Weight loss jabs could potentially harm an unborn baby

[musicalfrog]

"The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) says it is not known whether taking the medicines, such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, could harm an unborn baby."

How the F does it get to the stage of being bought on the Internet, when things like this are a possibility?

It feels like medicine is getting more unregulated as time goes on. It's extremely worrying!

Why do people want to constantly try to undermine a very useful medicine?
It is because fat is viewed as a moral failure despite the complex genetic, physical / mental health and environmental reasons that people who are severely and chronically overweight cannot lose/ maintain loss of weight.
Mounjaro is a huge breakthrough.
It IS properly regulated.
Most of the media scare stories can be traced back to either idiots buying from some random source on social media, idiots ignoring dosage instructions, or idiots lying to get the medication.
This could all apply to any medicine but weight loss treatment attracts those feeling the need to get a “beach body” etc with maybe a stone or two to lose at most which is not the intended use at all.
A huge number of medicines will harm unborn babies.
Mounjaro suppliers are no different to any other doctor/pharmacist in that they have to rely on a patient being honest.
In these days of telephone gp appointments honesty is an essential with all prescribing too.
I am fed up with thinly (pun intended) attempts to stop severely overweight people finally being helped by the medical profession, because a section of society, including some dinosaur doctors, think the sin of gluttony is the cause of their problem and therefore the solution must never be made any easier at all.
If eat less, move more was possible for all severely fat people then everyone would be slim.
We are not stupid, or lazy.
We have a problem and many have now finally found a solution after a lifetime of misery.
Christ, we even fund it ourselves in 99% of cases but still that isn’t good enough and apparently we should still suffer our punishment.

It is prescription only, you muppet!

So by that "logic" should brie, camembert, alcohol etc not be able to be bought without a prescription?

I can't imagine many people are taking weight loss drugs while pregnant

It was fast-tracked to market for weight-loss because it's already an approved and regulated medicine for diabetes. It shouldn't shock anyone that it hasn't been fully tested on women with regard to contraceptives, because medicines are rarely adequately tested on women as a cohort.

Well we don't know enough about it yet so that's not a surprise.
The online form clearly asks if you're TTC. I looked into it but as I am, I knew I wasn't a candidate for the meds so I've been losing weight the old fashioned way, 17 pounds and counting so far.
As it's clear you shouldn't take it while TTC, to me that's a clear sign that you shouldn't get pregnant while taking it so if you're on hormonal contraception which may be impacted (again we don't know enough) then a bit of accountability is needed here to make sure you have extra precautions in place if you have sex while on the meds. Not to mention why you'd want to risk pregnancy when we also know the meds are hard on your pancreas.

LOL Where did you get that from? It is literally written on the box and has to be prescribed by a doctor before being prescribed.

How the F does it get to the stage of being bought on the Internet, when things like this are a possibility?

It is a criminal offence to sell prescription-only medications to someone without a prescription. If you are buying medications from unlawful vendors then you also cannot be guaranteed exactly what you are buying. Counterfeit drugs is a huge thing. The MHRA/police do nowhere near enough to enforce the medicines regulation. You just need to look at the their complete lack of response to the promotion of puberty blockers to see how fond they are of turning a blind eye to criminal offences under Human Medicines Regulations.

I can't imagine many people are taking weight loss drugs while pregnant

Obese pregnant women (only women get pregnant) need to lose weight too. And a lot of women do not know they are pregnant for some time (none know for definite until a week or so after conception)

Studies showed that there were fetal abnormalities in some animal tests but they don’t know why (was it the drug itself interfering with development? Was it the fact the animals were underreating as a result of the suppression which may not be a significant issue for women because we can rationalise the need to eat etc) and obviously they can’t do trials to figure it out. Therefore they can’t say it actually is safe, so women who are actively trying to conceive aren’t eligible for a prescription and there are many warnings about doubling up with contraception (in addition to the fact hormonal contraceptives are also more likely to fail when taking it so there are a good few unplanned pregnancies when taking it).

It’s more restricted than smoking and alcohol which definitely have an impact on fetal development and can be bought freely!

These are my thoughts too. Women are so often an afterthought (if they are thought of at all).

Oh well if it's raising awareness, even by me posting this on here, then I suppose it can't be a bad thing.

This was what it reminded me of too, hence popping it in this topic.

@musicalfrog I heard them talking about it on Jeremy Vine at lunchtime so it sounds like it should be more widely known about after today.

am fed up with thinly (pun intended) attempts to stop severely overweight people finally being helped by the medical profession, because a section of society, including some dinosaur doctors, think the sin of gluttony is the cause of their problem and therefore the solution must never be made any easier at all.

Agree. It's like some people don't want to accept that there is in many cases an underlying issue which makes it a lot harder for some people to control their hunger.

GLP1 is a hormone produced by the body and Mounjaro et al provide a synthetic version of this. If you can be deficient in other hormones then why is it so hard to believe that some people are deficient in this one too?

Interestingly I noticed that the BBC coverage on R4's Today and online talked about "women", rather than "people". Perhaps they've finally remembered who it is who actually gets pregnant?

Many drugs are known to be teratogenic. For others, it's just not known whether they are safe or not. This has always been the case and is not unique to the weight loss injections. Prescribers will make it very clear that the jabs aren't safe in pregnancy/ do not ttc. Women also have a responsibility to make sure they don't get pregnant and would be foolish to do so.

It is prescription only though so not sure what the issue is?

It is prescription only.

Thank you we've established that. I wasn't informed enough at the time of my post.

Clearly there is a lack of awareness though, what with it being a relatively new widely used drug.

Loads of medicines aren’t suitable for pregnant women. Either because they are known to be detrimental to the pregnancy, or because they haven’t been thoroughly tested.
Pregnant women are warned not to take any meds without checking with a doctor.

Exactly, I couldn’t have my medication for hayfever when I was pregnant.

pregnant women have to be careful of no end of things. When you get perscription drugs, you are asked if there is any possibility that you could be pregnant. Quite often when if you are a man in your eighties.

You would be aware if you were asking for it though. You would be asked.