Risky weight-loss drugs hitting the market in record numbers

For more than a decade it looked like the FDA wasn’t going to repeat its past mistakes.

Mistakes that allowed horribly dangerous diet drugs like fen-phen on the market. Mistakes that led to a string of death and billions of dollars in lawsuits.

But money talks, and the FDA is listening.

The FDA has begun approving a new crop of diet drugs that can cause suicides, heart attacks and several different kinds of cancers.

But these approvals aren’t about making you thin. They’re about fattening drug company wallets.

A frightening investigation has revealed that drug companies funneled $60 million to politicians, medical associations and doctors to guarantee the drugs were approved. And $60 million was all it took for these so-called public watchdogs – and our government – to sell you down the river.

A lot to lose

After fen-phen left scores of deaths and damaged heart valves in its wake, the FDA spent 13 years rejecting every single diet pill application that came across its desk.

And then, three years ago, the dam mysteriously broke. Since that time, Big Pharma has gotten five new diet drugs approved – including three in the past five months.

Two of them had been previously rejected. But it helps to have friends in high places.

According to an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today, the new wave of diet drug approvals is the result of a massive “spending spree” by several drug companies looking to influence the FDA.

Reporters found evidence of at least $60 million handed out to medical societies, doctors, and politicians by drug companies looking to get the diet drugs approved.

These were groups like the Obesity Society and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, which, for the first time, issued guidelines approving the use of anti-obesity drugs.

But the bulk of the cash — about $51 million to be exact — was spent on lobbying. And that money got results fast.

In 2012, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture – which controls the FDA’s budget – began leaning on the agency. It demanded that the FDA report back on what steps it planned to take to get new treatments for obesity approved.

In a blink of an eye, risky drugs that had once been rejected were stamped for approval and started popping up on pharmacy shelves.

The first two drugs were Belviq – which has been linked to serious heart problems – and Qsymia, which can cause rapid heartbeat, depression, suicide, blurred vision and dangerously high blood pressure.

Next up was Contrave, a combo drug that includes an antidepressant and a medicine for treating alcoholism. It can cause everything from seizures to liver damage and hepatitis, and it takes a whole year just to lose 4 percent of your bodyweight.

I guess even the FDA thought all those approvals were starting to look mighty suspicious, so it stopped…for a little while. But then it started right back up again, adding Vyvanse and Saxenda (really a diabetes drug!) to the approved list just a few months ago.

We haven’t seen the end of the FDA’s new mission to get as many diet meds on the shelf as it possibly can. Not by a long shot. Not even if it causes another fen-phen disaster.

Drug safety experts like Jeanmarie Perrone from the University of Pennsylvania are urging caution. They’re reminding us to not forget the dark and dangerous history of FDA-approved diet pills.

But all we’re learning so far is that money talks – and that $60 million, placed in the right pockets, says plenty.

Source:

“Slippery slope: Diet drugs no help for heart” John Fauber, Coulter Jones, Kristina Fiore, April 19, 2015 medpagetoday.com