The very fat governor of Illinois made Ozempic and other similar drugs free for state workers. I got a gushy notification yesterday. This will cost hundreds of millions to the taxpayers of an already broke state. Nobody has the slightest idea what long-term damage these drugs do but nobody cares. It’s the current magic pill, and no cost is too large to pump people full of this garbage.
Pritzker’s Magic Pill
Clarissa's Blog 
I am moving from Boston to Chicago this Fall for work-related reasons, and am hard pressed to choose which governer’s administration is less crazy: on one side is Healey who wants people to house homeless migrants in their homes and recently converted the our only university conference facility into a homeless shelter creating all sorts of issues, not the least safety concerns smack in the middle of areas frequented by students and faculty. On the other side is Pritzker whose coterie of administrators seems mostly devoid of any economic sense.
I wonder what the general impressions about living in the two states are for people who read/visit this blog (this will be my first time NOT living in the northeast USA). As a foreign national operating in the bubble of academia and research, I know that I have a skewed, if not limited, insight into general US populace and preferences.
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Winfrey has publicly championed the use of drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, the controversial type 2 diabetes drug that several celebrities have used for weight management. She hasn’t mentioned adverse side effects from the medication she takes. However, Winfrey was hospitalized for a stomach bug five months after admitting to using one of the drugs.
Common Ozempic side effects include low blood sugar (in people with type 2 diabetes), upset stomach, heartburn, burping, gas, bloating, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, loss of appetite, diarrhea, constipation, runny nose or sore throat, stomach flu symptoms or headache, dizziness, tiredness.
At least he did not make it mandatory – or did he?
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That is an irresponsible policy towards diabetics in addition to the blow to the state budget. Those drugs are still in short supply and enabling tens of thousands of additional people to take them for weight loss is only going to make it harder for the diabetics who really need them.
I also listened to an interesting podcast (Science vs.) about these drugs recently. It sounds like results are really mixed with them. Some people don’t really lose much weight, and many find the side effects too unpleasant to continue with the drugs. There are also rare, but pretty serious side effects like gastroparesis. I could stand to lose some weight, but my take-away from the podcast was that the risk probably isn’t worth it unless you are pre-diabetic or facing other serious issues related to obesity. It’s probably not worth the risk just to look better.
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I know somebody who is on Ozempic. The weight loss is minimal but now it’s a sort of a psychological addiction where one can’t stop until winning big.
Good point about diabetics. We have experienced some shortages in the area, and the last thing anybody needs is additional pressure on the system.
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In the initial buzz about those drugs, as soon as I saw “gastroparesis” in there… nope.
Some of my diabetic relatives have tried it and… one of them lost her gallbladder, had to be hospitalized, and almost died.
Can’t imagine risking that for diabetes that I could control in any other way, much less for cosmetic purposes.
But hey, it’s the post-cooties-shot world, we’re all about just handing out under-studied meds to everybody now.
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The shortage is entirely manufactured and not due to any difficulty in making the
drug. I’m hoping that this will bring the price down by forcing people to confront how drug companies inflate profits. Many of the side effects happen because people aren’t paying attention to nutrition, just eating less and leaving it at that, or eating too much and too fast. I had no side effects that extra water and correct fiber and protein intake haven’t solved. It really has changed my life. I’ve lost 35 pounds and I am no longer obese and pre-diabetic.
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