Illegal medicines seized by Irish Medicines Board

By Gary Culliton. The Irish Medicines Board (IMB) has detained thousands of products containing sibutramine which were illegally on sale in this country. In 2010, all medicines containing sibutramine, a prescription medicine used to assist weight loss, were withdrawn in Ireland and across the EU due to an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. The active substance sibutramine is, however, currently to be found in unauthorised brands of slimming products sold illegally on the Internet either directly from abroad or imported into Ireland and sold by mail order and by person-to-person contact sales. At present, Internet/ mail order supply…