In 2002, Singapore actress Andrea de Cruz suffered catastrophic liver failure after taking Slim 10 diet pills, a near-fatal ordeal that would become one of the country's most notorious product-safety scandals. The pills, manufactured in Guangdong, China, were later found to contain fenfluramine, a banned substance that was a controlled drug under Singapore's Poisons Act. With her life hanging in the balance, de Cruz was saved when her then-boyfriend, actor Pierre Png, donated part of his liver for an emergency transplant. She subsequently won S$900,000 in damages in a landmark lawsuit, in a case that forced a reckoning over how slimming products were regulated in Singapore.
De Cruz was not the only victim. At least 13 other women in Singapore fell ill after taking the same pills, and one of them, logistics manager Selvarani Raja, died of liver failure. Slim 10 had been launched in Singapore in late 2001 and was sold through major retail chains, with more than 20,000 bottles moved at S$149.90 each. The first batch had actually been tested by the Health Sciences Authority and cleared for sale as a Chinese proprietary medicine, which made the subsequent discovery all the more alarming: government tests later showed the product had been adulterated with fenfluramine, a substance associated with heart-valve damage and thyroid problems.
The actress had sought S$1.4 million in damages. In October 2003, the High Court ruled that Slim 10 was the most probable cause of her liver failure and found the importer, Semon Liu, his company Health Biz Pte. Ltd., and distributor TV Media liable, awarding her about S$900,000. Health Biz had already been fined S$45,000 for breaching its licence after the authorities took legal action over the adulterated product. The couple's ordeal played out in full public view, and Pierre Png's decision to give part of his liver to the woman he would later marry became one of the most talked-about acts of devotion in local entertainment history.
The fallout reshaped Singapore's approach to health supplements. The government banned the import and sale of Slim 10 outright and tightened the rules for the import and sale of medicines from China. The case became a cautionary tale cited for years afterward: a reminder that products sold as traditional or herbal remedies could carry hidden pharmaceutical ingredients, and that the human cost of lax oversight could be measured in ruined livers and lost lives. For Andrea de Cruz and Pierre Png, the episode left a permanent mark on their lives and careers, but also a legacy as the victims whose suffering forced the system to change.
Behind the legal milestones lay a human story that kept Singapore transfixed. Pierre Png, who had been de Cruz's boyfriend and fiance at the time of her collapse, proved a compatible donor and gave her part of his liver in an operation that surgeons described as her only chance of survival. She responded well to the transplant, and the couple later married, turning a story of corporate negligence into one of personal devotion. The pills themselves had entered Singapore through a publicity campaign fronted by local actress Chen Liping in December 2001, touting Slim 10's weight-loss capabilities, and retail distributor TV Media moved more than 16,000 bottles to outlets including NTUC Healthcare Pharmacy, Watsons and Guardian between December 2001 and April 2002. That a product sold in such mainstream channels could contain an undeclared controlled substance was precisely what made the case so frightening to the public, and why it is still cited whenever new slimming products hit the market.