Is it too good to be true?
People sometimes struggle for decades — perhaps even their whole lives — to lose weight. So I don’t think they could be blamed for at least considering the use of the new GLP-1 drugs that can make that struggle so much easier. But at what cost? While many doctors are falling over themselves to write prescriptions for these new wonder drugs, others are not convinced that they aren’t without risk.
For the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing these new drugs, they have to be a goldmine. How long have people wished there was a magic pill they could take that would melt the pounds away? These new GLP-1 drugs seem to be the manifestation of that dream coming true, albeit in injectable form.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that new miracle drugs like these are not offering a guaranteed trouble-free ticket to Skinny Land. Many users may indeed experience significant weight loss without experiencing serious side effects. Others, on the other hand, may not have such a positive experience.
Reports have been surfacing that there is an increased risk of blindness for people using these drugs. It is a particular type of blindness that is called Non‑arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). To the laymen like myself, it sounds like a type of “stroke” that happens in the eye and can result in permanent blindness.
As expected, the pharmaceutical companies and their supporters are bending over backwards to declare that these kinds of complications are “very rare” and occur with only one in 10,000 people taking these drugs. To get a better idea of how many people that would be — and assuming their 1-in-10,000 declaration is accurate — consider that 10 million people taking those drugs would result in 1,000 going blind in at least one eye. It’s easy to call something “rare” when you’re not the one losing your vision.
By the way, 10 million people taking GLP-1 drugs is not a particularly generous number considering that there are an estimated 28 to 34 millions Americans taking them today.
I am not the first one to suggest that the introduction of these revolutionary new pharmaceuticals will eventually result in much more harm than the manufacturers have claimed. Given their track record when it comes to outright lies (remember Covid?), I am not going to be surprised to learn that they were aware of many more serious side effects than they have declared publicly.
Despite the cries of “very rare!” from the pharmaceutical companies and their (likely paid) shills, another convincing clue has emerged that suggests to me that these reported risks are very real. The lawyers are <a href=”https://www.seegerweiss.com/product-liability/glp-1-naion-vision-loss-lawsuit/”>beginning to circle</a> and my personal experience strongly indicates that does not happen unless there is a real chance for them to make a bundle. That does not bode well for the manufacturers of GLP-1 drugs.
In the meanwhile, if you care to entertain yourself by reading the research that revealed these serious potential side effects, check out the following links:
Risk of Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy in Patients Prescribed Semaglutide