Weight Loss Drugs: start taking one drug and end up taking many, many more!

Pharmaceutical medicine has a wonderfully sophisticated and successful policy of ensuring their drugs don't work effectively so we need more drugs to deal with their ineffectiveness

Many millions of patients, throughout the world, have been encouraged recently to start taking GLP-1 weight loss drugs (Ozempic, Wgovy, Mounjaro, et al). The promotion of these drugs has, as usual, been superb. So the drug companies who make them have made fortunes. The problem for patients, as always, is that they were largely unaware of their possible adverse reactions.

When GLP-1 weight-loss drugs were introduced it was already known that they caused serious side effects, so much so that they were recommended to be taken under strict supervision for no more than two years. The main problem with these restrictions was that even if people did stop taking them, they were known, quickly, to put the weight back on.

So now patients will be glad to know (sic) that the drug companies have come up with a solution. This Medscape article informs us that there is now a new ‘follow-up’ drug, Orforglipron.

          “Patients who lost significant weight … were able to maintain much of that loss after switching to once daily oral orforglipron”.

And, ever eager to help the pharmaceutical industry, the mainstream media has been quick to popularise the message. The BBC’s response can be seen here: “Daily pill to help keep weight off after stopping obesity jabs”. It is not untypical of many other similar articles.

          “Trials found that patients given the tablet, called orforglipron, every day for a year avoided regaining much of the weight they had lost - a known risk when coming off GLP-1 injections …. More research is needed to find out how long someone might need to stay on treatment - it might even be life-long, say experts”. (My emphasis).

The study was published in the journal Nature Medicine, external. It was funded by the drug manufacturer Eli Lilly, who also make the GLP-1 jab, Mounjaro (the one used by the UK’s NHS). And as with all pharma funded research it should not be too surprising that it came out in favour of the product, and to the drug industry generally.

So people who may have thought that they only had to take one drug for a maximum of two years have now discovered that they should take another one - for the rest of their lives.

Nowhere in the mainstream media’s promotion of Orforglipron were its side effects adequately mentioned, certainly not to the extent that it enables patients, and potential patients, to make an ‘informed’ choice about whether they should take them. Neither the BBC or Medscape article mentions more than “nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea” as potential side effects.

Yet the side effect of Orforglipron are already well known, and published in conventional medical literature, outlined here in this Drugs.com webpage.

• Common side effects of orforglipron are given as nausea, stomach (abdominal) pain, heartburn, constipation, headache, gas, diarrhoea, bloating, hair loss, vomiting, tiredness, indigestion, and belching.

• Serious side effects are given as inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis), severe stomach problems, dehydration leading to kidney problems, low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), dizziness or light-headedness, blurred vision, anxiety, irritability, mood changes, sweating, slurred speech, hunger, confusion or drowsiness, shakiness, weakness, headache, fast heartbeat, feeling jittery, serious allergic reactions, changes in vision, gall-bladder problems,

In addition there is also a Box Warning (that is, the strongest safety-related warning that is issued by the FDA) for “the increased risk of thyroid C-Cell tumors”.

So this is quite a long list of serious side effects that have been ignored by both Medscape, the BBC, the mainstream media generally. And, of course, by the entire conventional medical establishment. And conventional medicine are now promoting a drug that has to be taken for life - plus further drugs to ‘treat’ any of the side effects that develop during the course of their lives.

Patients are being badly (dishonestly?) misinformed!

Will Weight-Loss Drugs become another Medical Catastrophe?

The promotion of GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic, Wygovy, Mounjaro, et al, continues; yet the situation has all the usual elements of a pending medical disaster. There are signs now of the promotion of GLP-1 weight loss drugs spiralling out of control, and that the Conventional Medical Establishment is losing control of the situation. Let me precis the story, thus far

• The pharmaceutical industry introduced GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic, Wygovy, Mounjaro, et al, to treat diabetes. It is well known that these drugs can cause serious adverse effects.

• It is then discovered that the drugs can cause weight-loss. As obesity has become a serious health epidemic around the world the industry, supported by both the NHS and the mainstream media, began to promote them, heavily, in order to increase sales.

• Although the drugs are expensive the NHS agreed to prescribe them for a specific, restricted group of obese patients, providing that there was a health plan that supported the patients who were prescribed the drug for time-limited periods.

• The known adverse reactions to these drugs have not been heavily advertised; we are told, as usual, that the benefits (loss of weight) outweighs any disadvantages.

The problem has been that many, less obese patients, who like the idea of losing some weight, want to have them too. But they discover they do not fit the NHS criteria. So what do they do?

1. The promotion continues.

Apparently weight loss drugs are to be ‘incentivised’ in new GP contracts. New obesity targets, we are told, will be used to incentivise doctors to prescribe weight loss drugs “where clinically appropriate”. This article states that doctors will be ‘incentivised’ with a payment of £3,000 “to maximise weight loss drug prescriptions”. So the NHS wants to increase, rather than reduce, the number of people who take the drugs.

2. Demand for the drugs increase.

The Daily Mail has reported recently that 2,000 doses of ‘fake’ weight loss drugs were seized in a double gang property raid, and reports “warnings about illegal Mounjaro pens being sold on online pharmacies”. So people who cannot get the drug on the NHS (as they do not fit the obesity criteria) are resorting to buying them from the internet - at ‘discount’ prices. Yet note that in the same paper, attached to the same article, continues to promote the drugs! “Woman who was too fat for IVF on NHS lost six stone on fat jabs”!

3. More evidence of Adverse Drug Reactions

During recent weeks more evidence is emerging about the ‘side effects’ of these weight-loss drugs. The known side effects are reported in the Drugs.com website here. They are bad enough, but new ones are emerging, and can be found in these articles. These are in addition to those already accepted by the pharmaceutical medical establishment.

• Weight-Loss Drugs cause Mental Health Issues, including suicide.

• 70 USA Lawsuits alleging Vision Loss.

• Possible links to cancer.

• Links to dental decay.

So clearly the full impact on human health of these drugs is not fully known. Evidence is even now emerging which conventional medicine did not know about when the drugs were approved by the drug regulators. How much more will come out? And how many more people who be ‘incentivised’ by doctors to take the drugs, or seek them on internet pharmacies (of which there are many).

The Conventional Medical Establishment is playing ‘Russian Roulette’ with these GLP-1 weight loss drugs. Certainly the full extent of the harm they are causing is not yet fully known. Yet their promotion continues, in full swing.

I suspect there will come a time when so many people will be damaged by these drugs that they will seek compensation. Have they been warned about all the ‘side effects’ these drugs are known to cause? Leave along the ‘side effects’ that have not been fully substantiated yet? And if they have not been properly and fully informed, they will have a strong case.

So I write this article with a sinking feeling that, at some time in the future, we will be dealing with yet another medical disaster rather than a nation of slimmer, fitter people!

For the latter we will need to inform and educate people about their diet, not least about the harm (including the obesity) that is being caused by ultra-processed foods.

To avert the former conventional medicine will need to inform people, more openly, honestly and transparently, about the harm these drugs can cause; and stop making the assumption that they are beneficial.

I am not sure that the Conventional Medical Establishment will do either.

New Drug Eases Side Effects of Weight-Loss Drugs

Good news? Another medical breakthrough? Or Enhanced profits for Drug Companies?

Weight-Loss drugs (Ozempic, Wygovy, Mounjaro, et al) are the new in-thing! Everyone, it would appear, wants them in order to lose weight. Yet these drugs are not safe. In September 2025 it was reported that the first deaths had been reported, one death per week, according to the Sun newspaper. You will see that several large mainstream media outlets did report this, which was most unusual.Even the Conventional Medical Establishment has safety worries about these weight-loss drugs, saying they need to be taken under medical supervision, and their use restricted to people who have a clinical need for them - owing to the risk of potentially serious adverse reactions.

But none of this has limited an almost insatiable demand for the drugs. So people who cannot obtain them through normal health service channels are buying the drugs privately, on the internet, some of them, reputedly are ‘fake’ drugs, and thought to be even more dangerous.

So perhaps when Medscape reported that there was a new drug, NG101, that eases the side effects of weight-loss drugs it is good news? Medscape claimed that research showed that NG101“reduced nausea and vomiting in patients with obesity by 40% and 67% respectively”. However, the article fails to address 5 points.

1. The research, even if does not exaggerate the data, means that 60% of users of weight-loss drugs who suffer nausea will continue to suffer nausea; and 33% of users who suffer vomiting will continue to suffer vomiting.

2. Nausea and vomiting are two of the least serious ‘side effects’ of these drugs; certainly less serious than death; and perhaps less serious than some of the other ‘side effects’ admitted by conventional medicine, which include anxiety, blurred vision, confusion, constipation, diarrhoea, depression, fever, headache, indigestion, nightmares, seizures, tightness in the chest, trouble breathing, unusual tiredness or weakness, acid/sour stomach, heartburn, and much more.

3. The announcement is typical of pharmaceutical companies business plans, that is, to market and promote a drug which causes serious patient harm, and then to introduce another drug that ‘eases’ some of that patient harm cause by the first drug. A remarkable, and often-used business creation scheme!

4. Any side effects of the new drug, NG101, were (as usual) discounted! “No serious adverse events related to the study drug were reported in either group”. However, I am sure that we can expect that drug companies will now be looking for another drug, another business opportunity, to counter the side effects of NG101.

5. The study was funded by Neurogastric (and I will assume that NG101 is a product of this company). The author of the study, Sean Wharton, disclosed that he served as a consultant for Neurogastrix but did not declare that he was an investigator in the study.

And so on it goes. Medical breakthroughs are regularly announced by drug companies that are not medical breakthroughs. Here, the problem of obesity, caused largely by diet, but also by pharmaceutical drugs, is reaching epidemic proportions, and the pharmaceutical industry is seeking to enrich themselves.

Weight-Loss Drugs. The first fatalities have been announced, alongside other serious 'side effects.

Is this the second stage of another drug scandal? 

Wygovy, Oxempic and Mounjaro, as weight loss drugs, have been heavily promoted over the last 2+ years, despite conventional medicine knowing that they can cause serious adverse drug reactions. As usual, users of the drugs are not being informed about these ‘side effects’.

So back in February 2024 I asked the question - were we in the early stages of yet another medical scandal? And I reminded readers about the history of Acomplia, a weight loss drug that barely lasted two years before being banned.

Wygovy; Ozempic; Mounjaro: weight loss drugs, and the promotion of pharmaceutical drugs

Steven Scrutton

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12 February 2024

The obesity/diabetes drugs, Wygovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro, have become a pharmaceutical best sellers. They are making the drug companies very wealthy! The active ingredient, semaglutide, helps control blood sugar, lowers appetite, and makes patients feel "full". The current claim of medical science is that all these semaglutide drugs can lead to weight loss…

Read full story

Now in Britain, the Sun newspaper has reported that the drugs are now being linked with one death every week. It is thought that in the UK alone there are now over 1.5 million people taking these drugs, the numbers rising after the NHS made them available in June 2025.

     “One death a week is now linked to weight loss injections, figures reveal. Jabs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have been connected to 24 deaths in the 21 weeks since January. Linked fatalities logged by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency rose from 82 in January this year to 106 by June”.

Even so the paper tries to pull back when it says “It does not mean the injections, now being used by up to 1.5 million Britons, caused the deaths, only that they may have played a part”. Nor does it ask for an investigation into the possibility of drug-caused death to protect patients from drug harm. Indeed the article goes on to say that “On the basis of the current evidence, the benefits of GLP-1 medicines outweigh the potential risks when used for the licensed indications”. Who has made this statement? On what evidence has this judgement been made? We are not, of course, told!

The Independent Newspaper has also produced an article entitled, “Weight-loss jabs linked to hundreds of cases of life-threatening illness and 10 deaths”, adding that since the GLP-1 drugs, including Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, were licensed, there have been “hundreds of reported cases of acute and chronic pancreatitis among people taking them”. So it is not just death!

Several other news agencies have reported these deaths, which is unusual at this stage, such as the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 News, even the British Medical Association, the Patient Safety Learning website, and even the Government website has seen fit to provide a “general reminder” about the known adverse reactions caused by the drugs. This is perhaps unusual - media outlets are generally quieter at this stage, in deference to their pharmaceutical paymasters!

However, this is the usual second-stage of an upcoming pharmaceutical scandal. The first stage is “the wonder drug” stage. The second stage concerns the denial, discounting, and justification of the harm caused to patients. Often, during this stage, conventional medicine seeks to find new uses and justifications for taking the drug, like this one recently reported on MIMS, “Semaglutide could correct prediabetes in people with schizophrenia on antibiotics”.

The third stage, for which we will now have to wait patiently, will come when the level and seriousness of patient harm becomes too difficult for government, conventional medicine, and the mainstream media to continue trying to justify.

So far, then, my prediction of another pharmaceutical medical scandal is on course!

Wygovy; Mounjaro; weight loss, and pharmaceutical drugs

The obesity/diabetes drugs, Wygovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro, have become a pharmaceutical best sellers. They are making the drug companies very wealthy! The active ingredient, semaglutide, helps control blood sugar, lowers appetite, and makes patients feel "full". The current claim of medical science is that these semaglutide drugs can lead to weight loss of more than 10%.

Given the burgeoning epidemic of obesity around the world this claim is an attractive one for so many people who find losing weight difficult. The sales of these drugs increased rapidly in 2023 following their promotion by the mainstream media's on behalf of the drug companies. They were "breakthrough" drugs, we were told by all media outlets.

(Have you noticed how little advertising the pharmaceutical industry has to do for itself? A press release usually does it, with the media content to pass on the advertising, free of charge, without any apparent investigation into the claims being made).

The drawbacks of these drugs are already well known:

• When patients stop taking the drug they put this weight back again.
• The drugs are not recommended for more than two years (so they have to be, or should be stopped within that time, making any gains reversible).
• Such are the concerns about these drugs the UK's NHS only prescribe them to patients who fulfil certain criteria, within a limited number of specialist weight-loss management clinics.
• Semaglutide is already known to cause serious side effects, these including anxiety, bloating, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, confusion, constipation, diarrhoea, depression, fever, headache, indigestion, nightmares, seizures, tightness in the chest, trouble breathing, unusual tiredness or weakness, acid/sour stomach, heartburn, and much more.
  

To date these disadvantages have not slowed down burgeoning sales, especially as some pharmacies are selling them directly to the public, at a monthly cost of around £100 to £200.

Have we been here before?

For anyone who believes they have heard this before, can I refer you to one of my previous blogs, written in March 2018: Acomplia. What happens to all the 'wonder drugs' and 'miracle cure's of conventional medicine?"  Read the blog for a fuller description of events, but broadly this is what happened to Acomplia.

• Acomplia was an obesity drug, approved in 2006, and hailed as a new 'wonder drug'.
• In 2008 the drug was refused a licence in the USA, and withdrawn in the UK and Europe, particularly over fears of serious adverse reactions, particularly depression and suicide.
• The medical science, which had proclaimed this wonder drug, was found to be 'faulty'.
  

         "one study discovered that one-third of people on the drug lost 10% of their body weight, and 60% lost a less impressive 5%. Apparently, what the study did not say was that everyone in the trial was also on a low-calorie diet, and virtually everyone put the weight back on once they stopped taking the drug".

I will copy the conclusion of the Acomplia episode here, and predict (with a high degree of confidence) that this will be the conclusion of Wygovy/Ozempic story within the next few years.

 

"The European Medicines Agency (EMA) commented that the drug had proved less effective in 'real life' than in clinical trials. Patient hopes raised in the 'science' laboratory but dashed in real life. So it had been decided to suspend the licence for Acomplia as:

               "New data from post-marketing experience and ongoing clinical trials indicated that serious psychiatric disorders may be more common than in the clinical trials".

So Acomplia demonstrates better than most pharmaceutical drugs the many aspects of the hopelessness of medical science and drug regulation, which in the interests of selling drugs raise hopes, but lead only to further patient damage.

• The NHS resorts to a drug for a condition that would be better treated via life-style and dietary treatment.
• The drug is significantly less effective than the trials (the medical 'science' funded by the pharmaceutical industry) suggested.
• The full side effects of the drug remain unknown through all the 'scientific' drug testing, the regulator process, the licensing, and the prescription of the drug.
• The side effects turn out to be considerably more serious than the original condition or illness.
• And a drug thought to be unsafe in one country (the USA in this case) is considered to be perfectly 'safe' in others (indeed, most of Europe) - before it is withdrawn there too.

There is no such thing as a wonder drug, or a miracle cure, there never has been, and there probably never will be (on the basis that future performance is best predicted by past performance). So the next time the mainstream media, or your doctor tells you about a remarkable new treatment - run a mile, very, very quickly!"

There are already signs that these drugs will soon have to be withdrawn, with one pharmaceutical consultant saying that Ozempic, "the hot new weight-loss drug", poses medically dangerous gastrointestinal and mental health risks but fails to address the root causes of metabolic conditions.

So I will get back to you when pharmaceutical drug history repeats itself, as it so inevitably does. In the meantime it seems that these new obesity/diabetes drugs are going to cause a lot of patient harm in the years to come.

Post Script 15th May 2024

These obesity drugs just get better and better - according to the drug industry anyway. This is what the Guardian has told us this morning.

 

            "If you hear brand names like Ozempic and Wegovy and think of suddenly gaunt A-listers posing on the red carpet, it is surely now time to think again. There has already been substantial evidence that as well as in their initial role as a diabetes treatment, semaglutides – the kind of drug in question – can have a real impact on obesity for people for whom nothing else works. Now a new study has found that they don’t just help those people lose weight – they have a major effect on their heart health, regardless of how much weight they lose."

 

Yes, another game changer - the best drug, we are reliably informed, since Statins. Heart disease has increased substantially since the introduction of Statin drugs, I suspect semaglutide will now be used for patients of heart disease, and in line with this original blog, I would predict the same outcome. A continuing rise in heart disease (plus an additional problem arising from the adverse drug reactions too, of course).

Postscript

I am not the only blogger who has drawn attention to the dangers of Semaglutide drugs. This article, posted on 13 September 2024 not only outlines the serious adverse reactions these drugs are known to have caused, but also outlines have pharmaceutical interests are now proclaiming that they can do other wonderful things, like slowing down the ageing process, preventing cancer, arthritis, Alzheimers and Parkinson's disease, and help people give up smoking!

There appears to be no end to the pharmaceutical industry hyping its drugs. Do they really still believe what they tell us? Do they remain ignorant of the harm they are causing? Or is it just all about selling drugs and making profits?