The Nice Ozempic Rip-off

A lot of the meals in America comes from just some crops like corn, wheat, soy, and canola, largely resulting from farming subsidies that drive farmers to mass-produce these crops and promote them beneath value. These low cost crops are then become the processed meals we eat day by 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, a number of 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 hazards 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

From time to time, we get a clue about what goes on behind the scenes within the pharmaceutical business (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 imagine is consultant of the mentality of this business:

Final 12 months 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 business’s greatest gathering.” The forty first convention, from January 9-12, 2023, was the primary occasion hosted in individual because the pandemic began.

Given this occasion’s immense affect on the pharmaceutical sector (because it caters to giant traders), it’s necessary to spotlight a number of issues that have been introduced on the convention web site.³ First, contemplate how enthusiastically they endorsed the profitability of two new forms of medicine:

In that video, an important half was Chase’s projections for this new business:

Be aware: The GLP-1 medicine embrace Trulicity, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Byetta, and Ozempic.⁴

Second, contemplate who the keynote audio system at Chase’s convention have been:

Be aware: After I initially publicized this convention, components of it have 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 pinnacle of the FDA was a keynote speaker to traders concerning the extremely profitable alternative they might count on from these new medicine — implying that the FDA would do all the pieces it may to push them by. 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 business that one in every of their new medicine was simply granted accelerated approval.”

Be aware: 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 determination in current 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, moderately than grow to be the subsequent 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 medicine 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 business, 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, harking back to the beginning of the opioid disaster.

Right here as an illustration, are excerpts of two broadly seen interviews by Casey and Calley Means describing the staggering corruption that has facilitated Ozempic’s fast 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 increase Ozempic’s market has focused numerous demographics, together with:

1. African People — 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 accepted semaglutide for overweight kids 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 revealed a set of authoritative set of tips¹⁴ 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 30 days), making it unaffordable with out insurance coverage. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 prohibits Medicare from overlaying weight reduction medicine, however the business has been lobbying to overturn this.

An “weight problems rights” coalition, (funded by Ozempic’s producer),¹⁵ has efficiently superior a legislation by 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 overlaying weight problems remedies?

The Rise and Fall of Fen-Phen

A recurring theme I’ve explored is how medical catastrophes usually 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 Nineteen Nineties. Phentermine¹⁸ (launched to the USA in 1959) and fenfluramine¹⁹ (launched to the USA in 1973) have been two marginally efficient weight reduction medicine that by no means caught on.

In 1979, a professor of scientific pharmacology and director of an FDA division for approving new medicine believed weight problems wanted to be handled as a medical (moderately than way of life) 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 revealed 20 years later, it immediately turned wildly common.

As phrase unfold, demand surged, turning many docs’ 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 harm²² 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 secure.²⁴

What’s notably alarming is that lots of the points we see at this time with Ozempic — aggressive advertising and marketing, off-label makes use of, and a concentrate on 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 a substitute is working with the business to push these medicine.

The Dangers and Advantages of Ozempic

Previous to the GLP-1s being marketed as anti-obesity medicine, a lot of my colleagues believed they have been fairly useful for diabetes. On condition that a few of these colleagues have been pretty conservative with which medicine they’d use and wonderful 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 medicine (together with one hospitalization of a distant relative), so I held to the angle the medicine have been too new for his or her dangers to be absolutely appreciated.

After they began getting used as weight reduction brokers (the place their dose is far increased — 0.5 mg to 1.0 mg vs. 1.7 mg to 2.4 mg — steadily being nearly 5 occasions larger), we began noticing that we’d see increasingly sufferers who ought to have by no means been prescribed the drug and are taking sufficient of it (usually even overdosing) to drive themselves into cachexia.²⁵

These sufferers are straightforward to establish 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 often known as the “Ozempic Face”:

Be aware: Many healthcare professionals at the moment are noticing an epidemic of Ozempic facilitated consuming issues.²⁶

I then seemed into the information on the GLP-1 medicine and seen a curious sample — similar to fen-phen, the load misplaced was quickly regained as soon as the drug was stopped. As an instance, listed here are a number of graphs from the pivotal trials of those medicine.

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

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

Third, when the results of withdrawing the drug have 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):

Be aware: The burden regained³⁰ was proportional to the load 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 one of the best deal.

Conversely, I think a key purpose why this aspect impact has been publicized is that the purpose of the pharmaceutical business is all the time 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 subject however creates insupportable withdrawals when one stops (e.g., the SSRI antidepressants or the PPI acid reflux disease drugs) is “good for enterprise.”

Sadly, along with being a rip-off, Ozempic has a number of main points. First, the GLP-1 medicine have been designed to withstand being damaged down throughout the physique, so they’d 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).

For the reason that GLP-1 is answerable for slowing digestion within the physique, medicine like Ozempic considerably gradual digestion and may create quite a lot of gastrointestinal points from doing so (e.g., a examine of 25,617 real-world sufferers discovered these medicine trigger a 3.5 occasions enhance within the price of intestinal obstruction³³).

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

• 9.09 occasions larger threat of pancreatitis
• 4.22 occasions larger threat of bowel obstruction
• 3.67 occasions larger threat of gastroparesis (which suggests you’ll be able to 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 larger threat of biliary illness (e.g., painful gallstones)

Third, extreme adversarial occasions are sometimes a lot rarer than average 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, contemplate a examine³⁵ of 175 folks on the load loss dose of Ozempic:

Likewise, contemplate what number of adversarial occasions³⁶ have been acknowledged inside a trial sponsored by Ozempic’s producer:

Sadly, these aren’t the one unwanted side effects. For instance, along with lawsuits being filed in opposition to Ozempic for gastrointestinal issues resembling gastroparesis, lawsuits are additionally rising³⁷ for different extreme circumstances resembling imaginative and prescient loss.

Moreover, animal experiments are exhibiting³⁸ it distorts the structure of the small gut (which may result in poor nutrient absorption or continual intestinal obstructions), and lots of the GLP-1 drug labels state the medicine could also be linked to thyroid most cancers.

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

A significant subject with Ozempic is that because it slows the speed at which the abdomen empties, it alters and delays the absorption of psychiatric drugs. For the reason that customers are sometimes very delicate to adjustments of their dose, many experiences now exist on-line of great psychiatric destabilization occurring in Ozempic customers who have been additionally on psychiatric drugs.

This may increasingly 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 have been already taking SSRI antidepressants.

What Causes Weight problems

In America’s case, it’s very clear that weight problems has been repeatedly 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 enhance embrace:

Nonetheless, moderately 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 tips are largely a product of financial concerns moderately than scientific proof.

Thankfully, nature all the time has a method of bringing issues again into stability, and because the corruption inside our medical system has reached the purpose of absurdity and increasingly clearly harmful medicine are being pushed onto the general public by our regulators, the general public is awakening to their lies and changing into much less and receptive to “trusting the consultants.” On this vein, I imagine the Ozempic scenario is a pivotal second in time, because the tables have turned because the occasions of Fen-Phen.

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

Be aware: 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 Be aware 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 traces treating sufferers. To seek out extra of AMD’s work, you’ll want to try The Forgotten Aspect of Medication on Substack.

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