Dangerous Ozempic attacks are increasing – how can you get very sick, lose money

You want to lose weight – but you could lose money or end up in the hospital with one of these dangerous Ozempic scams.

New research warns of illegal online pharmacies selling counterfeit or substandard Ozempic products, or in some cases, taking money for free.

“It’s hard to say how widespread this theft is,” Tim Mackey, a professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, told The Post in an email. “It changes depending on the availability of raw materials, and there are different levels of fraudsters (some produce a product with no active ingredient, the wrong ingredient, a specific ingredient, and online fraud that which gives nothing).”

Last summer, Mackey and his colleagues searched for websites that advertised semaglutide without a prescription. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in the diabetes drug Ozempic and the weight loss drug Wegovy. Both require instructions.

The team purchased six products for quality control testing but received only three.

“Three traders who sell Ozempic vaccines are involved in fraud cases that do not deliver goods, asking for additional payments (various, US $ 650-$ 1200) according to clear customs, confirmed as fraud by the organizations of taxation,” the researchers wrote in their findings, published Friday in JAMA Network Open.

The authors of the study reported that semaglutide was present in the three samples sent to them but the purity was different (7% to 14% against the 99% declared and the amount of semaglutide exceeded what was on the box by 29% to 39%.

Semaglutide overdose has become common. US poison centers recorded almost 3,000 calls for semaglutide from January to November 2023 – 15 times more than in 2019.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning last week about semaglutide overdose.

Most of the reports were from patients who drank more than the prescribed dose – sometimes five to 20 times – from a multi-dose vial for injection.

Some patients had to be hospitalized, with symptoms ranging from nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain to fainting, headaches, migraines, dehydration, to in severe pancreatitis and gallstones.

Illness will become more widespread as the counterfeit market grows along with Ozempic’s growing popularity.

Mackey pointed out that there are about 30,000 to 40,000 illegal online pharmacies that could be in operation. People who try to buy unauthorized Ozempic online risk getting a product without semaglutide, the wrong amount of semaglutide, a dangerous ingredient instead, a contaminated product or no product at all.

“Consumers really need to work with their healthcare provider to make sure that semaglutide is right for them first, and then only get it from a licensed chemist to ensure that the treatment is they don’t compromise,” Mackey told The Post. .