The Nice Ozempic Rip-off

Many of the meals in America comes from just some crops like corn, wheat, soy, and canola, largely resulting from farming subsidies that pressure farmers to mass-produce these crops and promote them beneath value. These low cost crops are then became the processed meals we eat day-after-day. That is problematic as a result of:

For years, activists like Dr. Mercola have pushed for consciousness of the significance of pure meals and the necessity to change farming subsidies to advertise wholesome consuming. The present media local weather, pushed by skepticism of the COVID-19 response and the rise of impartial media, has revealed the systematic failures in our meals provide and allowed these long-cultivated concepts to start bursting into public consciousness.

For instance, just a few weeks in the past, shortly after gaining the nationwide highlight and the necessity to make America Wholesome Once more by releasing us from pervasive regulatory corruption, RFK Jr. was invited onto Fox Information to debate the risks of seed oils and synthetic meals colorings with a supportive newscaster — one thing I’d by no means earlier than seen within the nationwide media.

Pharmaceutical Gross sales

Every so often, we get a clue about what goes on behind the scenes within the pharmaceutical trade (e.g., see this text and this text concerning the sociopathic sales-focused tradition inside Pfizer). One notably telling occasion was a presentation GSK gave their gross sales reps for Advair, which I consider is consultant of the mentality of this trade:

Final yr Kim Witczak,² a pharmaceutical security advocate, tipped me off about JP Morgan’s annual healthcare convention, a non-public invitation-only occasion described by JP Morgan as “the trade’s greatest gathering.” The forty first convention, from January 9-12, 2023, was the primary occasion hosted in particular person for the reason that pandemic began.

Given this occasion’s immense affect on the pharmaceutical sector (because it caters to giant buyers), it’s necessary to spotlight just a few issues that had been offered on the convention web site.³ First, take into account how enthusiastically they endorsed the profitability of two new sorts of medication:

In that video, crucial half was Chase’s projections for this new trade:

Notice: The GLP-1 medication embody Trulicity, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Byetta, and Ozempic.⁴

Second, take into account who the keynote audio system at Chase’s convention had been:

Notice: After I initially publicized this convention, elements of it had been deleted (e.g., one of many above movies and Califf being listed because the keynote speaker). Califf has lengthy been an extremely controversial FDA commissioner resulting from his immense pharmaceutical conflicts of curiosity.⁵

To repeat — the top of the FDA was a keynote speaker to buyers concerning the extremely profitable alternative they may count on from these new medication — implying that the FDA would do all the things it may to push them via. Because it so occurred, to cite Witczak:

“Fascinating to additionally word, Califf was the keynote speaker on opening day and out of the blue, the FDA granted accelerated approval to the second controversial Biogen Alzheimer drug on Friday [three days before the conference] with out an Advisory Committee. How nice to have the ability to announce to the healthcare biotech trade that one among their new medication was simply granted accelerated approval.”

Notice: An much more controversial approval had proceeded it⁶ (the place the FDA overrode its personal panel to approve an costly, harmful, and ineffective Alzheimer’s drug which resulted in three of the consultants on the panel resigning, with one stating it was “in all probability the worst drug approval choice in latest US historical past”).

Shortly afterward, the FDA gave a glowing press launch on their approval of the drug⁷ — however resulting from how unsafe and ineffective the drug was, even with the FDA’s endorsement, somewhat than grow to be the following blockbuster drug, it abjectly failed available in the market and is now being discontinued by the producer.⁸ For these , I mentioned the immense scandal with current Alzheimer’s medication and the suppression of confirmed (however un-patentable) remedies for the illness right here.

The Rise of Ozempic (Semaglutide)

As soon as I noticed this convention, on condition that it units the course for the whole trade, I turned satisfied that Ozempic would quickly be aggressively marketed, with the FDA backing the growth of its use. This prediction shortly turned a actuality, with widespread promotion and endorsements of the drug, paying homage to the beginning of the opioid disaster.

Right here as an example, are excerpts of two broadly seen interviews by Casey and Calley Means describing the staggering corruption that has facilitated Ozempic’s speedy rise all through America:

Sadly, the marketing campaign has been so profitable that there is now a scarcity of Ozempic,⁹ driving folks to hunt alternate options.¹⁰ The push to broaden Ozempic’s market has focused numerous demographics, together with:

1. African Individuals — Ozempic’s producer paid civil rights teams to foyer for the drug, framing any opposition as perpetuating systemic racism.^11,12

2. Youngsters — The FDA authorized semaglutide for overweight youngsters 12 and older¹³ simply earlier than the Chase convention regardless of considerations about long-term results, and on the primary day of the Chase convention, the American Academy of Pediatrics printed a set of authoritative set of pointers¹⁴ for treating childhood weight problems which strongly endorsed giving them the GLP-1’s:

3. The aged — One main impediment to promoting Ozempic is its excessive value ($1,000 to $1,500 per thirty days), making it unaffordable with out insurance coverage. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 prohibits Medicare from masking weight reduction medication, however the trade has been lobbying to overturn this.

An “weight problems rights” coalition, (funded by Ozempic’s producer),¹⁵ has efficiently superior a regulation via committee to permit Medicare protection,¹⁶ which may value between $3.1 to $6 billion yearly if handed.¹⁷

This raises a important query: Why was Medicare initially prohibited from masking weight problems remedies?

The Rise and Fall of Fen-Phen

A recurring theme I’ve explored is how medical catastrophes typically repeat as a result of we overlook the teachings from the previous. The present rush for Ozempic is strikingly much like the fen-phen catastrophe of the Nineties. Phentermine¹⁸ (launched to the USA in 1959) and fenfluramine¹⁹ (launched to the USA in 1973) had been two marginally efficient weight reduction medication that by no means caught on.

In 1979, a professor of scientific pharmacology and director of an FDA division for approving new medication believed weight problems wanted to be handled as a medical (somewhat than life-style) illness and determined to see in the event that they’d work higher as soon as mixed.²⁰ Fen-phen “labored,” and when his examine was lastly printed 20 years later, it immediately turned wildly widespread.

As phrase unfold, demand surged, turning many medical doctors’ places of work into tablet mills²¹ catering to determined sufferers. Nonetheless, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than the drug was linked to extreme coronary heart valve injury²² and pulmonary hypertension,²³ resulting in its elimination from the market and billions of {dollars} in authorized settlements. Remarkably, as soon as the mud had settled, the FDA official who pushed Fen-Phen onto the market admitted it by no means occurred to him to confirm the drug mixture was certainly protected.²⁴

What’s notably alarming is that most of the points we see right now with Ozempic — aggressive advertising, off-label makes use of, and a give attention to revenue over affected person security — mirror the errors made with fen-phen. Again then, the FDA finally stepped in to ban the drug after realizing the extent of the hurt it brought on, however this time round, the FDA as an alternative is working with the trade to push these medication.

The Dangers and Advantages of Ozempic

Previous to the GLP-1s being marketed as anti-obesity medication, a lot of my colleagues believed they had been fairly useful for diabetes. On condition that a few of these colleagues had been pretty conservative with which medication they might use and glorious clinicians, I took their opinions into critical consideration.

Nonetheless, I additionally seen that I used to be repeatedly seeing sufferers develop uncommon gastrointestinal issues from the medication (together with one hospitalization of a distant relative), so I held to the attitude the medication had been too new for his or her dangers to be totally appreciated.

After they began getting used as weight reduction brokers (the place their dose is way greater — 0.5 mg to 1.0 mg vs. 1.7 mg to 2.4 mg — ceaselessly being virtually 5 occasions better), we began noticing that we’d see an increasing number of sufferers who ought to have by no means been prescribed the drug and are taking sufficient of it (typically even overdosing) to drive themselves into cachexia.²⁵

These sufferers are simple to determine as they don’t look regular and have a considerably sick and considerably anorexic look since they’re ravenous themselves. That is finest demonstrated by what has come to be referred to as the “Ozempic Face”:

Notice: Many healthcare professionals are actually noticing an epidemic of Ozempic facilitated consuming problems.²⁶

I then seemed into the info on the GLP-1 medication and seen a curious sample — identical to fen-phen, the burden misplaced was quickly regained as soon as the drug was stopped. For example, listed below are just a few graphs from the pivotal trials of those medication.

First, utilizing the complete (2.4 mg) dose of Wegovy (which like Ozempic is one other title for semaglutide) every week, inadvertently exhibits that a lot of the individuals couldn’t keep on the medication for a chronic interval:²⁷

Second, when given to youngsters, they started regaining their misplaced weight as soon as they stopped the drug:²⁸

Third, when the results of withdrawing the drug had been examined,²⁹ the misplaced weight was clearly proven to return (alongside a gradual decline within the quantity of people that may keep on the drug):

Notice: The burden regained³⁰ was proportional to the burden initially misplaced.

Briefly, having to spend 1000 {dollars} a month for a little bit of weight reduction, which then disappears when you cease the drug, might not be the very best deal.

Conversely, I believe a key cause why this aspect impact has been publicized is that the aim of the pharmaceutical trade is at all times to have numerous folks perpetually utilizing a excessive revenue margin product (e.g., a month-to-month course of the thousand greenback Ozempic prices lower than 5 {dollars} to make),³¹ so any product which doesn’t repair the underlying situation however creates insupportable withdrawals when one stops (e.g., the SSRI antidepressants or the PPI acid reflux disease medicines) is “good for enterprise.”

Sadly, along with being a rip-off, Ozempic has just a few main points. First, the GLP-1 medication had been designed to withstand being damaged down throughout the physique, so they might solely must be injected as soon as per week (ensuing of their common half-life being roughly seven days, whereas the pure GLP-1 protein has a half-life between 1.5 to five minutes³²).

Because the GLP-1 is liable for slowing digestion within the physique, medication like Ozempic considerably gradual digestion and might create a wide range of gastrointestinal points from doing so (e.g., a examine of 25,617 real-world sufferers discovered these medication trigger a 3.5 occasions improve within the price of intestinal obstruction³³).

Second, extreme negative effects are fairly widespread. Probably the most complete examine³⁴ I’ve discovered of the extreme negative effects of GLP-1 medication (e.g., Ozempic) sourced from 16 million sufferers’ medical information discovered that the medication had been strongly linked to a wide range of negative effects that ceaselessly required hospitalization. Particularly, when in comparison with one other weight reduction mixture not usually related to these results, GLP-1 customers had been discovered to have:

• 9.09 occasions better threat of pancreatitis
• 4.22 occasions better threat of bowel obstruction
• 3.67 occasions better threat of gastroparesis (which implies you may barely eat as a result of the abdomen is consistently full — and in lots of instances after Ozempic, finally ends up being everlasting)
• 1.48 occasions better threat of biliary illness (e.g., painful gallstones)

Third, extreme adversarial occasions are usually a lot rarer than reasonable or minor ones. Given how frequent these extreme results are, it ought to come as no shock that much less extreme ones are much more widespread. For instance, take into account a examine³⁵ of 175 folks on the burden loss dose of Ozempic:

Likewise, take into account what number of adversarial occasions³⁶ had been acknowledged inside a trial sponsored by Ozempic’s producer:

Sadly, these aren’t the one negative effects. For instance, along with lawsuits being filed towards Ozempic for gastrointestinal problems akin to gastroparesis, lawsuits are additionally rising³⁷ for different extreme situations akin to imaginative and prescient loss.

Moreover, animal experiments are displaying³⁸ it distorts the structure of the small gut (which may result in poor nutrient absorption or continual intestinal obstructions), and most of the GLP-1 drug labels state the medication could also be linked to thyroid most cancers.

Notice: In a earlier sequence, I mentioned one of many largest points with the SSRI antidepressants — as a result of they’re given at a really excessive dose, people ceaselessly expertise extreme withdrawals³⁹ when their dose is modified. These withdrawals, in flip can set off suicidal conduct, psychosis, or violent conduct, which is usually homicidal (and a standard theme behind college shootings).

A significant situation with Ozempic is that because it slows the speed at which the abdomen empties, it alters and delays the absorption of psychiatric medicines. Because the customers are sometimes very delicate to modifications of their dose, many reviews now exist on-line of great psychiatric destabilization occurring in Ozempic customers who had been additionally on psychiatric medicines.

This may occasionally partly, clarify why a examine⁴⁰ discovered that Ozempic brought on a forty five% elevated threat of suicidal ideation, and that elevated to 345% in those that had been already taking SSRI antidepressants.

What Causes Weight problems

In America’s case, it’s very clear that weight problems has been constantly rising and that, like many different continual diseases, we haven’t been given an evidence for why it’s taking place.

Affordable explanations for this improve embody:

Nonetheless, somewhat than taking these into critical consideration, we’re merely being informed the true reply is a lifetime of Ozempic. Thankfully nonetheless, the altering political panorama is providing an actual hope to reverse this tide of weight problems and corruption we face.

Conclusion

The Ozempic story is egregious, but it surely additionally critically illuminates a truth most healthcare professionals don’t recognize — medical pointers are largely a product of financial issues somewhat than scientific proof.

Thankfully, nature at all times has a approach of bringing issues again into stability, and because the corruption inside our medical system has reached the purpose of absurdity and an increasing number of clearly harmful medication are being pushed onto the general public by our regulators, the general public is awakening to their lies and turning into much less and receptive to “trusting the consultants.” On this vein, I consider the Ozempic state of affairs is a pivotal second in time, because the tables have turned for the reason that occasions of Fen-Phen.

Now, somewhat than the resistance to its deployment upon the populace coming from the regulators, it’s generated by on a regular basis Individuals who don’t want these pointless and damaging medication pushed on their youngsters.

Notice: That is an abridged article. In the complete model, I talk about the above factors in additional element and discover the causes of meals cravings alongside pure strategies for restoring metabolic well being and regaining a wholesome weight. For extra sources and hyperlinks on this topic, click on right here.

A Notice from Dr. Mercola Concerning the Creator

A Midwestern Physician (AMD) is a board-certified doctor and a longtime reader of Mercola.com. I recognize AMD’s distinctive perception on a variety of subjects, and I am grateful to share them with them. I additionally respect AMD’s need to stay nameless since AMD remains to be on the entrance strains treating sufferers. To search out extra of AMD’s work, remember to take a look at The Forgotten Aspect of Medication on Substack.