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The Obesity epidemic is, in fact, easy to solve.

Start handing out Ozempic.

In the blink of an eye, the price dropped from ridiculous to well worth it, in India of all places. Fucking give the people killing themselves with food the pills to stop them wanting to.

Even if the price stays high, it doesn't have to get much cheaper for the cost-benefit to be grossly positive from the reduced healthcare costs for the fat and sick.

This is not impossible, or even very hard to implement. Negotiate costs. Make insurance cover it, if they don't make a rational decision to do so. Buy it from countries where it's cheaper.

Fucking give the people killing themselves with food the pills to stop them wanting to.

Not pills, it's an injection. You try finding different places on your stomach to stab yourself weekly 😁

Plus, there are side-effects. Some people react so badly that they can't stay on the medications. If you're lucky, you'll just end up constipated because of the mechanism of action, which is to slow down the passage of food through the digestive system. If you're extra lucky, you get the "not wanting to eat so much" side-effect, but not everybody does get that.

Not pills, it's an injection. You try finding different places on your stomach to stab yourself weekly

No, it's not necessarily injections, you can quite literally get Semaglutide in oral form. I was looking up formulations for my mom yesterday.

Plus, there are side-effects. Some people react so badly that they can't stay on the medications. If you're lucky, you'll just end up constipated because of the mechanism of action, which is to slow down the passage of food through the digestive system. If you're extra lucky, you get the "not wanting to eat so much" side-effect, but not everybody does get that.

Sigh. Everything has side effects. For semaglutide, they're not particularly noteworthy, regardless of your personal bad luck with it.

I didn't know about the oral formulations, the only ones I've encountered for both Ozempic and Trulicity have been the injectables, (ouch ouch ouch), and even then supply was intermittent because demand outstripped it (particularly for those looking for quickie weight loss).

India makes half the pharmaceuticals you consume in the West, be they cheap or expensive. So it's not surprise I can get it for next to nothing, especially in bulk. So could anyone really, depending on their appetite for Chinese grey markets.

Oral formulations of semaglutide are less effective than a jab, but they're also cheaper, and you can just take more of them.

The long and short (and thin) of it is that it works for most people, and for those it didn't work on/couldn't tolerate it, there are both similar drugs that are likely better at the weight loss deal, and tens of billions of dollars being spent finding more.