• 
• 

Published on November 29, 2007

The company also ordered 45 branches to stop using glutathione and offered to refund customers who had not completed the treatment course.

Many cosmetic clinics injected glutathione into customers as part of the skin whitening treatment without considering the side effects.

At a press conference at the Grand Sukhumvit Sofitel Hotel yesterday, clinic president Dr Wutthisak Limpanich apologised to the FDA, the Medical Registration Division and the Medical Council of Thailand, for using glutathione. He said the company was unaware the dietary supplement was not registered yet on the Thai Drug List.

Wutthisak said he learnt from academic papers that Glutathione made the body produce less melanin, thus whitening the skin. So, he contacted an importer to sell him the substance, which the distributor insisted in writing had no dangerous side effects.

He said the company's branches stopped using Glutathione and advertising the service straight after the FDA announced the supplement was not on the list of approved drugs. He also dismissed rumours the company used fake substances.

Yossakul Banthukul, an assistant to the company's vice president, admitted the company made a mistake by not seeking FDA permission to import glutathione.

He said it had ordered 45 branches nation-wide to stop using the substance and throw away its remaining stock.

The branches would refund customers who did not complete the "Radiant and Detoxification" treatment course, he said.

Company executives would discuss later what to do with those who had already completed the course.

Shortly after the conference, at 3.30pm, 10 police officers plus FDA officials searched the clinic's Ngam Wong Wan branch and seized 11 bottles of glutathione.

Saree Ongsomwang, from the Foundation for Consumers, urged people who received treatment with the unauthorised substance to file a complaint with the foundation on 02-952-5062-2 to proceed with legal action against a doctor or clinic that provided them with glutathione.

Medical Council secretary-general Somsak Lohlekha said the use of glutathione without FDA permission and advertising that it whitened skin so much the skin 'glowed' were a breach of medical ethics. Injecting such a substance to whiten the skin was not standard procedure and long-term impacts had yet to be studied.

 The Nation