Tag: obesity

‘Their Rubber Stamp Is Reckless’: After AAP Endorses Weight-Loss Drugs for Kids, Prescriptions Soar

Prescriptions for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs for kids and teens grew substantially after the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 2023 recommended them for childhood obesity, according to a new study published in the AAP’s flagship journal Pediatrics.

GLP-1 drugs, typically used to treat obesity or diabetes, include the blockbuster drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Saxenda. Of those, only Wegovy and Saxenda are approved for children. However, several lesser-known GLP-1 drugs can be prescribed off-label for children.

Researchers with the health data and analytics company Truveta analyzed more than 310,000 health records. They found that prescriptions for GLP-1 drugs for children and teens ages 8-17 increased 65% immediately following AAP’s recommendation and another 5% per month after that, Axios reported.

The researchers found that before the AAP recommendation, the diabetes drug metformin was by far the most prescribed medication for weight loss in kids. However, after the new guidelines, prescriptions for semaglutide — the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic — surged, and prescriptions for metformin dropped.

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Weight loss jab patients facing deadly organ failure risk, experts warn

  • A nurse warns that weight-loss injections like Mounjaro are prescribed without crucial blood tests, risking pancreatitis, organ failure, and death.
  • UK regulators are investigating more than 560 reports of pancreas inflammation and ten deaths linked to GLP-1 agonist drugs.
  • Mandatory blood screening could identify high-risk patients, but corporate providers prioritize profits over safety, skipping safeguards.
  • Post-market data reveals severe risks, including contraceptive failure, muscle wasting, and blindness, yet manufacturers downplay dangers.
  • Experts demand stricter regulations, pre-screenings, and holistic obesity care instead of profit-driven pharmaceutical shortcuts.

A medical whistleblower has exposed a life-threatening oversight in the booming weight loss injection industry, revealing that thousands of patients are being prescribed potent GLP-1 agonist drugs like Mounjaro without critical blood tests that could prevent pancreatitis, sepsis, and fatal organ failure.

As UK regulators investigate more than 560 reports of pancreas inflammation and ten deaths linked to these “miracle” injections, frontline healthcare workers are demanding immediate reforms to protect vulnerable patients from Big Pharma’s reckless profit-driven protocols.

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Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman Says N-Word Is to Blame for Blacks Suffering from Obesity, Cancer, and Heart Disease

Former Congressman Jamaal Bowman has claimed that black people are suffering from serious medical conditions because they are called the N-word so regularly.

Appearing on a CNN panel on Thursday, Bowman outlined his theory that rates of cancer, obesity, and heart disease are higher among black Americans because of people allegedly using the N-word.

“I’m a black man in America,” Bowman explained.

“The reason why heart disease and cancer and obesity and diabetes are bigger in the black community is because of the stress we carry from having to deal with being called the n-word directly or indirectly every day.”

Bowman’s rhetoric was so bizarre and extreme that even the Democratic Party ultimately rejected him.

In last year’s Congressional primary, Bowman lost to former New York State Assemblyman George Latimer by over 20 points.

In the wake of President Trump’s landslide election victory, Bowman openly attacked white people for not supporting his political ideas and claimed that some are simply “too far gone.”

“Dear White People,” he wrote at the time. “I don’t know why I feel the need to keep talking to you. I don’t know why part of me still has hope for you and for us.

“Some of you are too far gone. But maybe enough of you aren’t and will join us in fighting to end white supremacy.”

“I just wanna call out the hypocrisy and evil of it all and just continue to hope.

”I won’t rely completely on you because I know what’s most important is to work with my community and other like minded allies in the fight for justice.”

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Takeaways From the Make America Healthy Again Commission Report

The rise in chronic diseases such as obesity among children can be traced to health decisions influenced by distorted scientific literature that is funded or otherwise impacted by corporations, according to a May 22 report by the Make America Healthy Again Commission.

The commission, chaired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., plans to issue policy proposals at a later date.

Here are five takeaways from the report.

Focus on Ultra-Processed Foods

Kennedy has for years decried how children are eating more ultra-processed foods, and the report attributes the increase in childhood chronic diseases in part to that dietary shift.

“Rising rates of childhood chronic disease are likely being driven by a combination of factors, including the food children are eating,” it states.

Officials pointed in part to a 2021 study, which found that nearly 70 percent of calories consumed by American children come from ultra-processed foods, up from zero a century prior.

Other research cited in the report noted that ultra-processed foods, or foods high in sugar, fat, and chemicals, often lack nutrients.

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Report: Thanks To DEI, Most Medical Schools Now Teach Doctors To Damage Patients

Speech First has uncovered records from more than 50 public medical schools across 46 states, revealing that these institutions are training left-wing advocates who prioritize race in treatment, promote gender identities contrary to biology, and downplay obesity’s health risks. As its report shows, under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), medical schools enforce conformity to leftist ideologies, such as labeling all white men as racists or disconnecting gender from biological sex. It also shows that free speech is on life support, with dissenters of these ideas and practices facing far-reaching consequences. 

Speech First reviewed hundreds of documented reports, including the case of Dr. Norman Wang, who lost his teaching duties for criticizing affirmative action — which the left uses to admit less qualified minorities to meet racial quotas. Speech First’s report also detailed the case of Dr. Allan Josephson, who was fired for questioning pediatric transgender procedures — which the left champions as necessary for affirming so-called “gender identities.”

The hope was that exposing the medical establishment’s intolerance for dissent would incentivize medical schools to restore open discourse. But records unearthed by Speech First reveal they are doubling down, enforcing loyalty to DEI tenets — anti-racism, gender ideology, and, bizarrely, “weight inclusivity,” which claims body weight is not tied to one’s health.

Of the more than 50 schools Speech First investigated, 99 percent mandate anti-racism dogma, branding whites as inherently oppressive and casting physicians as crusaders for historical redress. 

At the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, students must take an “Implicit Bias and Microaggressions” course, which uses a “Wheel of Power/Privilege” to frame white men as society’s ultimate oppressors, a narrative embedded across departments and continuing education credits, priming medical students to see patients through a racial lens, not medical need.

Eighty-nine percent enforce gender ideology, elevating self-proclaimed identities over biology and endorsing irreversible surgeries for children while stifling dissent. 

At the University of Arizona College of Medicine, students are taught that so-called “gender transitioning” in children, starting with social changes like cross-dressing and progressing to puberty-suppressing drugs, is normal, and harassment policies stifle dissent by mandating preferred pronouns. Then there are cases of pure absurdity. At the University of Missouri School of Medicine, an orientation video, “What Doctors Should Know About Gender Identity,” suggests that “a biological male identifying as a woman” may need a gynecological exam.

Thirty percent promote weight inclusivity, framing obesity as oppression and urging students to use euphemisms like “person of larger size” instead of “overweight.”

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“Fit, Not Fat”: Hegseth Vows Course Correction As Report Finds Two-Thirds Of Reserve Troops Are Overweight

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressed his dismay on April 25 after a new report found that more than two-thirds of U.S. military reserve personnel are overweight.

Washington-based think tank American Security Project (ASP) published a white paper this week that found that nearly 68 percent of reserve troops are overweight or obese.

In 2018, when the Department of Defense last surveyed obesity rates in the reserve military components, it found that around 65 percent of reserve troops were considered overweight or obese.

“The number of young adults interested in military service remains sufficient to maintain current force strength. However, as overweight and obesity disqualify thousands of applicants each year, services are incentivized to violate body composition enlistment standards to meet recruitment goals,” the new ASP report reads.

Hegseth took to social media platform X on Friday to call the report’s findings “completely unacceptable.”

“This is what happens when standards are IGNORED — and this is what we are changing. REAL fitness & weight standards are here,” the defense secretary said. “We will be FIT, not FAT.”

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Taxpayers Paid $6.2 Billion to Develop Weight-loss Drugs. Pharma Charges Consumers a Premium — Driving Up Healthcare Costs for Everyone

U.S. taxpayers picked up the tab for about $6.2 billion worth of research, development and distribution of GLP-1s, the new class of blockbuster weight-loss drugs, according to an investigation by The Lever.

The “blockbuster drugs” generate annual sales exceeding $1 billion for Big Pharma.

Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound — which belong to the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) class of drugs — are “minting billions of dollars” for Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, the companies that make them.

Taxpayers fund the research. Pharma reaps massive profits. And Americans pay up to 11 times more for the drugs than people in other countries. The marked-up prices are inflating insurance premiums and risk bankrupting the country’s healthcare system, according to The Lever.

Researchers at Bentley University shared data with The Lever showing that between 1980 and 2024, the federal government spent $6.2 billion on the discovery and development of GLP-1 molecules, plus research on how to use those molecules to treat diabetes, obesity and other health conditions.

“You have to know a lot to develop a drug and to apply it in people,” Dr. Fred Ledley, professor of Natural and Applied Sciences at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, told The Lever. “What we call a ‘mature body of knowledge’ is not cheap.” Ledley provided the spending data to The Lever.

That research laid the foundation for the development of Ozempic and triggered a wave of similar drugs that spawned a massive market.

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Ozempic Linked to 19 Adverse Health Events

By now, most people around the world have heard of Ozempic and Wegovy, which are GLP-1 receptor agonists. These drugs, originally made for treating Type 2 diabetes, cause rapid weight loss, thus attracting individuals who have been struggling to lose weight for a long time. In fact, the effectiveness of these drugs has led to a global shortage.1 However, as with many other drugs that promise immediate results, there’s a catch.

A report from The Epoch Times2 covered a study published in Nature Medicine,3 showing the impact of certain GLP-1 receptor agonists, sold under brand names such as Ozempic and Wegovy. As noted by The Epoch Times, “The media, patients, and even some doctors have dubbed the medications ‘miracle drugs’ because of their profound weight-loss effects.”4

In addition to weight loss, the study also noted that these drugs also lower the risk of “seizures and addiction to substances such as alcohol, cannabis, stimulants and opioids.”5 It’s believed that these drugs affect the brain’s neurological pathways related to reward and impulse control, explaining how these changes in behavior occur.6

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Study: Majority of EBT-Eligible Food Products Are Ultra-Processed

We’ve all been there: you’re waiting in the checkout line at your local Save money. Live better™ Walmart, or wherever fine groceries are sold, and in front of you is a family of four — all obese if not morbidly so — with a cart chock full of Dr. Thunder (Walmart’s Dr. Pepper knock-off) and Hot Pockets and stuff like that.

“EBT,” they say when the cashier reports their bill.

Then you realize — with a disparate mix of revulsion, empathy, and helplessness — that you have just subsidized their slow-burning suicide and the homicide of their equally fat children.

One advocacy group recently attempted to quantify this phenomenon.

Via GoCoCo (emphasis added):

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has come under increasing scrutiny for how its benefits are spent. Critics point out that the program may be “encouraging families to eat highly processed, unhealthy junk food” rather than nourishing them with wholesome options. This concern prompted us to conduct a detailed investigation into the foods eligible for purchase with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards (which deliver SNAP benefits) at one of the nation’s largest grocery retailers…

Our analysis of more than 13,000 SNAP-EBT eligible products reveals a stark nutritional reality. The vast majority of items that SNAP recipients can buy are highly processed. Notable findings include…

62% of EBT-eligible products studied are ultra-processed foods…

Nearly half (47%) of the products contain artificial flavorings…

8% of products contain additives that are banned in California or in California schools…

Over 160 products contain Red Dye No. 3, which has been recently banned by the FDA.

Of course, one of the biggest reasons this mass-scale human tragedy is allowed to play itself out is the influence of big food lobbyists in Washington (and at the state level) who bribe politicians and policymakers to include ultra-processed foods manufactured by mega-corporations like Nestle, Coca-Cola, et al. in the EBT program.

Often, these lobbyists go as low as weaponizing accusations of racism against anyone who objects.

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Using The Marijuana Components THC-V And CBD Every Day Helps People Lose Weight, Study Finds

Research on the use of marijuana components to aid weight loss found that use of a combined product containing the cannabinoids THCV and CBD “was associated with statistically significant weight loss” as well as a slimmer waistline, lower blood pressure and decreased cholesterol.

The study, published late last month in the journal Cannabis, analyzed outcomes among 44 people who were administered either oral strips containing a mixture of the two cannabinoids or a placebo. Participants took one strip daily for 90 says and were evaluated for weight loss and certain metabolic markers.

“Use of the THCV/CBD strip was associated with statistically significant weight loss, decreases in abdominal girth, systolic blood pressure, and total and LDL cholesterol,” says the report, authored by Dr. Gregory Smith, the founder and CEO of plant-based medicine company NeX Therapeutics, based in Florida.

Participants—31 of whom were female and 13 of whom were male, with a combined average age of about 52 years—were given either a placebo or one of two different mucoadhesive oral strips. A lower-dose version contained 8 milligrams of THCV and 10 mg CBD, while a higher-dose version had 16 mg THCV and 20 mg CBD. Subjects received a reminder to take a dose each day on an empty stomach and report any side effects, and they agreed to refrain from using cannabis or other cannabinoid-based products.

Participants were not asked to make any changes to their diet or exercise routines.

Of 24 people who received the lower-potency oral strips, 16 (66.7 percent) demonstrated weight loss over the course of the 90-day period—on average losing 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds). Among the 10 who received the higher-dose strips, seven (70 percent) lost weight—an average of 4.1 kg (9.0 lbs).

The 10 subjects who received the placebo, meanwhile, lost an average of just 0.1 kg (0.2 lbs).

Nearly all (95.8 percent) in the lower-dose group also saw reductions in abdominal girth, as did 70 percent of the higher-dose subjects.

“It is interesting to note that there was a barely statistically significant decrease in the control/placebo group,” Smith wrote, “however, it is also worth noting that abdominal girth is probably the least accurate of all the biometric measures taken for the purposes of this study.”

The THCV/CBD groups also showed reductions in systolic blood pressure as well as total and LDL cholesterol, the research found.

“In summary, 90 day use of once-daily THCV and CBD-infused mucoadhesive strips was associated with clinically significant weight loss, decreases in abdominal girth, systolic blood pressure, and total and LDL cholesterol,” the report concludes, adding that stronger dosage appeared to perform better: “The 16mg/20mg daily dose in Group B was superior for weight loss compared to the 8mg/10mg daily dose in Group A.”

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