Children's Health Defense ByÂ
Also, this week, an investigation by The BMJ suggested websites are illegally marketing semaglutide, sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy, in the U.K., triggering shortages and an online black market for the drugs.
U.S. poison control centers are reporting a sharp increase in calls related to semaglutide, a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity, CNN reported Wednesday.
Developed by drugmaker Novo Nordisk, semaglutide is sold under the brand names Ozempic for diabetes, and Wegovy for weight loss. According to Medscape, Novo Nordisk said the two drugs are not interchangeable â although Ozempic is often taken off-label for weight-loss.
According to CNN, Americaâs Poison Centers said that between January and November, it responded to nearly 3,000 calls â a more than 15-fold increase since 2019 â about semaglutide. In 94% of those calls, semaglutide was the only substance reported, while 6% of the callers reported taking semaglutide plus one or more other drugs.
Also this week, an investigation by The BMJ highlighted examples of potentially illegal marketing of semaglutide in the U.K., suggesting the marketing may be a contributing factor to growing hype and ongoing shortages of the drug.
According to the BMJ report, webpages promoting semaglutide may violate U.K. laws, which prohibit the direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers.
The New York Daily News reported that celebrities have publicly promoted Wegovy, helping to fuel the growing demand for the drug. According to Medscape, physicians looking to prescribe Ozempic are struggling to locate the medication for their patients due to shortages.
The hype â and the subsequent shortages â have arguably contributed to a growing market for semaglutide knock-offs and an online black market for the drug, according to the BBC.
Meanwhile, the high cost of Ozempic â partially fueled by growing demand for Wegovy â has resulted in an increasing reluctance of insurers and employers to cover the drug. Reuters reported a growing number of employers are instead hiring virtual healthcare providers to implement weight-loss management programs for employees.
Aside from the drugsâ high cost and the reluctance of insurers to pay for semaglutide drugs, weight-loss medications also have been associated with potentially serious side effects â including suicidal thoughts, thyroid cancer and gastrointestinal problems, and pose a serious but little-known risk for pregnant women.
Accidental overdoses behind many of the calls to poison control centers
Semaglutide, first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Association (FDA) in 2017 as a diabetes medication, works by reducing blood-sugar levels and slowing down the passage of food exiting the stomach, CNN and the BBC reported.
According to CNN, among the nearly 3,000 reports of semaglutide poisoning this year, many have involved accidental overdoses.
Julie Weber, director of the Missouri Poison Center, told CNN that as of October, it had received 94 calls relating to semaglutide this year, as compared to 28 calls for all of 2021. Dr. Joseph Lambson, director of the New Mexico Poison and Drug Information Center, told CNN semaglutide calls nearly quadrupled between 2021 and 2022.
CNN reported the largest increase in calls occurred among adults ages 40 through 70 and, in particular, the 60-to-69-year-old age group.
In remarks to CNN, Dr. Kait Brown, clinical managing director of Americaâs Poison Centers, said most calls this year concerned dosing errors.
In some cases, callers had to be âhospitalized for severe nausea, vomiting and stomach pain,â CNN reported. Other warning signs of a semaglutide overdose are dizziness or lightheadedness, feeling jittery, sweating and chills, irritability, headache, weakness, fatigue, nausea, seizures, confusion, hypoglycemia and passing out…
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