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10mg vials of Melanotan Maroondah Leader

Health products regulator warns against unauthorised 'self-tanning' substance

The HPRA said that social media has had a huge role at popularising the product.

THE HEALTH PRODUCTS Regulatory Authority (HPRA) is alerting the public of the serious health risks posed by using the unauthorised substance Melanotan and warning consumers not to buy the self-tanning aid.

The substance, also known as Melanotan 2, Melanotan II, or MT2, is being sold as an injectable powder, nasal spray or drops.

Concerning health effects are associated with use of the substance, such as stroke, muscle tremors, anaphylaxis, development of new moles, darkening of existing moles and freckles, and vision loss.

The HPRA has noted an increase in activity on social media illegally advertising and offering Melanotan 2 products for sale. 

Between January 2020 and June 2022, over 500 social media or e-commerce listings relating to Melanotan 2-containing products were removed by the HPRA.

Director of Compliance with the HPRA, Grainne Power, stated: “We are seeing the growth of marketing and promotion akin to a cosmetic product, using images of glamour and golden tans, and offering simple ‘tanning injections’ or ‘nasal sprays’ to replicate an aspirational body image.”

She said that the HPRA is actively engaging with international social media platforms with the goal of limiting the sale and promotion of these products.

One website visited by The Journal which was selling the substance had the disclaimer “Research use only. Not for human or animal consumption!”

However the website listed the various tanning effects of Melanotan on humans, as well as claiming it could cure erectile dysfunction. 

Several parts of the website acknowledge that the substance is being shipped to Ireland, despite the fact that “the promotion, advertising or sale of Melanotan 2 via online sources or social media platforms is in effect selling a dangerous substance that has not been declared safe for human use and is illegal,” according to Power.

Another disclaimer on the site reads: “You must be a licensed and qualified healthcare practitioner” however no verification of this seems to be necessary to purchase an order of Melanotan.

Power concluded by stating that “There is no data to support any safe use in any form and anyone using it is taking huge personal health risks”.

Melanotan 2 has not been authorised as a medicine, and therefore has no guarantee of  safety, according to the HPRA.

The authority also warned consumers to be vigilant of false or misleading marketing in relation to the substance.

Products containing Melanotan 2 are not cosmetic products because products that are intended to be inhaled, injected or absorbed from under the tongue cannot be classified as cosmetics.

The chemical was flagged as a public health risk in Australia, with Australian Medical Association (AMA) vice-president Dr Anthony Bartone warning in 2017 that it can interfere with cancer diagnoses.

He stated that his main concern with Melanotan was its ability to darken skin moles which strongly interfered with the detection of melanoma.

“There are also extreme side effects such as nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite and stomach cramps,” Dr Bartone said.

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    Mute John Mc Auley
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:31 PM

    USA Invaded how many countries
    And the only nation to drop nukes twice……. This excludes them from comments on other countries.

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    Mute Allora
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:48 PM

    @John Mc Auley: the dropping of nukes in your view was comparable to this invasion? I think you understanding if history is somewhat bland. Those atomic weapons saved millions of lives both US and Japanese and we haven’t even counted the other countries.

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    Mute Jack Cass
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    Mar 31st 2022, 8:00 PM

    @Allora: The war was all but over, the Russians were ready to invade from the North. Japan was on the ropes, there was no need to drop the bombs.

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    Mute Zmeevo Libe
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    Mar 31st 2022, 8:01 PM

    @Allora: The dropping of nukes was a crime that will be remembered long after the Ukrainian and other wars will be forgotten. To literally burn alive the population of two cities, just to show “we have this new bomb and we can make more of it, so we are the boss now”. All that about saving American and Japanese lifes is unconvincing propaganda.

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    Mute Garret Fawl
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    Mar 31st 2022, 8:12 PM

    @Zmeevo Libe: would you be saying the same if the bombs were dropped on Germany, the Japanese regime was as cruel as the nazis in my opinion.

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    Mute Zmeevo Libe
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    Mar 31st 2022, 9:57 PM

    @Garret Fawl: Yes I would. It was the civilian population that was bombed, not the regime.

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    Mute Daithi De Roiste
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    Mar 31st 2022, 10:11 PM

    @Jack Cass: There was, dropping that nuke was a signal from the US that they were the dominant force within the allies. When Russia & US entered Germany the race was on to capture the best scientists to make the nuclear weapon. When the yanks dropped it they had the upper hand in the bretton woods treaty, as they were the strongest the $ was decided to be the world’s reserve country making them the richest in the world. If the Russians dropped the nuke first it would have been the ruble, or Brits the pound etc

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    Mute Niall Ó Cofaigh
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    Mar 31st 2022, 11:13 PM

    @Garret Fawl: the bombing of Dresden is often considered a war crime. In fact one can go as far as stating that the bombing of Berlin during the battle of Britain targeted civilians and was therefore a war crime under currect definition. Was the US bombing of Hanoi? Was the Israeli shelling of Gaza? Was the targeting of London in the blitz? Was the targeting of civilian infrastructure in the Donbas region justified? It seems to me that “war crimes” are defined by the “winners” when the end justifies the means. We rarely hear of the “winners” being charged with war crimes.

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    Mute Paul Mcnevin
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    Mar 31st 2022, 11:14 PM

    @Jack Cass: Japan wasn’t ‘On the Ropes’, Russia had not agreed they were going into Japan. Japan had not conceded by any stretch.

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    Mute DERRY1973
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    Mar 31st 2022, 11:17 PM

    @Zmeevo Libe: it’s easy talk 75 years later about right and wrong, and we’d be here all night if we were to list all the major atrocities that have taken place all round the world since humans realised they could kill one another.

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    Mute john smith iv
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    Apr 1st 2022, 12:39 AM

    @Allora: what a dis gusting justification of nuclear use.

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    Mute Michael Dowling
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    Apr 1st 2022, 6:40 AM

    @Jack Cass: yep the could have dropped the nukes in the sea near Japan as a warning. Just wanted to show off their new toy. The west and east need to cop on and ban physical wars for the discussion table. Most people west and east don’t want a physical war so time the leaders listen to their own people.

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    Mute BOT 4d4143204a6f686e446f65
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:44 PM

    I don’t believe so.. if he is he’s in queue after IRAQ and Afghanistan

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    Mute Toirdealbhach O Ceallaigh
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    Mar 31st 2022, 8:02 PM

    Sure if Henry kissinger can get away with it why not Putin.

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    Mute Eoin Roche
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:12 PM

    Who cares, he and his cronies are morally liable, the facts of the invasion speak for themselves. Put them all up against the wall and sh©©t them.

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    Mute Vonvonic
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:42 PM

    @Eoin Roche: I think there’s a huge existential question to be answered here too. Going forward; are we going to allow bald men with small willies to threaten the world with all out out devastation if they can’t get their way? (Before anyone gets upset; I’m bald myself. And only average in the other area). But we simply cannot have this. How do we solve it? It’s all very well to blame everything on Putin. But there’s a bigger issue here. John Nash’s theory of equilibrium with regards to nukes has obviously passed it’s sell by date. But how do we solve it.

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    Mute Vonvonic
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:43 PM

    @Vonvonic: ?

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    Mute Allora
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:46 PM

    @Eoin Roche: shoot them?? Do you want us to be become like him? I don’t agree. Make him a an outcast and take his wealth in the west but ring fence it for the rebuilding of Ukraine and the lives of those he destroyed.

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    Mute Eoin Roche
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    Mar 31st 2022, 11:39 PM

    @Allora: Nope. Sh00t them, h@ng them, take your pick. The Nuremburg tribunals didn’t make the Allies like the Nazis, it was simply the only appropriate punishment for a group of men who delivered unimaginable genocide on those in Europe who didn’t fit the Aryan model. Putin and his generals and his cronies would end up with the same level of destruction if he were given half a chance, but the deaths of a couple of thousand Ukrainians is already reason enough to ex€cute them. They are killing children, they are bombing hospitals, they have even killed a few old people who survived the Holocaust, if such a horrific fact can even be comprehended. Sh00ting these f**** doesn’t make us like them, it just makes the next potential war criminal pause for thought.

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    Mute john smith iv
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    Apr 1st 2022, 12:42 AM

    Fun fact. The US will invade the Netherlands if any US serviceman, politician nor other citizen appears before the ICC.

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    Mute John O Mahony
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    Apr 1st 2022, 8:10 AM

    So are Blair and Bush responsible for invading afganistan and iraq

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    Mute Michael Mccahill
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    Apr 1st 2022, 6:28 AM

    Just a thought. Is his Mum alive?
    Surely a good flick of a well aimed tea towel to those pointy ears would sort him out

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    Mute Sandra Molloy
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    Apr 1st 2022, 8:40 AM

    @Michael Mccahill: pity he wasnt an abortion

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    Mute Mairead Conroy
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    Mar 31st 2022, 7:43 PM

    Absolutely

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    Mute David Crosbie
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    Mar 31st 2022, 9:02 PM

    Doesn’t even come close

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    Mute Denis Doyle
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    Apr 1st 2022, 3:46 AM
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    Mute Denis Doyle
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    Apr 1st 2022, 3:47 AM
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