Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking with social media platforms to ensure that appropriate warnings are provided on such platforms on unlicensed weight gain drugs such as apetamin.

Apetamin is considered to be a medicinal product and requires a Marketing Authorisation or product licence to be legally sold and supplied within the United Kingdom. A Marketing Authorisation guarantees the medicine has met required standards of quality, safety and efficacy. No authorisations or licences have been granted for Apetamin and consequently offers to sell or supply it are in breach of UK legal requirements.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency issues regular warnings to the public concerning the risks of purchasing from unregulated websites and has run a targeted public awareness campaign #FakeMeds across social media which provided detail and tips to purchase medicines online safely.