The European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) has begun an investigation of Abbott Laboratories' diet drug Meridia. Italian health officials, who suspended the sale of products containing sibutramine, the primary ingredient in Meridia, after fifty "adverse events" were associated with the drug, requested the review. Dozens of patients, including two in Britain this month, have reportedly died while taking Meridia. However, some health officials warn that underlying medical conditions, rather than the drug, may have contributed to the patients' deaths.