Buyer Beware! Experts warn about dangers of black market weight loss meds
by: Zaneta Lowe
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It’s a shot at better health that comes with a promise to help shed the pounds. Demand for drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound continues to grow.
The first was designed for diabetics, and now some are FDA approved solely for weight loss.
“The explosion in the past couple of years has been insane for the GLP ones… and part of it is because for most people, they do work,” said Dr. Virginia Weaver.
Dr. Weaver practices at Methodist Medical Group-Weight Management and Wellness.
Board certified in both surgery and obesity medicine, she’s spent a career spanning two decades helping people who’ve struggled with their weight.
“Ultimately obesity is a disease at the cellular level, and that’s why it has to be treated so aggressively,” explained Dr. Weaver.
How it’s treated, Weaver says, has evolved tremendously with patients seeing what she described as “life-altering” progress.
“It used to be kind of an either or. You either did the surgery route or you did the oral medications. Now, what we’ve seen with the onset of the injectables is that we are mixing the both of them, and that’s where we’re starting to see some really good results…with the injectable medications, we expect to see about 15 to 20% of their total body weight loss,” said Dr. Weaver.
“It’s been a total game changer, quite frankly,” added Weaver.
However, paying for that change can be costly.
The list price for the medications commonly referred to as GLP-1s can be more than a thousand dollars.
New savings programs have cut that in half, but still, it’s not cheap if you’re paying out of pocket.
Weaver told WREG, “It’s hard to tell a patient, hey, you might have to pay $500 a month if your employer doesn’t cover this medication every month for the rest of your life.”
So, lots of people have turned to cheaper copycats or compounded versions of the drugs.
“Pharmacies started compounding these medications when there was a huge shortage of the drug,” Weaver explained.
However, the Food and Drug Administration recently declared the shortage over, essentially banning compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide.
Weaver said, “Still with the high price for the brand name medications, and if compounding pharmacies do slow down or get shut down, people are out there searching for other options. And that’s where things get dangerous.”
Right now, there’s no sign of a slowdown. From weight loss clinics to wellness spas and online, knockoff GLP-1s are everywhere and being heavily promoted as the answer to a summer slim down.
In fact, when the WREG Investigators asked the FDA how it planned to enforce the new rule, a spokesperson said they’re using a “risk based approach” and will “take action when violations” occur.
The agency recently posted a document calling out concerns over “unapproved GLP-1 drugs” like dosing errors, saying usage is “risky for patients”.
It said as of late April, it had received 1,000 reports of adverse events related to compounded versions of semaglutide and tirzepatide.
In addition to the potential dangers associated with copycats, the agency has also warned about straight up counterfeits.
WREG asked Dr. Weaver, “What’s your concern with something like that?”
“If there is, contaminants, allergens in it, that sort of thing, and that gets injected. I could foresee patients dying from these sorts of, black market, if you will medications,” said Weaver.
A West Tennessee woman is now facing charges, accused of running a black market weight loss operation.
Black market weight-loss drug operation busted in TN
“We started getting complaints from people in the neighborhood. Hey, this lady is selling off her front porch,” said Johnie Carter, Director of the West Tennessee Drug Task Force.
Agents captured photos during the bust of what they found beyond that front porch, inside a Medina home, just north of Jackson.
There were hundreds of vials and shots labeled semaglutide, tirzepatide, retatrutide and cagrilintide.
Carter told WREG, “The vials themselves were marked not for human consumption, for research purposes only.”
The woman allegedly behind the black market operation, Emily Arnold faces several charges including selling a legend drug, impersonating a licensed professional, reckless endangerment and money laundering.
Carter says Arnold sold the supposed weight loss drugs from her website and to two clinics, Medina Weight Loss and Wellness and Haywood Weight Loss and Wellness. The latter has since closed according to the company’s Facebook page.
“Why would two clinics where medical professionals are working go through this woman to get their GLP-1s, WREG asked Carter?
He responded, “It’s a good question. And we’re, I’m not going to elaborate too much more on that because that’s still an ongoing investigation.”
WREG then asked, “So there could be more arrests?”
“It’s possible,” Carter responded.
Between the clinics and Arnold’s home, agents seized nearly 700 vials and $150,000.
Snapshots also show handwritten pricing on a sticky note, the drugs kept inside a mini-fridge with soda. And not far from that small refrigerator, dog feces on the floor.
“We walk into this home and there’s dog feces as soon as you’re walking in the house. Right there on the floor,” Carter said.
He told the WREG Investigators they set up a complaint line and received more than 60 responses ranging from customers who said the meds didn’t work, to others who explained they ended up at the ER with abdominal pain and injection site infections.
Carter told NewsChannel 3, “It’s buyer beware.You don’t know what you’re putting in your body.”
The task force sent the products to Eli Lily, the maker of Zepbound and Mounjaro.
“Currently preliminary testing, not full testing, says it’s not Tirzepatide in a bottle that’s purported to be what Tirzpatide is..it’s just what they consider to be water… like a sterile water.”
Carter says people trying to save money with what they think is a cheaper weight loss medication can be costly to their health and is no different from buying illegal street drugs.
“Don’t buy off of anybody’s front porch. Go and get it through legal channels,” Carter said.
“I would 1,000% steer everybody, like under no circumstance should you be going online and getting it from any, anybody that is not reputable,” added Dr. Weaver.
She continued, “And by reputable we mean either you’re getting it from a pharmacy … or a reputable compounding pharmacy overseen by PharmDs and things like that.”
The WREG Investigators asked Weaver what questions patients should be asking about weight loss medications.
“I think the best place to start is with your primary care doctor. Start there. They all are very well versed in the medications. Obviously, since they’ve been used in diabetes for so long. So that’s always the best place to start,” said Weaver.
She said patients should avoid places that don’t require an assessment or address medical history — and ask where they get the product from.
Dr. Weaver said, “Not only is it fair to ask the doctor, it is your duty and responsibility to your own health to ask where that drug is coming from, if it’s being mixed with anything.”
Arnold is due in court in Humboldt, Tennessee in July. We reached out to her attorney for comment and haven’t heard back.
After the bust, the operator of the two clinics said they had no prior knowledge of Arnold’s actions. They also said they were cooperating with law enforcement. WREG reached out for additional comment and we’re still waiting to hear back. We also contacted the physician whose license is attached to the clinics, but have not received a response.
An FDA spokesperson told WREG “As a matter of long-standing policy, the FDA neither confirms nor denies the existence of any ongoing investigations”, when we inquired about its role in the bust in West Tennessee.
WREG also contacted the Tennessee Department of Health because Carter said representatives from the Board of Pharmacy and Board of Nursing were present during the bust. A spokesperson said “Pursuant to state law, all complaints and investigations of Tennessee’s Health Related Boards are confidential until formal charges are filed…This includes whether an investigation exists.”
Currently, there’s been no regulatory action taken against the clinics.
How to spot fake weight loss medications
The FDA posted these side by side pictures of real versus fake Ozempic.
The color and wording on the needle tab of the counterfeit is slightly different. The agency also issued additional guidance about how to spot fakes.
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