Asia's Killer Diet Pills

By a mother's standards, Andrea De Cruz didn't need to lose weight. But show business imposes strict requirements on appearance, and when the dial on the Singaporean TV actress's bathroom scales spun to more than 48 kilos, De Cruz started taking a Chinese diet pill named Slim 10 that she purchased from a colleague. Two months later, De Cruz, 28, was near death, unconscious in a hospital in Singapore. Doctors at first were baffled. But they came to suspect that an ingredient in the diet drug had ravaged her liver, which had all but shut down.

De Cruz's...