The Great Ozempic Scam

Many of the meals in America comes from just some crops like corn, wheat, soy, and canola, largely as a consequence of farming subsidies that drive farmers to mass-produce these crops and promote them under price. These low cost crops are then changed into the processed meals we eat daily. 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 unbiased 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 couple 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 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

Now and again, we get a clue about what goes on behind the scenes within the pharmaceutical business (e.g., see this text and this text in regards to the sociopathic sales-focused tradition inside Pfizer). One significantly telling occasion was a presentation GSK gave their gross sales reps for Advair, which I consider 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 largest gathering.” The forty first convention, from January 9-12, 2023, was the primary occasion hosted in individual for the reason that pandemic began.

Given this occasion’s immense affect on the pharmaceutical sector (because it caters to massive traders), it’s necessary to focus on a couple of issues that had been offered on the convention web site.³ First, think about how enthusiastically they endorsed the profitability of two new varieties of medicine:

In that video, a very powerful half was Chase’s projections for this new business:

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

Second, think about 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 as a consequence of his immense pharmaceutical conflicts of curiosity.⁵

To repeat — the top of the FDA was a keynote speaker to traders in regards to the extremely profitable alternative they might count on from these new medicine — implying that the FDA would do every part it might to push them by means of. Because it so occurred, to cite Witczak:

“Attention-grabbing to additionally observe, 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 among their new medicine 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 current US historical past”).

Shortly afterward, the FDA gave a glowing press launch on their approval of the drug⁷ — however as a consequence of how unsafe and ineffective the drug was, even with the FDA’s endorsement, somewhat 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) therapies 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 grew to become satisfied that Ozempic would quickly be aggressively marketed, with the FDA backing the enlargement of its use. This prediction shortly grew to become a actuality, with widespread promotion and endorsements of the drug, paying homage 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 options.¹⁰ The push to develop Ozempic’s market has focused numerous demographics, together with:

This raises a vital query: Why was Medicare initially prohibited from protecting weight problems therapies?

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 just 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 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 (somewhat 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 research was lastly revealed 20 years later, it immediately grew to become wildly widespread.

As phrase unfold, demand surged, turning many medical doctors’ places of work into tablet mills²¹ catering to determined sufferers. Nevertheless, 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 significantly alarming is that lots of the points we see at present 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 ultimately stepped in to ban the drug after realizing the extent of the hurt it triggered, 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, lots 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 medicine they might use and glorious clinicians, I took their opinions into severe consideration.

Nevertheless, 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 attitude the medicine 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 far increased — 0.5 mg to 1.0 mg vs. 1.7 mg to 2.4 mg — steadily being nearly 5 instances larger), 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 (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 greatest demonstrated by what has come to be generally known as the “Ozempic Face”:

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

I then appeared into the information on the GLP-1 medicine and seen a curious sample — similar to fen-phen, the burden misplaced was quickly regained as soon as the drug was stopped. For instance, listed below are a couple of graphs from the pivotal trials of those medicine.

First, utilizing the total (2.4 mg) dose of Wegovy (which like Ozempic is one other identify for semaglutide) every week, inadvertently reveals that a lot of the individuals 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 consequences 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 might 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 most effective deal.

Conversely, I think a key motive why this aspect impact has been publicized is that the purpose of the pharmaceutical business 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 drugs) is “good for enterprise.”

Sadly, along with being a rip-off, Ozempic has a couple of main points. First, the GLP-1 medicine had been designed to withstand being damaged down throughout the physique, so they might solely have to 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 accountable 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 research of 25,617 real-world sufferers discovered these medicine trigger a 3.5 instances enhance within the fee of intestinal obstruction³³).

Second, extreme unwanted side effects are fairly frequent. Essentially the most complete research³⁴ I’ve discovered of the extreme unwanted side effects of GLP-1 medicine (e.g., Ozempic) sourced from 16 million sufferers’ medical data discovered that the medicine had 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 had been discovered to have:

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

Third, extreme hostile occasions are sometimes 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 frequent. For instance, think about a research³⁵ of 175 folks on the burden loss dose of Ozempic:

Likewise, think about what number of hostile occasions³⁶ had 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 towards Ozempic for gastrointestinal problems equivalent to gastroparesis, lawsuits are additionally rising³⁷ for different extreme situations equivalent to imaginative and prescient loss.

Moreover, animal experiments are displaying³⁸ it distorts the structure of the small gut (which might 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.

Notice: 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 typical theme behind faculty 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 drugs. Because the customers are sometimes very delicate to modifications of their dose, many studies now exist on-line of serious psychiatric destabilization occurring in Ozempic customers who had been additionally on psychiatric drugs.

This will partly, clarify why a research⁴⁰ discovered that Ozempic triggered 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 repeatedly rising and that, like many different continual sicknesses, we haven’t been given a proof for why it’s taking place.

Cheap explanations for this enhance embrace:

We’re consuming an excessive amount of meals now and having a sedentary way of life.

Particular components in our meals (e.g., seed oils or excessive fructose corn syrup) quickly set off weight problems throughout the physique.

The core substances of our eating regimen are extremely efficient at making people acquire weight and therefore shouldn’t compose the vast majority of our diets. But, regardless of this being well-known, as a consequence of a long time of fraudulent analysis carried out to guard the meals business,41 animal fat are usually blamed for the implications of consuming ultraprocessed meals diets.

Intestine microbiome dysbiosis triggers weight problems.42

There may be widespread metabolic dysfunction in society (e.g., as a consequence of mitochondrial or thyroid dysfunction), which causes the identical quantity of energy to make us acquire considerably extra weight than we in any other case would.

The estrogen mimicking compounds current all through the environment (e.g., from plastics, soy, or contraception drugs designed to withstand degradation and persist within the water provide) are inflicting widespread weight problems.43

A much less overt model of Kind 1 diabetes (the place the immune system assaults the pancreas and disables its manufacturing of insulin), which results in a continual insulin deficiency.44

Nevertheless, somewhat than taking these into severe consideration, we’re merely being informed the true reply is a lifetime of Ozempic. Luckily 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, however it additionally critically illuminates a truth most healthcare professionals don’t admire — medical pointers are largely a product of financial concerns somewhat than scientific proof.

Luckily, nature at all times has a method of bringing issues again into steadiness, and because the corruption inside our medical system has reached the purpose of absurdity and an increasing number of clearly harmful medicine 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 scenario is a pivotal second in time, because the tables have turned for the reason that instances 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 People who are not looking for these pointless and damaging medicine pushed on their children.

Notice: That is an abridged article. In the total 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 Writer

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