WASHINGTON (TND) — Poison control centers are getting more calls related to accidental overdoses of a popular, injected weight loss and diabetes drug, semaglutide.
It is sold as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for obesity. However, several celebrities use Ozempic for weight loss.
U.S. Poison Centers have documented 2,941 exposures to products containing semaglutide from January to Nov. 30.
t’s important to note that these cases are voluntarily reported. Thus, these data underestimate the number of cases involving compounded semaglutide,” the center noted.
The latest numbers are a 15-fold increase since 2019. In 2019, there were 196 cases.
“There’s been so much demand, that there has been a shortage of these medications on the market,” explained Dr. Anand Parekh, Chief Medical Adviser for the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of fake and counterfeit medication around so that’s the first. Secondly, some pharmacies are compounding or making this on their own and unfortunately, what they use so sometimes they incorrectly dose the medicine, sometimes they add additional ingredients.”
Ozempic and Wegovy’s manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, is suing two pharmacies for copycat drugs.
Novo Nordisk is pursuing legal proceedings against two compounding pharmacies for selling adulterated and misbranded compounded drugs claiming to contain semaglutide,” the company said in a statement. “Testing of compounded drugs from these pharmacies revealed unknown impurities up to 33%, a peptide FDA determined cannot be used in compounding due to safety risks, and/or inaccurate strengths with at least 19% less “semaglutide” than labeled.
Parekh said even if people are taking the actual medication, some folks are taking too much leading to accidental overdoses.
According to the American College of Medical Toxicology, an overdose case out of New York involved a patient accidentally taking 20 times the recommended amount.
“We are seeing this increase in calls to poison control centers, either for an overdose or for adverse events, and in some cases, that’s leading to nausea, vomiting, dehydration, low blood sugar, causing people to have to go to the emergency room and in some cases, be hospitalized,” said Parekh.
“We are taking multiple steps to ensure responsible use of our semaglutide medicines which are detailed on semaglutide.com, “Novo Nordisk said in a statement to CNN.
For poisoning-related questions, or if you need emergency assistance please contact Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222, or visit PoisonHelp.org.
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