The Ozempic (and Mounjaro, etc) Craze...

[AJMD429]

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There ARE 'pros' to these medications, particularly with some diabetics, but we have reached the point where in the US (most nations disallow pharmaceutical advertising directly to the public), patients are exposed to miracle-stories of 'success' with whatever the latest profitable drug is (from Remdesivir to Ozempic), and come in to ask the Mean Doctor (at least if the doctor recommends adherence to strict diet and exercise instead) for medications to help them lose weight.

Add to that the paid-for Tiktok videos and other 'social media' (including by physicians) where compensation is received in return for advocacy, and it is a really sick system.

This was a good documentary I share with my patients on the topic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyLVrHWZTEc

Interesting that it is now a 'civil rights issue' if you don't support federal funding for these drugs, according to the NAACP, which is apparently a legally-registered lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry now.

[piller]

My A1C is now at 5.9, and I credit Mounjaro and three times a day shots of 70/30.

[AJMD429]

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It reminds me of the SSRI's and the statins - both drugs were breakthroughs in terms of efficacy and safery, but then got way over-used, so big surprise - side effects manifested (put 20 million people on a daily dose of one peppermint TicTac a day and several per year would die from choking on them or something). Then the backlash were they were deemed horrible and evil and drugs nobody should ever take under any circumstances.

The public is with medications like children with candy - they cannot understand the concept of individualizing regimens, using medications as part of an overall therapeutic regimen, and monitoring for side effects - so now we are in the 'everyone who is more than two pounds over their high-school graduation weight needs Ozempic' phase, and transitioning to the 'those drugs are so horrible they should be take off the market phase'...

I have tons of patients like you who they have helped so well, but it is crazy how many others want to take them because they see it as an alternative to diet or exercise.

[Pisgah]

As far as I can tell, the main requirements for a new drug to be issued are: 1. It must, in some slight way, be able to claim it helps something -- even if it only barely does, and not for everybody; 2. It must require a person to use it forever in order for it to keep working; 3. It must be dirt-cheap to make and so expensive to buy that no one can get it who does not have insurance; 4. Most of the deaths it causes can be disguised as something else.