Your support helps us to tell the story
A woman is suing the manufacturer of Ozempic, claiming she had to have her colon removed following complications from taking the weight-loss medication.
Juanita Gantt, 62, was prescribed Wegovy and then Ozempic, both manufactured by Novo Nordisk, after her doctor agreed that, due to her family’s history of diabetes and her weight of 242 lbs, she was a good candidate.
“I was feeling fine,” she told CBS Mornings on Thursday. “I enjoyed the days that I didn’t have to worry about my appetite. I didn’t, you know, have cravings - I just felt like I was doing something positive for myself.”
But it wasn’t until several months later, in October 2023, that she would experience horrific medical complications, which she claims were side effects of the medications.
Now, Gantt claims the drugs’ packaging fails to properly warn people of the potential side effects, and asked for an unspecified amount of money in her lawsuit.
The mother said she was rushed to hospital after her husband found her unconscious on the floor, where doctors allegedly found parts of her large intestine had died and needed to be removed.
Gantt added that while recovering from surgery, she suffered cardiac arrest.
She now lives with an ileostomy bag, which collects her waste as it exits from an opening in her abdomen that surgeons made by moving a part of her intestine to her skin to form a stoma.
“I had no warning that this was even a possibility,” she claimed.
The Independent has contacted Novo Nordisk and Gantt for comment.
The Danish pharmaceutical company manufactures both Ozempic and Wegovy - two of the three FDA-approved semaglutide weight-loss products available in the US.
Semaglutide, a hormone naturally secreted by a person’s stomach while eating, is listed as the active ingredient in both Ozempic and Wegovy injections.
It works by prompting the body to produce more insulin (thereby reducing blood sugar levels) and, in higher doses, can also “interact with the parts of the brain that reduce appetite and signal a feeling of fullness,” according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The use of diabetes medications for the purpose of losing weight has been on the rise as celebrities speak out about using the drugs to lose weight.
In an interview with People in 2023, Oprah Winfrey revealed she takes a weight-loss drug “as a tool to manage not yo-yoing,” but did not specify which one.
Last year, Sharon Osbourne admitted to using Ozempic, but has told outlets, including The Guardian in Feburary, that she lost 42 lbs - “too much.”
Ozempic made headlines last year when some patients claimed to have developed gastroparesis (stomach paralysis) - where the digestion process can be slowed to a potentially harmful level - from it.
A 2022 journal article from Drug Design, Development and Therapy, says gastrointestinal side effects from semaglutide are “common,” citing constipation, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting - which in addition to being isolated side effects can be a symptom of “delayed gastric emptying” according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
There is also concern about gangs spreading dangerous counterfeit forms of the popular drug across the world using fake batch numbers.
