Harmful ingredient in diet pills caused death: coroner

A mother who took diet pills containing a harmful and now-banned substance died from their adverse effects more than a year after she stopped taking them, a coroner found yesterday.

Wong Fung-yee, 35, who was 1.6 metres tall and weighed 73kg, complained of being unwell in August 1997 after she started taking Trim Right, a diet pill claimed to contain natural ingredients, the Coroner's Court had heard.

She died in Grantham Hospital on December 5 last year, without any evident cause, from multiple organ failure and a lung condition called pulmonary hypertension.

Dr Chow Wing-hing of Grantham Hospital told the court yesterday there were only about six patients each year who died from this type of hypertension without any evident cause.

In March 1998 it was discovered that the pills, which cost $580 a bottle, contained fenfluramine, an appetite suppressant withdrawn in the United States in September 1997 because of its harmful effect on the heart. It was banned here last year.

Dr Chow said: 'Based on a study in 1996 in France, patients who take fenfluramine are 30 times more likely to suffer from pulmonary hypertension than those who do not.' Recording a verdict of death from the adverse effect of a non-prescription drug, Coroner Paul Kelly said: 'All the medication which Madam Wong took under the trade name of Trim Right contained fenfluramine.