A newly qualified doctor who sold intravenous nutrient infusions through Instagram and made spurious claims about their benefits has been suspended from the UK medical register for three months.
Nita Arshad, 29, turned to selling and administering intravenous cocktails of vitamins and other nutrients when she was struggling to find work after qualifying at a university in Romania in 2020. She took a course in intravenous nutritional therapy and worked in a room above a health café in Salford, Greater Manchester.
Her business, known as Dr Drips, had an Instagram page that made false claims about the benefits of the infusions, including that they “targeted” Alzheimer’s disease, depression, epilepsy, impotence, insomnia, obesity, Parkinson’s disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. Arshad admitted at the hearing’s outset that false claims had been made, that patients had unnecessarily been exposed to intravenous injections, and that her behaviour …