Brazilian diet pills a danger, FDA warns

Published 9:00 pm Friday, January 13, 2006

WASHINGTON – The FDA warned consumers Friday not to use two illegal Brazilian diet pills because testing has revealed they may contain tranquilizers, antidepressants and stimulants.

The pills are sold over the Web as Emagrece Sim, or the Brazilian Diet Pill, and Herbathin, the Food and Drug Administration said. The pills are billed as all-natural but may contain active ingredients, including controlled substances, normally found only in prescription drugs such as Librium and Prozac.

Their use can lead to serious side effects or injury, the FDA said. The active ingredient in Librium, chlordiazepoxide, can be habit-forming.

“These products are illegal. They’re purported to be dietary supplements except they contain significant prescription drug ingredients,” said David Elder, director of the FDA’s Office of Enforcement. He added that an FDA investigation, triggered by a September consumer complaint, would “continue and expand as needed.”

Another ingredient in the pills, Fenproporex, is a stimulant that the body converts to amphetamine.

Users of the diet pills have flunked drug tests after their urine tested positive for amphetamines, said Terry Hall, laboratory director of Toxicology Testing Service Inc. in Miami.

Hall said tests he conducted on the pills, done at the behest of several people who faced losing their jobs after testing positive for amphetamines, revealed the presence of both Librium and an amphetamine-type compound, Hall said. Other samples he subsequently tested appeared to be drug-free.

“I tested a couple other products and, as far as I can see, it is complicated enough that one buying a product over the Internet has no way of knowing what product you’re going to get,” Hall said.

The pills are typically sold in kits, containing two varieties of capsules, with different “levels” to be used at different stages of a weight-loss regimen, the FDA said.

Herbathin Inc. sells a 45-day supply of the pills through its Web site for $185.

However, its Web site claims the “natural” pills are made from “over 40 different herbs among other high-quality ingredients” and that the herbs “come fresh from the Brazilian rain forest, the Pantanal and some are grown in special nurseries.”