If you wanted to lose weight last year, you might have been tempted to try Slimming Beauty Bitter Orange Slimming Capsules, a weight loss dietary supplement sold on the Internet. The label claimed that Slimming Beauty was "100% herbal" and "a natural vitamin and calcium" capsule for use even by children as young as 2. But the label didn't have two important warnings: First, that Slimming Beauty was illegally spiked with dangerous amounts of sibutramine, a powerful prescription-strength stimulant. Second, if you had tried it, you could have had a heart attack.
If the word sibutramine sounds familiar, that's because it's the generic name for Meridia, the prescription weight loss drug withdrawn from the market last October at the FDA's request. Though the agency had approved the drug in 1997, a recent 10,000-patient, 6-year study showed that sibutramine upped the risk of nonfatal "cardiovascular events" like heart attacks and strokes by 16%, causing the FDA to reconsider.