Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Let the Buyer Beware

One of my afternoon patients today was a guy who had a seizure after he started taking "Chinese Weight Loss" pills he bought online.

So, trying to figure out what was in them, I asked him if I could see the bottle. Of course, the label is almost entirely in Chinese characters, so I couldn't read it. There was, however, a website in English, so I looked it up.

The site, however, wasn't any more helpful at finding out the ingredients. It was written in badly broken English (I can't believe people are being suckered into giving this site their credit card numbers).

Highlights from the site:

"Ingredientts: herBs that are good for yu."

"Side efects: If pills make yu sick, no take."

1 comment:

Modesty Press said...

Before I retired, I taught computer classes in public libraries. Many of my students came from other countries.

A Chinese teenage asked me to help her set up a Hotmail account, so she could send an receive email in Chinese. The problem came when we tried to figure out how to type Chinese characters on an English keyboard.

There is supposedly a way to do it, but it was all Chinese to me, and evidently to her.

 
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