NHS warning over drug ‘to give you Kardashian curves’
INSTAGRAM has been urged by health leaders to clamp down on ‘influencers’ promoting a dangerous unlicensed supplement designed to create a ‘Kim Kardashian figure’.
BBC documentary Dangerous Curves: Get Thicc, Get Sick? revealed recently that Apetamin is being marketed by social media influencers as a way to develop an extreme hourglass shape.
The drug contains cyproheptadine, an antihistamine that stimulates appetite and leads to weight gain. However, side effects include fatigue, jaundice and liver failure.
Now senior NHS officials have written to the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, urging the website to shut down accounts that recommend or try to sell the drug.
The letter is signed by 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. It said the drug could cause ‘serious harm’, adding: ‘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 Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had made clear that Apetamin is an ‘unauthorised medicine which should not be sold, supplied or advertised without a licence’. But a quick internet search reveals dozens of profiles still advertising the product to potentially millions of users – despite many of them having been reported.
The NHS leaders are asking for an urgent update on what action Instagram is taking to shut down such accounts and for confirmation that any content selling or promoting Apetamin will be removed. A spokesman for Facebook, which owns Instagram, said: ‘The wellbeing of our community is our top priority and buying and selling nonmedical or prescription drugs is strictly against our policies... We’re committed to working with law enforcement and youth organisations to help keep drugs sales of any kind off Instagram.’