involved in the whirlpool of "diet drugs" and cannot extricate themselves. I didn't lose weight, but my body was ruined.
In an interview with reporters recently, a number of industry insiders and experts suggested that the competent government departments should establish and improve a joint law enforcement mechanism, strengthen the supervision and investigation of illegal weight loss drugs and food, and the e-commerce platform should strengthen the qualification review of the settled merchants and increase the daily routine. Management and inspection efforts will squeeze the profit margins of unscrupulous merchants and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
A large number of false advertisements flood the Internet
Merchants' profit-seeking marketing is unscrupulous
"Drinking XX slimming tea, I lost 16 pounds in 1 month, and there is no rebound after 3 months" "Korean prescription diet pills, direct mail back to China, with pictures and videos, no diet, no diarrhea, no side effects and easy weight loss"... …On social platforms, there are a lot of advertisements for weight-loss drugs and food. All kinds of hype-like advertisements are accompanied by pictures of perfect "S"-shaped body curves, which make many beauty lovers excited.
Ms. Li from Henan saw a similar propaganda - "Developed by a traditional Chinese medicine hospital, one tablet in the morning and one tablet in the evening, and it will fall off the scale when lying down!" She was so moved that she bought a "net celebrity" weight loss tablet candy.
But after taking it, Ms. Li developed adverse reactions such as headache and insomnia for a week.
Feeling deceived, Ms. Li wrote her experience in the comment area, hoping to make more beauty lovers "avoid lightning".
According to Zhou Yanjun, a video blogger who has been in contact with the weight loss medicine industry for many years, the online marketing of weight loss medicines has a fixed model, and the interest groups behind it package the products. Then sell the products; insert their own products into the trendy weight loss methods to attract consumers to buy; some also invite Internet celebrity bloggers, celebrities, etc. to endorse and promote.
When the reporter browsed the hot searches on some online platforms, he found that there were also a lot of promotion information on weight loss medicines and foods in the comments on the relevant hot search news.
For example, in a hot news from a certain star, a netizen named "Please call me Yanbaba" left a message saying: "In order to participate in his fan meeting, he drank slimming drinks every day, lost a lot of weight, and changed his pear-shaped figure..." Then, Another netizen replied to the comment, saying: "Slimming drink is something I used some time ago, I posted it in my cyberspace!"
Zhang Jun, who lives in Dongcheng District, Beijing, was fooled into buying a product known as Thai diet candy. After taking it, he wanted to drink water and go to the toilet crazily at first. Later, he didn't want to eat all day, didn't feel hungry, and was accompanied by anemia. symptom.
"At the worst, as long as you lower your head and then lift it up, you will feel dizzy and dizzy."
She was so frightened that she quickly stopped taking it.
Wang Yadong, a lawyer from Zhejiang Jindao Law Firm, has handled many disputes involving weight loss drugs and food. He also represented a suspected crime due to the sale of illegal weight loss drugs at the beginning of this year.
He believes that there are three reasons for the confusion in this market: the huge market demand and the incorrect social orientation and values behind the demand; buyers think that diet pills are effective, do not need to exercise hard, and lack professional judgment. In particular, diet food is not harmful; the profit-seeking nature of merchants, the huge market attracts countless merchants to follow the news, and some merchants do marketing by unscrupulous means, leading to a vicious circle.
The cost is less than 50 yuan to sell a few hundred yuan
Anything can be put into the capsule
In 2021, Sun Qiaolu, who played Ling Meiqi, the little magic fairy in "Balala Little Magic Fairy", died of acute myocardial infarction.
In the video before his death, he told the experience of trying 50 kinds of diet pills: Most of the active ingredients of diet pills are laxatives, which have adverse effects on the body, not only causing memory loss, short temper, but also renal dysfunction, palpitations and other conditions. .
During the interview, many interviewees such as Zhang Jun and Ms. Li could not help but ask such questions: What exactly is in the weight loss medicines and foods they bought?
Zhou Yanjun said that the weight loss drugs and foods on the market can be divided into appetite suppressants, hormones, biguanide hypoglycemics, gastrointestinal lipase inhibitors, diuretics, laxatives, food extraction, food meal replacements, etc., relying on the principle of weight loss. It is to reduce the intake of body calories and improve the metabolism of the body, so as to achieve the purpose of consuming more than intake.
"In order to achieve this purpose quickly, some weight loss drugs have added banned ingredients such as sibutramine and ephedrine. Long-term use is prone to heart palpitations, insomnia, gastrointestinal adverse reactions, liver and kidney damage, and endocrine system disorders." Zhou Yanjun tell reporters.
According to Zhu Yi, an associate professor at the School of Food Science of China Agricultural University, sibutramine is a drug that acts on the central nervous system to suppress appetite. Although it has a certain weight loss effect, it may have side effects such as high blood pressure and increased heart rate. In severe cases, it can cause people die.
As early as 2010, my country has announced that the domestic production, sales and use of sibutramine preparations and APIs have been stopped, but there are still some unscrupulous merchants who illegally add sibutramine to diet drugs and food.
Zhou Yanjun said that the profit of diet pills is quite high. Sometimes, a box of diet pills sells for several hundred yuan on the market, and the actual cost is less than 50 yuan.
She recalled that around 2019, she began to directly contact the manufacturers of diet pills, "the manufacturers would directly tell me the ingredients in each diet pill, such as half the medicine and the other half starch; at that time, diet pills basically The active ingredient is sibutramine.”
Once, the manufacturer directly took out a bucket of 70 to 80 catties of weight loss medicine powder raw materials, priced at 6,000 to 7,000 yuan.
As long as the buyer has a mold, or spends 20,000 yuan to buy a whole set of molds, he can go back and make the diet pills himself. "I still remember the manufacturer asked me what type of diet pills I wanted to make, such as jelly, popping candy, capsules, etc. Everything. Especially capsules, the production cost is the lowest, and everything can be stuffed into capsules.”
"That chemical raw material barrel has a very pungent taste." Zhou Yanjun still remembers it fresh.
In order to avoid risks, Zhou Yanjun's last family will change a social account to communicate with her about every two or three months. At the same time, she does not accept direct transfers on social platforms, and will use multiple platforms and various methods to make her pay, "Send me to lose weight. When taking medicine, in order to avoid inspection, they often choose to mail it together with dog food and cat food.”
Seeing that there are so many problems with diet pills, Zhou Yanjun has long since stayed away from this industry.
Slimming and acne removal is like a panacea
Business and other information
The reporter contacted a micro-business named "Little Silver" through the recommendation of an acquaintance because he needed to lose weight.
She told reporters that she is a purchasing agent. In the past two years, she has sold an average of more than 1,000 sets of diet pills every month. There is a steady stream of buyers and diet pills are often in short supply.
In one month at the beginning of this year, its sales volume of diet pills reached 1.2 million yuan.
Xiaoyin recommended a "special effect prescription drug" allegedly from South Korea to reporters, repeatedly emphasizing the "multi-effect" of this prescription drug: not only a mild version, an enhanced version to lose weight, but also acne and whitening, just like "universal" magic medicine".
In the photo of the drug she sent, 5 small tablets of different colors were individually packaged in a small transparent bag.
However, when the reporter asked about the ingredients of the drug, the manufacturer, address and other information, Xiaoyin hesitated and could not give an answer, but just emphasized that this weight loss drug is authoritative, reliable and stable.
"This medicine was given by a pharmaceutical factory. It has existed for more than 20 years. I have sold it for two years, and I am a repeat customer. I am also a beneficiary of this medicine. I have lost weight very quickly," she said.
However, many netizens reported to reporters that after some colleagues took the drug, they fainted during work because they did not drink a lot of water as required by it, and were sent to the hospital for emergency treatment; Under the same circumstances, many indicators of the physical examination were abnormal.
The reporter contacted Ms. Wang, who was studying in Korea, to learn about the basic situation of this Korean "special prescription drug".
She told reporters that the active ingredients of this diet pill are fenfluramine hydrochloride, fluoxetine hydrochloride, magnesium hydroxide, caffeine anhydrous and ephedrine.
These drugs are used for mental treatment in ordinary medical practice. For example, fluoxetine hydrochloride is often used for antidepressant treatment, magnesium hydroxide is a laxative, and ephedrine is often used for asthma treatment. It is an adrenal mimetic. Vegetarian drugs are classified as Class I precursor chemicals.
Ms. Wang said: "This type of drug is a prescription drug, which must be consulted by a doctor, tailored according to the patient's actual condition and taken according to the doctor's order."
Indiscriminate use of prescription drugs or adding illegal ingredients to diet pills is naturally harmful, so are some diet foods as green and safe as they advertise?
Zhu Yi told reporters that diet foods such as enzymes are popular on the market, but if you want to achieve the claimed effect and lose weight immediately, you may add some laxatives, even legally added aloe vera, cassia seeds, etc., long-term use may also lead to colon damage. Melanosis.
"This is a non-inflammatory lesion, some people don't feel it, and some people will cause discomfort such as constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, abdominal distension, and anal bulge." Zhu Yi said.
This also means that, regardless of whether it contains illegally added ingredients or not, relying too much on diet food for weight loss may have a certain impact on human health.
Illegal cost is low, rights protection is difficult
Supervision and investigation should be intensified
Wang Yadong said that most of the diet pills on the market belong to health care products. According to the specific circumstances, deliberately selling diet pills containing prohibited ingredients will be suspected of producing and selling toxic and harmful food or producing and selling fake and inferior products.
In addition to sibutramine, other drugs such as laxatives and narcotics are also within its scope.
Especially narcotic drugs, adding to diet pills is easy to induce hallucinations and is more harmful.
The chaos of diet drugs and food has been around for a long time, why has it not been effectively managed?
Ren Chao, a professor at the School of Economics and Law of East China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the root cause lies in the urgent needs of consumers, the low cost of illegal activities, and the high difficulty in safeguarding rights.
"After the sellers are discovered, they usually face fines and lighter criminal liabilities, which are insufficient compared to the huge profits from selling products. For ordinary consumers, proof is also a big problem."
"Relevant businesses require consumers to produce inspection reports to prove that the products contain illegally added ingredients, but this is not an easy task for ordinary consumers." Ren Chao said, more importantly, there are regulatory blind spots in online sales of diet food, and business thresholds On the low side, the relevant information review is not strict.
He also mentioned that in order to avoid the inspection of relevant government departments, the means of illegally adding prohibited ingredients by merchants are becoming more and more concealed. Some "enterprises" even have special R&D teams to study additives; some publicly displayed products are qualified products, However, the products that are actually sold to consumers are products containing prohibited ingredients, which makes supervision more difficult.
To this end, Ren Chao suggested that multiple government departments such as health and market supervision should establish and improve a joint law enforcement mechanism, increase the supervision and investigation of illegal diet food, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Severe penalties should also be imposed on weight loss advertisements such as exaggeration and false propaganda, and the market supervision department can order operators to stop publishing advertisements and impose corresponding fines.