Instagram urged to act over influencers promoting drug
Instagram has been urged by health leaders to clamp down on influencers using its platform to promote and sell a "dangerous" and unlicensed drug.
Senior NHS officials have written to the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, urging the company to shut down any accounts and content that promotes or attempts to sell Apetamin.
A BBC investigation said that Apetamin was being marketed by social media influencers as a way to get an extreme hour-glass, curvy figure, but it can cause side-effects including fatigue, jaundice and liver failure.
The letter, from NHS England's national mental health director, Claire Murdoch, and national medical director, Professor Stephen Powis, alongside Kitty Wallace of the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation, said the drug could result in "serious harm" to anyone who takes it.
They said: "We are writing regarding the unlicensed and dangerous drug Apetamin, which is promoted on your platform and could result in serious harm to any individual who takes it.
"This substance is consumed as a supplement, to foster a specific body image and shape, deemed to be desirable by some high-profile influencers, and predominately targeted at younger women and girls.
"On behalf of NHS patients, staff and people experiencing body dysmorphic disorder and other mental health conditions, as well as their families, we are concerned about both the physical and mental health impacts of the promotion of this drug and strongly urge you to demonstrate a duty of care for your customers, and clamp down now on this dangerous content."
The letter from the health leaders said that the Medicines and Healthcare products
Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had made clear that Apetamin is an "unauthorised medicine which should not be sold, supplied or advertised without a licence" and that "taking unauthorised medicines can have serious health consequences".
But it said that a quick search reveals "dozens" of profiles on Instagram selling and advertising the product to potentially millions of users.