Nearly half of online pharmacies selling weight loss drugs are operating illegally, study finds

Some of the new lifestyle tips that were established include; Consumers who attempt to purchase slimming pills on the cyber market without a prescription may be ripped off or receive harmful products, research reveals. 
 
The research shows that of the online drug stores that sell Wegovy’s active component, semaglutide, 42% are rogue, operating without a license and selling medicines without prescriber authorization on behalf of a patient, as of Friday in JAMA Network Open. 
 
Individuals who buy weight loss drugs online bare “significant consumer risks” of getting “ineffective and risky products” according to Tim Mackey an author of the study and professor of global health at the University of California San Diego and also the director, Global Health Policy and Data Institute. Another group of the study involved participants drawn from University of Pecs in Hungary. 
 
Lack of the commonly used diet pills or obesity medicines which fall under the category of a group called GLP-1s have caused the emergence of what Dr. Christopher McGowan, founding medical director and research director of True You Weight Loss in Cary, North Carolina described as ‘fake drugs on the black market’. 
 
“This is absolutely terrifying,” McGowan said, who was not involved in the research. Read more: Illegitimate online drug stores ‘pose dangers to the buying public from products that are substandard, of questionable quality, and contaminated,’ the researcher explained that ‘it is suicidal for the ordinary person to try to make his/her way through this online pharmacology wonderland , which is why one should stick to the brand names accompanied by the FDA seal. 
 
Over the last few years, the use of semaglutide has increased drastically; in fact, over 2. 5 million prescriptions by December 2023 in the United States as indicated in another independent study conducted and disclosed on Friday in JAMA Health Forum. 
 
Physicians are unable to supply the drugs to their patients, while the cost of the drugs can range from $100 to $1,300 out of pocket; many patients who cannot find the drugs locally turn to internet sellers and tele-consultations. 
 
This medication is mainly purchased through the internet by those who never have injections covered by insurance or whose doctors will not prescribe them semaglutide, also known as Ozempic to treat Type 2 diabetes, Mackey said. 
 
No federal program pays for the drugs when they are used for this purpose; most state Medicaid programs have very limits on their coverage of such drugs. It is reported that majority of people who obtain GLP-1 prescriptions are from a private insurance based on the study conducted by JAMA Health Forum. 
 
“It is no shock that people would go to the net for options,” McGowan said. “Unfortunately, this is where the schemes are operating and where business is being conducted with those willing to get business by hook or by crook. 
 
The target danger is the hazard that these illicit groups enable the running of unlawful pharmaceuticals outlets that endanger purchasers. 
 
In Mackey’s study, he, alongside his colleagues, purchased samples of semaglutide from six online pharmacies, then subjected them to quality/safety analysis. 
 
Out of those, two of the online pharmacies housed in them had fallen foul to the Food and Drug Administration within the previous year to unlawful selling of unapproved and misbranded semaglutide. 
 
In fact, one vial of semaglutide was found to contain a high level of endotoxin, the toxic to bacteria cells though no live bacteria were detected capable of causing infection. People can fell sick when injected with endotoxin, which may have resulted from environmental contamination of injected drugs during the manufacturing process. 
 
The sampled online purchased drugs contained as much as 39% more semaglutide than the recommended dosage on the label, which is potentially dangerous for a patient. 
 
The FDA reports states that the overdosing of semaglutide has side effects that include severe nausea and vomiting as well as dangerously low blood sugar which causes fainting. 
 
Lacking from January to and November 2023, control poison centers across the U. S. received 2,992 calls related to semaglutide compared to 219 in 2019, which marks a more than 15 times increase. The majority of overdose cases were reported to have occurred due to a wrong administration of the dosages by consumers administering the drug through injections. 
 
Wegovy and Ozempic are two types of medication manufactured by Novo Nordisk and are delivered through injection pens which are not very complicated. According to the one-off brands of semaglutide that can come from compounding pharmacies or the online pharmacies as in the study, the preparations are usually in the vial of water, and the consumer has to fill a syringe up with the correct amount. 
 
On its website on November, 2013, Novo Nordisk reveals that patients can easily identify counterfeit products through physical features like misspelled labels, sealed products missing a seal, or very cheap products.