Big Pharma Push Another Jab

Latest technocratic fix targets the obese

Oct 18, 2024

The UK government has recently announced a partnership with the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, based in the USA. This partnership will be coordinated by the University of Manchester as part of the Obesity Healthcare Goals Programme. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the UK government and the pharmaceutical company who are investing £279 million into the life sciences project. The five year study will examine how Mounjaro (brand name), containing the active ingredient Tirzepatide and produced by Eli Lilly, impacts worklessness and sick days on the 3000 people recruited to the study as well as effects on obesity and type 2 diabetes. Let’s take a closer look at the latest pact between big government and big business.

At first glance, it appears that a drug that can tackle obesity, may have a very useful role in improving health outcomes. Obesity is defined by the UK parliament (2024) as being overweight with a lot of body fat and an ‘imbalance between energy consumed and energy expanded’. A Health Education England (HEE) 2021 survey based on body mass index (BMI) found that more than a quarter of adults were obese and an additional 37.9% were overweight. Concerns about the growing waistline of the UK population are indeed legitimate because obesity is linked to endocrine disorders such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease such as hypertension, cancers such as bowel cancer, and musculoskeletal degeneration. Many people struggle to manage their weight especially as they age and a simple weekly injection, delivered by a pre-filled pen, might seem a lot easier than losing weight by modifying lifestyles.

Image: The Tuscan General Alessandro del Borro ponders the harm he is doing to the economy and the local health service in 1645

Source: By Charles Mellin - WgF1LrUvFdNysA — Google Arts & Culture, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13334241

Tirzepatide was originally licensed in the UK as a drug for managing type 2 diabetes, but the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) subsequently approved its use in weight management in November 2023. Tirzepatide is delivered as a weekly injection and increases levels of a hormone called incretin. This hormone encourages the pancreas to produce more insulin, reduces glucose produced by the liver, and slows down food digestion. The MHRA have listed some of the common side effects associated with the drug but not the more serious ones listed in the British National Formulary (BNF) (2024) which provides information about drug selection, prescribing, dispensing and administration. And hence lies the problem, this drug similar to others such as Ozempic, produced by Novo Nordisk, have been associated with serious adverse reactions including acute pancreatitis and diabetic ketoacidosis both of which can be life threatening (BNF 2024). Moreover, the slowing of gastric emptying may also have an impact on the absorption rate of other medications taken by a patient (BNF 2024). Longer term side effects are also unknown at this stage. (For a more in depth discussion on the issues around Ozempic consult the substack by ‘A Midwestern Doctor’ entitled ‘The great Ozempic Hustle’ in the reference list below.)

Keir Starmer, the UK’s Prime Minister, recently spoke on camera about the benefits of Tirzepatide and the partnership:

‘This drug will be very helpful to people who want to lose weight, need to lose weight, very important for the economy so people can get back into work, very important for the NHS, because as I’ve said time and again, yes we need more money for our NHS, but we’ve got to think differently, we’ve got to reduce the pressure on the NHS’

However, notice the emphasis around ‘saving money’ and getting people ‘back into work’. According to the UK’s government estimates obesity costs the NHS £11 billion per year but there is more than just the financial impacts of obesity to consider. Again, as with COVID-19, the authorities are using pejorative language to stereotype people as greedy and lazy and apportioning blame to them for not managing their own health, bankrupting the NHS, and reducing economic output.

The authorities are also invoking the need to ‘save the NHS’ and transferring the blame for NHS failures onto ordinary people whilst failing to acknowledge the constrained choices that most people live with. We saw similar messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic response with ‘Save granny’ advertisements. You might remember the following announcements from the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in January 2021:

‘Our hospitals are under more pressure than at any other time since the start of the pandemic, and infection rates across the entire country continue to soar at an alarming rate.

The vaccine has given us renewed hope in our fight against the virus but we must not be complacent. The NHS is under severe strain and we must take action to protect it, both so our doctors and nurses can continue to save lives and so they can vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as we can.

I know the last year has taken its toll – but your compliance is now more vital than ever. So once again, I must urge everyone to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.’

To the technocrats who embraced the COVID-19 vaccines as the ultimate technocratic solution to COVID-19, the prospect of another jab to solve the obesity epidemic is very appealing. However, tirzepatide has been linked to serious side effects and the long term effects are unknown. It might be more helpful if the government addressed contributing factors to obesity including quality of food production and the amount of sugar in processed food rather a corporate/government ‘partnership’ which will invariable result in another transfer of public money to a large corporation. It also represents another intrusion of the state into bodily autonomy – why is obesity now the subject of such government concern? How long before the anti-obesity jab might be a mandatory condition of welfare payments or participation in wider society?

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