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The return of rainbow diet pills - PubMed

The return of rainbow diet pills

Pieter A Cohen et al. Am J Public Health. 2012 Sep.

Abstract

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently warned consumers about the risks of weight loss supplements adulterated with multiple pharmaceutical agents. Some of these supplements combine potent anorectics, such as amphetamines derivatives, with benzodiazepines, beta-blockers, and other medications to suppress the anorectics' adverse effects. These weight loss supplements represent the most recent generation of rainbow diet pills, named for their bright and varied colors, which date back more than 70 years. Beginning in the 1940s, several US pharmaceutical firms aggressively promoted rainbow pills to physicians and patients. By the 1960s the pills had caused dozens of deaths before the FDA began removing them from the US market. We used a variety of original resources to trace these deadly pills from their origins in the United States to their popularity in Spain and Brazil to their reintroduction to the United States as weight loss dietary supplements.

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Figures

FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—

A mailer that Clark & Clark distributed to physicians in March 1945. Source. Collections of the US Food and Drug Administration History Office. Reprinted with permission.

FIGURE 2—
FIGURE 2—

1968 Life magazine exposé on rainbow diet pills. Susanna McBee reported on her experiences at several obesity clinics, in which she received rudimentary or no physical examinations but more than 1500 powerful pills. Source. Life cover, January 26, 1968. Courtesy of Getty Images. Reprinted with permission

FIGURE 3—
FIGURE 3—

News American front page of March 1, 1968, reported deaths from rainbow diet pills. The US Senate investigation of the rainbow diet pill industry revealed dozens of deaths across the country linked to these pharmaceuticals. Source. News American, March 1, 1968. Courtesy of the Hearst Corporation. Reprinted with permission.

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References

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