The scene of the tragedy was an Adelaide family home on a spring evening six years ago. Nineteen-year-old Louisa Fioretti had been listening to melancholy music and roaming internet chat rooms when something inside her snapped.
She had always struggled with anxiety, but the condition had become particularly acute during her Year 12 studies when her body-image problems mounted and her relationship with food deteriorated. Her phone screensaver was a fit, beautiful woman to keep her focused on achieving the body she wanted.
That day – October 12, 2015 – Louisa had received a parcel from Colorado, USA. It was labelled “Women’s Multivitamin Health Supplement” but inside was a potent weight-loss agent that shady online sellers claim “annihilates” body fat and appetite. In what is believed to have been an impulsive act, Louisa opened the bottle and swallowed a large number of the weight-loss pills.
The coronial report on what followed makes for harrowing reading. As the pills began to act, Louisa called triple-0 and told them what she’d done. The so-called fat-blasting ingredient was a chemical called DNP (or 2,4-Dinitrophenol).
Paramedic Andrew O’Connor had never heard of it, so as the ambulance sped to the Fioretti home, he researched the chemical with a growing sense of dread. DNP was marketed as a diet pill in 1933, but withdrawn from sale after just five years because of the danger it posed. The compound was initially used in the manufacture of explosives, dyes and wood preservatives.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة February 2021 من The Australian Women's Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة February 2021 من The Australian Women's Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Where to go in 2024
Who doesn't love fantasising about their next trip? We've gone for lesser-known locations, and whether you're seeking bright lights, striking natural scenery, serenity or excitement, here's where you're sure to find it.
Money matters with Effie
Didn’t reach your financial goals in 2023? While a new year won’t wipe away pressures like rising costs, there are a few things you can do now to refresh your money mojo in 2024.
Bright stars in a rugged land
The hot, dusty opal fields around Lightning Ridge in outback NSW have traditionally been a man's world. Now The Weekly meets the women who have been struck by opal fever.
The gift of life
Maureen Elliott had just months to live when she went on St Vincent's Hospital's transplant list. Thirty years on she's one of the longest living heart-lung transplant recipients in the world.
An uncaged heart
After more than two years in Iranian jails, Kylie Moore-Gilbert has forged a new life that's brimming with love, and a determination to help others who have been wrongfully imprisoned.
The woman behind The King
As Sofia Coppola's biopic Priscilla readies to hit screens, we look back at the early life and great love of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley.
Say hello to the Cockatoo cake
When we put a call-out to our readers for their best children's cakes we were inundated with recipes, and this clever cockatoo was ahead of the flock.
The French revolution
Dawn French quit her sketch show because she felt so ugly. Now the \"roly-poly comedian\" wants us all to stop fretting about our faults. She talks body image, surviving the 1980s and owning her mistakes.
Trump's women
Will it be the jailhouse or the White House for Donald Trump this year? The women in his life could make all the difference.
Can you buy a good night's sleep?
Forty per cent of Australians have trouble sleeping, and the market has responded with a mind-boggling array of sleep aids. But do any of them actually work? The Weekly goes in search of slumber.