25st bride-to-be died because she was obese and not because she injected banned tanning drugs, inquest rules

A bride-to-be found collapsed in a sunbed shop died of heart failure not linked to injecting herself with banned tanning jabs, an inquest jury ruled today.

Jenna Vickers, 26, had apparently been taking the injections for weeks before being found unconscious in the cubicle of the TanTastic sunbed shop in her home town of Bolton, Lancashire, last September.

A hearing into her death was told that fair-skinned Miss Vickers was 'obsessed' with having a tan and was a regular at a tanning salon.

She had been taking unregulated injections of 'melanotan', a synthetic hormone which encourages the production of melanin, the pigment which turns the skin brown when exposed to sunlight.



Jenna Vickers (with mother Shirley Mather) collapsed and died in a tanning salon. An inquest ruled today she died from heart failure


But a pathologist told the inquest into her death that while medical research into Melanotan 2 was limited, in his opinion, it had nothing to do with her death.

Miss Vickers had struggled with her weight and was 25 stone at the time of her death.

A jury concluded she died from natural causes and the cause of her death was acute cardiac failure due to her obesity.

A report by toxicologist Julie Evans, read to the inquest, said there has not been enough scientific research done yet to reach any conclusions about whether or not Melanotan 2 is a danger or not to humans, but it has not been linked to any fatal incident.

The effects of Melanotan on the body was 'beyond the scope' of current testing - so it was impossible to tell what effect it had on Miss Vickers, the jury were told.


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Dr Waugh said Miss Vickers was obese, with a body mass index of 58, with the normal range between 21 and 25.

Most of her organs were also enlarged, especially her heart, and she was susceptible to dying suddenly.



A hearing into her death was told that fair-skinned Jenna was 'obsessed' with having a tan and was a regular at a tanning salon

He told the jury: 'It remains that there is insufficient information in respect of Melanotan 2 to allow any realistic assessment of its significance in the death of Jenna.


'The possibility of adverse reaction to Melanotan can't be excluded, but there is no evidence to suggest it does.


'I can't link it to the medical cause of death. The literature is not there or substantiates a causal link to sudden death.


'I would say it has nothing to do with her death, that would be my conclusion.'


Det Con Joanne Lally, from Greater Manchester Police, said a vial of Melanotan 2 was found in Miss Wilson-Vickers' bedroom purchased by her off the internet.


The person running that website was given a caution and the site closed down.


Sales of Melanotan are banned in the UK but it is available online across Europe and America.

Weeks before, Miss Vickers had tweeted: 'Getting a lovely tan now ... And I've had no side effects :) Very happy Bunny.'



Jenna (with boyfriend Bryan Watson) had been taking unregulated injections of 'melanotan', a synthetic hormone which encourages the production of melanin, the pigment which turns the skin brown when exposed to sunlight

It is thought Miss Vickers bought the tanning drug online and her inquest comes just days after a cornoner ruled that medical student Sarah Houston died after taking the drug DNP she had bought online.


David Hinchliff said it was ‘entirely’ responsible for Miss Houston’s death and demanded a crackdown on the sale of the capsules.


The inquest today heard that Miss Vickers had gone for her regular sunbed session at the Tantastic salon near her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, when she was found collapsed in September last year.

She was taken to hospital but died shortly after.

WHAT ARE MELANOTAN INJECTIONS?


Melanotan injections have been nicknamed the 'barbie drug' for their cosmetic appeal among beauty-conscious women. They come in two forms - melanotan I and melanotan II.

They both work by increasing the levels of melanin, a dark pigment that provides protection against the sun. Having more levels of melanin gives a darker more tanned appearance when exposed to sun, either natural or artificial.

Both manmade drugs have undergone some limited clinical trials with some positive results for protecting against UV damage.


There are large numbers of websites selling the products and they have become a craze among tan obsessives, bodybuilders and even some men who take them for their sexual side-effects.

However, health experts have made repeated warnings that products on the market are unlicensed and can have severe side-effects, ranging from nausea to headaches and other 'potentially dangerous' unknown outcomes.

The unlicensed drug is self injected, which means that there are serious needle safety issues to consider too.

Today her mother, Shirley Mather, told the 11-strong jury hearing the inquest that her daughter was a bright and bubbly person and generally happy but she had struggled with her weight.

She had dieted occasionally and put weight on in the period before her death, when she weighed around 25 stones.

Mrs Mather said: 'I was always worried about her weight. She would go on a diet and lose quite a bit and then put it back on. She weighed around 18 stone. She wasn’t taking diet pills and want on a diet at the time of her death.

'She was very fair skinned and really keen to get a tan, she used to go through phases.

'I used to drop her off at the sunbeds and wait outside for her. She probably went on twice a week.


'I was always telling her not to go on but she wouldn’t listen. She had probably been going on for about three months, twice a week. It didn’t really give her a tan.'

Mrs Mather said she learnt about her daughter taking the tanning injections around three weeks before her death.

'I talked to her about it. She just said she didn’t have any pigment in her skin so this was why she was taking injections so she wouldn’t burn on the sunbed.


'As a mother, I told her not to, but she was stubborn and if she had something in her head she had to go through with it.

'She used to say that she was getting a lot of headaches that had been going on for quite some weeks, I told her to go to the doctor but she didn’t. I have known her to faint.'

On September 3, they had made arrangements to meet and go shopping together.


A pathologist told the inquest into her death that while medical research into Melanotan 2 was limited, in his opinion, it had nothing to do with her death

Mrs Mather said that her daughter asked to be dropped off at the chemist to get a ‘sharps box’.

'I knew that was for her injections. We both went in.'

They then called in at the Post Office and Miss Vickers asked her mother to drop her off at the sunbed shop Tantastic in Bury Road, Bolton.

Mrs Mather said: 'Her usual time was about 10-15 minutes at the most. I expected to be waiting about 20 minutes for her and stayed in the car. She seemed well. She was very bubbly and was not complaining of any headaches.

'I was waiting for about 30 minutes. She went in about 9.35am or 9.40am. At 10.13am I phoned her to ask whether she had fallen asleep.'

She said when she walked in to the salon, she knew something wasn't right.

Salon manager Lisa Rourke had become concerned 10 minutes after the 12-minute tanning session had stopped and had tried to get into the booth, but Miss Vickers had collapsed against the door having got out of the upright tanning bed.


He said that he believed her death was caused by heart failure brought about by her weight

Mrs Mather said: 'I ran in and saw her slumped on the floor. I just knew something was wrong.

'I opened the cubicle door, Jenna was on the floor. I shouted her name and I saw her lips were all purple.

'I was shouting "come on Jenna, come on". I just couldn’t get her round. I tried to get her out of the cubicle door but I just couldn’t manage it at all.


'They (paramedics) got her out on a stretcher working on her for half an hour then that’s when they came out and told me. I didn’t see her breathing at all.'

Miss Vickers' fiance, Brian Watson, confirmed she had never fainted whilst with him, but had complained of frequent headaches.


He said: 'She was jealous because I could get a tan and she couldn’t. She had bought a couple of viles in the past couple of months. She would inject every two or three days.


'The night before, I had finished work and got home. We would normally take the dogs out and have tea and then settle down to watch TV.


'It was a normal evening. She would normally do it (inject) before she went to bed.


Miss Vickers' mother Shirley Mather said her daughter was 'bright and full of potential with lots of friends and was outgoing'

'That night she complained about having a pain in her chest but that was before the injections. It must have been between 7.30 pm and 9pm. She was sitting on the couch and she just grabbed her chest and said "ow".

'She said she had a pain and I asked if I needed to call paramedics, but she said no, she would be fine and it was gone in 10 minutes. I thought it was indigestion. The pain must have been quite bad.

'She kept them in the fridge and would take them out half an hour before. I had taken one and they sting. She would say it was stinging her.'


Graham Olive, a health and safety inspector for Bolton Council, said he had checked the 48-tube stand-up tanning cabinet and found it was in good working order with no faults.

He said customers buying multiple sessions at Tantastic were given a card asking about skin type and recording their exposure to sunbeds.

But Miss Wilson-Vickers bought her sessions individually so did not have the same card and there were no records kept at the shop showing her being asked about her use or medication she was taking.




The night before she died, she complained of chest pain but dismissed it as indigestion

Mr Olive said she may have been asked about this verbally but it was not recorded.

Dwayne Rutty, a forensic analyst with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said after Miss Wilson-Vickers' death he had been asked to analyse two substances recovered during the police investigation into the matter, one in solid and one in liquid form, and both were found to be Melanotan 2.

'It is thought to have tanning qualities, we have seen it before, the agencies are quite aware of people using it for tanning,' he said.

This afternoon, the inquest heard that Miss Vickers' weight may have played a key role in her death.

Her heart was enlarged and weighed 543g compared to the normal weight of 330g.



The pathologist said that her heart was enlarged and that her coronary artery was narrowed

Pathologist Dr Patrick Waugh said that the most likely cause of Jenna Vickers' death was her weight.

He said: 'She had narrowing if the coronary artery by 15 per cent due to fatty deposits which reduce the blood flow to the heart.

'She had heavy lung fluid indicative of an acute degree of heart failure and her liver weighed 5kg, the normal weighs is less than 2kg. This was due to her obesity.

'In a situation where I hadn't known she had died in a confined space, with these findings I would say she died from acute heart failure due to obesity.

'In this individual she had abnormalities, she had an enlarged heart. Anyone who has an enlarged heart is susceptible to dying suddenly and she also had narrowing of the coronary artery.

'The chest pain she had the night before was different. That might have been the first evidence that she was having a heart attack. Sometimes it comes and then comes back, they are angina type pains.

'It was different to any other pain she had felt before.

'Obesity leads to all the other problems and I think that may have contributed to fatty deposits in the coronary artery."

The inquest heard that Melanotan II is not a typical drug and would not be detected as part of toxicology tests and was not possibly to determine if she used the compound prior to death.

Dr Waugh said: 'There is not a reported case of any fatalities of this drug, there are reports of people being unwell but they could be potentially using other things. There is no evidence in the literacy to support it having harmful effects.

'I can't link it to the medical cause of death, the literature is not there, there is not a causal link to sudden death. I could not say that it was linked to her death. I would say it has nothing to do with her death.'

He also ruled out positional asphyxia and that she had not got wedged in the booth impeding her ability to breathe as she was able to be moved.He added: 'In my opinion I would say that the cause of death was acute cardiac failure due to obesity. Obesity caused her heart to get larger and narrowing of the arteries triggered a failure.'