Lemsip factory worker sues firm for £100,000 claiming it caused his sore throat and asthma leaving him unable to sleep

Published: 22:41, 15 August 2026 | Updated: 22:56, 15 August 2026 A factory worker who claims Lemsip caused his asthma and left him unable to sleep is suing its British maker for up to £100,000. Artur Rezmer – a manufacturing technician who worked on production lines for the cold remedy, and for constipation treatment Fybogel – says dust and fumes from the products’ ingredients triggered a sore throat, chest tightness, and breathlessness. Mr Rezmer, 45, of Hull, started working for the factory which makes the products for Reckitt Benckiser in 2020, and within weeks says he began suffering from a blocked nose and sore throat which interrupted his sleep. He worked on the Lemsip production line for months, despite asking to be moved because of his symptoms, and was eventually switched to Fybogel in late 2020. But that only made things worse, he claims, after he started to suffer from chest tightness, breathlessness, and facial flushing within three days. While his employers sent him home to rest, and offered him a high-performance filtration mask, Mr Rezmer says he was unable to tolerate wearing it. He later spent eight months working in the warehouse, but returned to the Lemsip line – and within weeks, he says, he began spitting blood and took sick leave. A pack of Lemsip Max Cold & Flu remedy with a cup of water and a spoon (pictured) A consultant respiratory physician found he had become allergic to ispaghula, the husk used in Fybogel, and he was diagnosed with occupational asthma and rhinitis.  In legal papers seen by The Mail on Sunday and filed at Kingston-upon-Hull Combined Court Centre, Mr Rezmer’s lawyers are arguing that masks provided by the company were poorly fitted and never made mandatory. Reckitt Benckiser denies the claim and says no respiratory sensitisers capable of causing asthma are present in Lemsip, but accepts ispaghula in Fybogel is a recognised sensitiser – an ingredient which it accepts, for the purposes of Mr Rezmer’s case only, was not cut to the lowest level practical under health and safety rules. But the firm denies medical causation, and points to the fact that Mr Rezmer tested positive for other allergens including house dust mites, and says he failed to wear the equipment provided. The case has yet to be decided, and Mr Rezmer — now working on the company’s Dettol line — remains employed by the firm. In his claim, he alleges that powder from the firm’s products escaped from a hopper and burned on a sealing heater to create fumes, with extractors that were sometimes blocked.  The papers state that he could always taste Lemsip after a shift, and that in April 2022 he fell ill again when a conveyor belt was found covered in loose Fybogel powder. Lemsip was launched in 1969 by Reckitt & Colman and rebranded in the 1970s with its sword-in-a-glass logo. The firm traces its roots to 1840, when Isaac Reckitt bought a starch mill in Hull, the city where Dettol was first bottled before its launch in 1932.  Reckitt & Colman merged with the Dutch company Benckiser in 1999 to create Reckitt Benckiser, now a FTSE 100 giant which reported revenues of £14.2billion in 2025. A spokesman for the firm said it was unable to comment on the case as it was still progressing through the courts. Mr Rezmer was approached for comment.