Antiobesity drugs to be banned in EU

The final decision to end the marketing of antiobesity or anorecticdrugs in the European Union has been taken by the European Commission after years of heated debate. The ban on these agents will become effective April 9, 2001.

The Commission has taken the advice of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency in reaching its decision, following the agency's warnings about these products in mid-1999. The EMEA pointed out that anorectic drugs such as amfepramone, phentermine, clobenzorex and fenproporex, are often ineffective and have been associated with serious side effects, such as pulmonary hypertension and deformation of the heart valves.

In Europe, the prescribing of these drugs has been severely curtailed in recent years following a decision by the then French drug agency (AFM) in 1995 to limit their use to the treatment of serious cases of obesity for a period of three months only.