A major new report has revealed that the drug makers behind Ozempic and Wegovy are doling out huge sums of money to doctors to get them to increase their prescriptions. This comes as more and more side effects of the weight loss drugs become evident. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
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Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A major new report has revealed that the drug makers behind Ozempic and Wegovy are doling out huge sums of cash to doctors to get ’em to increase their prescriptions. This comes as more and more side effects of the weight loss drugs become evident, and it’s getting worse. It’s not getting better. This is like deja vu of the opioid case that we just, our firm handled. We were the lead people in that lawsuit. But we saw the same thing. We saw these doctors who could be bought, I mean, basically prostitute themselves. That’s what they were. Pay me enough money and I’ll go out and say whatever you want me to say. These doctors that look like they’re from Harvard and Yale and Wake Forest all over the country, that they pay ’em enough money and they’ll go out and say whatever the hell the company wants said. We saw that with opioids. We see it all the time. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it’s even more like opioid case than people realize, because with opioids, what the companies were doing is they were targeting these pain management clinics where every day the doctors dealt with nothing but people who came in with pain. And what better way? Like, hey, you got pain. Here’s an opiate. And with the Wegovy and Ozempic, these drug makers are targeting these weight loss clinics where the doctors specialize in those kinds of prescriptions. So it’s like shooting fish in a barrel for these people. So it’s not just your little down the street doctor that you go to when you have a cold. It’s these almost factory farm doctors that just get people on one specific issue.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Novo is spending upward above $25 million, $30 million to go buy these people. That’s what they’re doing. They’re just, it’s the equivalent of going out and purchasing a little poodle. I really like this poodle and that’s what they are. They’re prostitute poodles, I guess is what you’d call ’em. And they’ll say whatever has to be said, they’ll make up whatever kind of literature. The company will say, hey, we have this that we wrote. Would you sign it? Yeah, I’ll sign it. They’re called key opinion leaders. And then they show up and they have this thing that’s created by the industry. They put their name on it, and for a million dollars, these guys are going, well, hell yeah, we’ll do that. But when you’re spending that kinda money, there is no shame, is there?
Farron Cousins: No. And what happens in many of these cases, like for example, Reuters pointed out, there’s one doctor that’s taken personally over a million dollars from this group. And he runs a massive weight loss clinic. And what they’ve done is they say, hey, listen, there’s a big symposium coming up. A lot of other weight loss doctors are gonna be there. We want you to be the keynote speaker. We’re gonna pay you tens of thousands of dollars just to speak.
Mike Papantonio: And they sponsor that event.
Farron Cousins: Right. And all your meals are covered. We’ve got you in this beautiful luxury resort. This one’s in Chicago. The next one will be in Hawaii. Just promising all these great things, tons of money. Oh, and by the way, your speech is already written because we’ve taken the liberty using your own data, and of course, some of our own to tout our product. And these doctors, because they have no conscience, no scruples, they jump at it and say, absolutely. Honey, pack the bags. We’re going outta town for a week.
Mike Papantonio: Well, actually, one of the doctors, Ryan, RYAN, said, there’s nothing wrong with money. Look, we give a Nobel Prize in economics, right? So money can really help. It can help promote the good of the world. People are getting sick and this freak who gets paid enough money to say this is willing to say it, but the truth is they’re tapping into a market. Here’s the numbers, if you believe what’s out there, what 764 million people in America obese?
Farron Cousins: Well, across the globe.
Mike Papantonio: Excuse me. Across the globe, obese. So they’re looking, this is a big market they can tap.
Farron Cousins: That’s probably the biggest market for any drug, really.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Then the second thing I thought was really important is they asked Novo, why are you charging three times as much for the same drug in America that you’re charging overseas? Three times. And basically it’s, well, we can get away with it. There’s nobody asking questions. So we can make it three times as higher. I mean, look, I’m gonna be taking depositions in this case. I just, I can’t wait. It’s gonna be the same thing we see all the time. They can do anything they want to do to hide the clinicals or hide the docs. It doesn’t make any difference. We’re gonna get to it. But we’re gonna then find out that they knew real bad stuff would happen. They’ve, you’re gonna find the clinical showed ’em that. And then even if we find really bad conduct and give it to the Department of Justice, they’re not gonna do anything. Give it to the FDA. The FDA is signing off on this. I mean, talk about that.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. That’s probably one of the most concerning parts of all of these stories we do like this is the FDA says, okay, yeah, you can probably use it for weight loss, even though it is a diabetes drug. We’re gonna be okay with that. And yeah, we’re gonna say that it does promote weight loss. We’re gonna drag our feet a little bit on putting any kind of black box warning on this about potential stomach paralysis or pancreatic issues that are starting to be reported. There’s no silver bullet for taking a pill to lose weight and not have side effects. It simply does not exist. I don’t know that science will ever get there.
Mike Papantonio: Let me tell you what these freaks are doing now. You remember this from opioids. This is where it really gets creepy. In opioids, they had to invent a need. Okay. So they came up with this chart, happy face down to real sad face. Are you number one? Are you number two? All the way to 10. The industry came up with this goofy chart and they would give it to the doctor and say, doc, ask them what kind of pain they’re in. And if they’re up here at four, then yeah, start giving ’em opioids. They’re trying to do the same thing here. Doc, what does real obesity look like? Let’s talk about their lifestyle, blah, blah, blah and here are the standards. Well, it just so happens that the people writing that up are from the industry. So in comes these doctors, I swear to God, they’ll work for anything. Dr. Ryan who I talked about, Kaplan, these folks, it’s almost like there’s no shame because they’re gonna sell this. And then what’s gonna happen is the same thing that happened with fen-phen, same thing that happened with opioids. It’s not as serious as opioids, but people are gonna die, but they’re not gonna be 150 people dying a day. But there’s gonna be a lot of life lost here by the time this is over.
Farron Cousins: And another thing actually mentioned in the story too, some patients are reporting, is muscle loss. Actually losing muscle, which can be devastating for any older people taking these medications, trying to lose some weight.
Mike Papantonio: Here’s the risks. Serious nausea to where they can’t hold anything down. I mean, that’s not like, I’m just gonna puke now. They can’t hold anything down. Muscle loss that’s debilitating, that actually immobilizes that person. Intestinal blockage left and right. Suicidal thoughts. That’s coming up in the European studies. It takes years to uncover. The other thing though is what they call the Ozempic face. Have you heard this?
Farron Cousins: I haven’t heard of that.
Mike Papantonio: To women that are taking it, you can look at ’em and you can tell their face is gaunt. They look older, they look by years, they look older. And they don’t, it’s almost as if they don’t realize what’s happening to ’em. But people that haven’t seen ’em for a while, look at ’em and they say, my God. And they’re calling it Ozempic face.
Farron Cousins: It’s terrifying. And it is because look, the holy grail of big pharma is a weight loss drug that doesn’t kill people.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: And right now this is the closest they’ve come. I think they think they’re even closer than with fen-phen. But with all of these reports that are coming out, no, this is dangerous. And I think what people need to do is if you get on one of these drugs, because listen, they work, you’re gonna lose weight. But you could lose.
Mike Papantonio: Your muscles.
Farron Cousins: The ability to use your legs.
Mike Papantonio: Your intestines. To where you look like some oddball.
Farron Cousins: Your stomach.
Mike Papantonio: Because somebody can look at your face and say, oh, well you’re on Ozempic. That’s how bad this is. And you wanna say this to the women, take a look at an old picture, take a look at your face now and you are, believe it or not, a member of the Ozempic face family. So.
Farron Cousins: Well ask, if your doctor tries to put you on this, ask them if they have taken any money from Novo, or any of these other companies.
Mike Papantonio: Well, let ’em know that I’ll be suing them at some point. It’s just a matter of when. I mean, the people we’re really gonna be suing are these clinics. The reason we can do that is because if I have a clinic that’s doing this, say in Florida, okay. And there’s an MDL, federal MDL put together, and I don’t wanna go to the federal MDL, well, I can sue them in Florida because they have an organization here that I can sue that’s using their product. It’s just the way you kind of forum shop. Where do I wanna be with this case? And these places, just like we see all the time, are just opening up themselves up to lawsuits. These doctors are too.
