Streatham trading standards warning over poisonous skin cream (From Your Local Guardian)

Streatham trading standards warning over poisonous skin cream

3:00pm Monday 9th November 2009 in

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A warning has been issued about a poisonous homemade skin cream that was mixed and distributed from Streatham.

Lambeth Council's trading standards officers are investigating an unnamed "skin lightening" cream that left two women in Oxfordshire needing treatment for potentially lethal mercury poisoning.

It was mixed at a Streatham address where production has now stopped.

But trading standards officers are advising residents to avoid all unlicensed "under the counter" skin lightening creams in the area and elsewhere because there is no guarantee any are safe.

They warn skin lightening creams can cause permanent skin bleaching, thinning of the skin, intense irritation, and a blue-black discolouration of skin.

The council has not released the name of the person selling the cream because of its ongoing investigation.

The cream is believed to have been mixed from a number of different products that included ‘Stillman’s Red Freckle Cream’ imported from Pakistan and containing a significant quantity of mercury.

Robert Gardner, the council's trading standards manager, said fortunately it was only circulated to a small number of suppliers.

He said most of its potential users have been traced, warned to stop using it, and advised to visit their GP.

He advised anyone who had bought an unlicensed skin cream and was worried about its effect to visit their doctor.

Meanwhile, a number of potentially dangerous unlicensed medicines have been discovered on sale in Brixton.

After spot checks of a number of shops in the town centre, trading standards seized several boxes of medicines that contain drugs marketed as promoting appetite in babies that should only be prescribed by a doctor, but were freely available ‘off the shelf’.

The products, Tres Orix and Apetamine, contain the antihistamine drug cyproheptadine that is medically restricted.

Ray Bouch, the council's senior trading standards officer, warned people not to take the products.

Trading standards said the shops involved - many which said they did not know the products were medicines - were issued with warnings.

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