Countries place new prohibitions on Ozempic-Can the United States follow?
The authorities push against this increasingly popular prescription in the midst of shortages.
Ozempic has exceeded the weight loss industry. Known generic under the name of Sémaglutide, the drug was approved for the first time by the Food and Drug Administration of the United States (FDA) in 2017 for adults with type 2 diabetes but in the past year, Its popularity has skyrocketed thanks to its dramatic effects to help people lose books faster than ever. At the same time, Ozempic faced an unprecedented controversy, because this increased request led to dangerous shortages and new stories of Serious side effects . Now, some officials take a stand against the medication. Read more on which countries place new prohibitions on Ozempic, and if these same restrictions are likely to strike the United States
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A Canadian province has limited the sale of Ozempic earlier this year.
The popularity surrounding the weight loss capacities of Ozempic previously prompted civil servants in Canada to take measures. Back in the spring, British Columbia began restrict the sale diabetes medication after American residents began to seek prescriptions in Canada, Wall Street's journal reported. The province’s Ministry of Health said it would prevent doctors and pharmacists from providing Ozempic to people who are not living in Canada.
"We ensure the continuous availability of Ozempic", " Adrian Dix , The Minister of Health of British Columbia, said Wall Street's journal at the time. "We do not want to become a supplier for the American market."
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Now another country provides for a ban on this medication.
With its restrictions, the British Columbia Ministry of Health said it was also trying to make sure that ozempic prescriptions are reserved for people who use it to treat diabetes - not for weight loss. Now another country has revealed that he wanted to do the same. Civil servants in Belgium are plans to place A temporary ban on the use of ozempic as a weight loss treatment in a little drug shortage, Reuters reported.
"We told doctors that they had to reserve this medication for their patients who suffered from type 2 diabetes, but we see that this strategy does not work," said Federal Minister of Belgian Health Franck Vandenbroucke said Belgian broadcaster RTBF on October 23, by Reuters.
The country's working group on the availability of medicines - which includes representatives of pharmacists, insurers, distributors, the pharmaceutical industry and the government - will soon be displayed to decide the details. But Vandenbroucke said that it is likely that the ozempic ban will last from a few weeks to a few months, depending on the production and availability of the drug.
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There is currently an ozempic shortage in the United States
Ozempic's demand overwhelmed supply to the United States. The injection of semaglutide is currently on the FDA List of drug shortages , the agency believing that "limited availability" will last at least until the end of 2023. If you look at the data, this should not surprise.
A recent report De Trilliant Health revealed that US health care providers have written more than nine million ozempques and diabetes prescriptions like Wegovy in the last three months of 2022, which reflects a quarterly increase of 300% for These prescriptions. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB
As in many other countries, Ozempic shortage in the United States hurts patients who use the drug for their diabetes. Ozempic is unrealized For weight loss by the FDA, but suppliers can prescribe it "out of AMM" as weight loss treatment instead of diabetes treatment, CNN reported. This prescription from Ozempic 0FF has become more than twice as common in the past two years, with more than a third of people taking the medication without a history of type 2 diabetes, according to Trilliant Health.
"At the beginning of this year, and certainly in the last two quarters of last year, we met many shortages of Ozempic for our patients with type 2 diabetes", " Disha Narang , MD, endocrinologist and director of medical obesity at the Northwestern Medicine, Lake Forest Hospital, told CNN. "Thus, our patients with type 2 diabetes could not reliably get their medication, and this has become a problem."
But there is no evidence that the country is likely to ban or restrict the drug.
Currently, there is no major thrust for the United States to promulgate prohibitions similar to those in Canada or Belgium. And despite the current difficulty that diabetic patients are confronted with the Ozempic in the midst of its growing popularity, many health professionals in the country seem comfortable to continue to prescribe it for weight loss.
"Obesity is an epidemic," Anne Peters , MD, endocrinologist at Keck Medicine, who has been working with these types of drugs for 20 years, said in a blog for the health system. "Many people are obese and overweight in the United States. This causes all kinds of health problems. So, if we can help people lose weight easily and simply, why not use all the tools we have? ""
On the other hand, American insurance companies have started rage On the prescription outside the Amme d'Ozempic, The Washington Post reported. Eleven Health, an insurer who exploits hymn plans, said he will not cover Ozempic unless a patient receives diabetes diagnosis and has tried another medication to manage it.
"Natural shortages have taken place due to the significant increase in the prescription outside the AMM," said the insurer in warning letters sent to various doctors, noting that diabetic patients "often cannot find the drug in stock ".
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