The Italian parliament is to hold an investigation into the controversial anti-cholesterol drug Baycol/Lipobay, which has been alleged to have played a role in five deaths in the country, officials said Wednesday.

The drug, which has been withdrawn worldwide by its manufacturer Bayer, has also been cited in over 100 lawsuits or threatened lawsuits in Italy. The presidency of the lower house of parliament said that officials of the health ministry, the watchdog Superior Health Institute, experts of the drugs committee CUF, of the general medical and pharmacists' council and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry would be heard.

The inquiry, which is to be completed by December 31, will be led by the lower house's social affairs committee.

A separate investigation by the deputy prosecutor in the northern city of Turin, Raffaele Guariniello, is to determine if Bayer was entirely truthful about the problems with Baycol/Lipobay and if those problems were sufficiently registered by health authorities.

Bayer withdrew Baycol/Lipobay from sale in most of the world on August 8 after the discovery of harmful side-effects, such as muscle degeneration, when the medicine was used with another anti-cholesterol drug called Gemfibrozil.