60% drugs bought online 'below standard or fake'

More than 60% of medicines bought online turn out to be substandard or falsified, according to MEP Mairead McGuinness.

Ms McGuinness, who is warning people about the hazards of buying drugs on the internet, said: "When you're buying online from an unregulated sopurce, you cuold potentially be putting your health and life in danger."

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It comes following the death of a young Irish man this summer, who had bought banned slimming pills on the internet.

The man died in mid-May, as reported in the Irish Examiner, just weeks after the State’s medical watchdog issued a public warning about potentially lethal slimming products.

He took tablets containing the highly toxic substance dinitrophenol (DNP), which is commonly used in diet pills.

Both the gardaí and the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) have begun investigations into the supply of the DNP product and events surrounding the death of the man.