Patients across America are suing drug giant Novo Nordisk over the weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which can allegedly cause crippling paralysis and forever diarrhea.
Injured patients say they experienced extreme side effects from the two drugs. Wegovy, by the way, is the only one of the two drugs that is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for weight loss – Ozempic was approved by the FDA to treat type-2 diabetes, though some doctors prescribe it off-label for weight management.
Though not technically the same medication, Ozempic and Wegovy both contain the same active ingredient: semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist linked to gastroparesis, also known as paralysis of the stomach.
"The condition, which can be life-threatening, causes a build-up of food in the gut and symptoms include nausea, vomiting and severe pain," one report explains about what Wegovy and Ozempic are doing to patients.
More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed against Novo Nordisk since last November by patients who took one or the other of the two drugs and were later diagnosed with gastroparesis. Some of them reported suffering "life-threatening" bowel injuries and now face lifelong consequences for their error.
In one of the cases, a 23-year-old woman named Brea Hand required five separate hospital visits before doctors finally figured out that she had developed gastroparesis from the drugs. In another case, Zakareeya Gregory had to be hospitalized for four weeks for the same complications.
All of the lawsuits accuse Novo Nordisk of failing to properly warn on the drugs' packaging about the risk of gastroparesis.
Mounjaru by Eli Lilly also destroying women's digestion, bowels, say victims
Another similar drug called Mounjaro, manufactured by Eli Lilly, that is prescribed for diabetes works similarly to Ozempic and Wegovy, and is also prescribed off-label for weight loss. Like Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly faces charges of improper warnings about gastroparesis.
In yet another case, a woman who took both Ozempic and Mounjaru says after she was diagnosed with gastroparesis, she started vomiting so severely and so often that her teeth actually fell out of her mouth.
Another woman was diagnosed with a "life-threatening bowel injury" after using Ozempic and had to undergo surgery lasting nearly nine hours. Doctors told her following the procedure that she will now be in pain "for the rest of her life" and "will never have a solid bowel movement again."
In still another case, a woman who used Wegovy claims she was diagnosed with "severe gastroparesis" that resulted in her having to be hospitalized for symptoms that included going for an entire week without a single bowel movement.
All in all, some 40 cases have been filed in federal courts across America over these and other related cases. Attorneys are also said to be reviewing thousands more cases, many of which will be grouped together into multidistrict litigation (MDL) that will be centralized and settled before a single judge.
Attorney Cameron Stephenson of Levin Papantonio Rafferty told one media outlet that his firm currently has about 100 clients who were diagnosed with gastroparesis after taking one of the three aforementioned drugs. Stephenson says there are thousands more similar cases under review.
A bulk of the legal action centers around patients who were "medically diagnosed with obstruction or gastroparesis and required emergency treatment or hospital intervention," according to Stephenson, who also threw in the disclaimer that he has "no doubt" the drugs are still highly effective for some patients.
