A woman accused of supplying potentially dangerous slimming tablets by mail order and over the internet is to plead guilty, a court has heard. Lydia McCarthy, East Road, East Wall, Dublin, is facing 35 counts of breaking medicinal products regulations.
It is alleged she imported and advertised online slimming products which are subject to prescription control and contained a controversial drug called Sibutramine, which has been withdrawn from markets across the world due to health risk fears.
She appeared before Judge John O’Neill at Dublin District Court after she had been summonsed by the Irish Medicines Board. Her lawyer told Judge O’Neill yesterday guilty pleas would be entered to some of the offences but time was needed to discuss which charges with the board’s solicitor Ronan O’Neill; the remaining charges would be struck out.
Judge O’Neill adjourned the case until April 23rd.
McCarthy will also have to discharge the medicine boards’s costs totalling €4,500, arising from analysis of different packages involved in the investigation.
The court was told that she was a lone parent of two children and that it would take her some time to be able to pay.