Asian women die or are hospitalized after taking Chinese diet pills
By KENJI HALL=
Associated Press Writer=

TOKYO (AP) _ A popular brand of diet pills from China has been linked to six deaths in three Asian countries, highlighting social pressures on Asian women to have model-like figures and the need to regulate the region's booming herbal health industry.

Suspected in the deaths is Slim 10 and other herbal products manufactured by the Guangdong-based Yuzhitang Health Products company. Slim 10 was found to contain substances including fenfluramine, which was outlawed in the United States in 1997 after being linked to heart, thyroid and blood problems.

Dozens of people have been hospitalized after taking the pills, their internal organs damaged and digestive systems poisoned by substances not listed on the label, authorities say. Some have sought liver transplants.

Fourteen new cases _ including the two latest deaths _ were reported in Japan on Friday.

Yuzhitang Health Products, which wasn't listed in phone directories, could not be reached for comment.

The tragedies reflect rising pressure on Asian women to be beautiful and challenges of regulating the region's fast-growing herbal health product and drug industry.

"Women are constantly told they should be thin _ from advertisements and television, but also from my own women friends, who are thinner than me. It made me feel like I had to lose weight," said Yuko Okada, a 22-year-old student in Tokyo.

Complaints against Yuzhitang Health Products company emerged in April, when health officials in Singapore found Slim 10 contained fenfluramine, which is banned under the country's Poisons Act, and nicotinamide, a vitamin B derivative.

Singapore ordered Slim 10 off drugstore shelves and filed criminal charges against the distributor.

Even so, a month later, Selvarani Raja, a 43-year-old Singaporean woman, died of liver failure, and the government suspected the pills.

Another woman suffered liver failure in May after taking Slim 10, but was saved by a liver donation by her boyfriend.

Since then, China's state-run media, Xinhua News Agency, has reported a death linked to Yuzhitang's slimming pills and Beijing has banned the company's products.

Japanese health authorities, meanwhile, are investigating the products after four more deaths linked to Yuzhitang's products.

A 60-year-old woman, died in a Tokyo hospital in May, about a month after she started taking the pills. On Wednesday, officials said they had linked a second Japanese woman's death to the weight-reducing medication, though they also warned that the evidence was largely circumstantial.

On Friday, authorities said the diet pills may have been behind the deaths of a 36-year-old woman from severe hepatitis last November and a woman in her 60s from liver disease in February.

Japan's Health Ministry announced Friday that 64 people _ all but 10 of them women _ had suffered liver or thyroid damage, or other ailments that they suspect were caused by Chinese diet medicines. It released no details on how serious their conditions were.

Officials say they have found traces of a thyrotropic hormone and an appetite-suppressant anorectic _ which are only supposed to be used in medicines _ that were not listed on the products' label.

Japanese officials point to a lack of legislation covering safety for products that claim to be nature-based.

Hiroyuki Tanaka, a Japanese Health Ministry official, said diet pills and herbal supplements aren't subjected to tests because they aren't supposed to contain the synthetic components of prescription drugs, which can often take a decade to win Japanese government approval.

With its long history of producing herbal remedies, China has become one of the world's largest producers of fake medicines, which are believed to be responsible for thousands of Chinese deaths every year.

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