Irish pharmacies are selling slimming pills to customers who are not overweight.

In a survey four in 10 pharmacies were willing to dispense an over-the-counter medicine to a customer whose weight was at the lower end of the normal range.

Alli, a weight-loss aid, is authorised for use only by over-18s who are obese or moderately overweight. The makers of the drug have trained pharmacists to identify whether customers fit these criteria.

However, the Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI) found eight out of 20 pharmacies surveyed were willing to sell the product to someone close to being underweight.

Four out of 11 chemists in Dublin, three of five in Limerick and one in Portlaoise did not make the proper checks.

The test is a person’s body-mass index (BMI), a measure of weight in proportion to height. People with a BMI under 18.4 are classified as underweight, while those between 25 and 30 are overweight. The person involved in the tests had a BMI of only 19.1.

The weight-loss aid, which costs about ¤60 for a month’s supply, is a lower-dose version of a prescription medicine, Orlistat, used to treat obesity. A licence was granted by the European commission this year f or the non-prescription version and it became available in chemists from April.

The drug works by inhibiting the production of lipase, an enzyme made by the pancreas to break down fat. The fat is excreted instead, which results in fewer calories being absorbed by the user.

At its launch, Niall O’Shea, Glaxo Smith Kline’s head of regulatory and external affairs, said: “The pharmacies will check the individual is over 18, with a BMI of 28 or over, and will ask further questions.”

The CAI said that as the responsibility had been placed on pharmacists to regulate the sale of Alli there should be “stiff penalties for pharmacies that do not comply with the conditions of sale, such as checking the age of the customer and their BMI”.

It said: “Weight-loss drugs should not be available without a prescription and the advertising of Alli should be curbed immediately.

As our investigation shows, if users are not being monitored, it is too easy for anybody who wants this medication to obtain it. This opens up the potential for abuse.”

Consumer groups fear the drug, which has been linked to kidney and pancreatic problems, can be abused by people with eating disorders.

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