2023-10-24 11:51:00
The Diabetes League (Diabetes Liga), a Flemish association, announced on Tuesday that it wanted to qualify the ban on the diabetic drug Ozempic for non-diabetics. The patient organization is calling for an exception for people who are morbidly obese.
Despite this nuance, the Diabetes League welcomes the measure announced Monday by the Minister of Public Health, Frank Vandenbroucke. The minister wants Ozempic to be reserved for patients with type 2 diabetes. The patients’ organization repeated this call again last week, in response to the shortage of this drug.
The organization points out, however, that there are also drug shortages for obese people. It is especially the raw material, semaglutide, which is rare. According to the League, doctors should therefore be able to prescribe Ozempic, if stocks allow, to a small group of people with morbid obesity (BMI >35). “We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater,” warns Arnout Wouters, general director of the Diabetes League.
Manufacturer Novo Nordisk can no longer meet the growing global demand for Ozempic. Many people who are overweight or obese also take this medication, which helps patients lose weight. In order to prevent people wishing to lose weight for aesthetic reasons from using the “miracle drug” and perpetuating the shortage, the minister followed the proposal of the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) and the Diabetes League.
MP Nawal Farih (CD&V) has been calling for some time now for the current recommendations regarding Ozempic to be included in a royal decree, but she believes that there can be no question of a ban. “This cannot be controlled either. We propose that only specialists can prescribe drugs when there is a lot of inappropriate use,” says Ms Farih. “An obese patient is also a patient. Overconsumption concerns people who are not obese. It is astonishing that the Minister of Health pits patients against each other in this way. In the Netherlands, an obese patient is obliged to be followed by a dietitian. This is how we structurally attack obesity.”
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