Singapore court awards actress S$900,000 in slimming pill case

Asian Economic News, Oct 6, 2003

SINGAPORE, Oct. 4 Kyodo

A Singapore High Court awarded a popular television actress Saturday about S$900,000 (US$521,460) in damages in a lawsuit she brought against the importer and distributor of a Chinese brand of slimming pills.

Andrea De Cruz, 29, nearly died of liver failure last year after taking ''Slim 10'' pills manufactured by a Guangdong-based company called Yue Zhi Tang Health Manufacturing.

She survived only after a transplant of part of the liver of her fiance.

The court, ruling that Slim 10 was the most probable cause of the liver failure, found the importer of the weight-loss pill, Semon Liu, his company Health Biz Pte. Ltd. and distributor TV Media, liable, local state -run media reported.

De Cruz had sought S$1.4 million in damages.

Besides the actress, at least 13 other women fell ill in Singapore after taking the same diet pill and one woman died of liver failure last year.

The government has already banned the import and sale of the product, which had been launched in Singapore in December 2001. It also tightened the rules for the import and sale of medicine from China in the city-state.

Tests later conducted by the government showed Slim 10 contained fenfluramine, a controlled substance under the Poisons Act and associated with heart-valve and thyroid problems.

Health Biz was fined S$45,000 for breach of license earlier after Singapore's Health Sciences Authority took legal action against it, claiming the product was adulterated after having been cleared for sale.