A woman who takes weight loss medication has called Health Secretary Wes Streeting “naive” after he suggested weight-loss jabs could be given to unemployed people to help them return to the workplace.
A study by Health Innovation Manchester and pharmaceutical firm Lilly will examine the “real-world effectiveness” of anti-obesity treatment Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide, on weight loss, diabetes prevention, the prevention of obesity-related complications, and the impact on NHS use.
Mr Streeting and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have both suggested the jab could ease pressure on the NHS and boost the economy by cutting sick days.
But Cheri Ferguson, 42, who started taking weight loss drug Ozempic in March 2023 before switching to Mounjaro in March this year, said a planned trial would “not be enough” to encourage people back to work.
Ms Ferguson, a contract administrator from Burnham in Buckinghamshire who said the jabs helped her lose 10 stone, told the PA news agency: “There are always going to be a certain amount of people that you control this medication with that have no intention of getting a job once they’ve used this medication and I think that that’s another tough conversation that needs to be had.
“I don’t think suddenly we’ve got X amount of unemployed people and we all give them Mounjaro and once they start losing weight, that’s it, they’re all suddenly going to be in employment.
“I don’t think that’s the case at all. And I think that’s very naive as well to think that that is the case.”
Mounjaro, which is made by Lilly, is a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist, a family of medications that help manage blood sugar and are used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Other GLP-1 agonists include semaglutide – sold under the brand names Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus.
Ms Ferguson fears the new weight-loss jabs will be limited to unemployed people, which she feels is not fair for those who have had to seek private healthcare and pay for their own weight-loss medication.
“There are people that will want to take this drug and they will have absolutely no desire to be in the workforce and I think that’s another situation entirely,” she explained.
“So you do get quite a lot of people that think, ‘Well, hang on a second. I funded this. I have to work. Why should you get it free if you’re unemployed?’.
“I find it incredibly frustrating. I think I would wonder how they would do it if it was just people that are unemployed. How would you police that?
“You’ll have people, like myself when I started this medication, I was on a lower income, it was a struggle for me to pay for it every month. So does that mean I should now quit my job so that I’ve got better access to the medication?”
Ms Ferguson, who lives with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), said she has been “suffering with my weight since I was a child” having tried multiple weight-loss techniques and dealing with yo-yo dieting and binge eating.
She said she felt “at a loss” with her weight and sought advice from her GP who suggested she take Ozempic because she was “an ideal candidate because I had pre-type two diabetes” and went from weighing 22 stone and eight pounds in 2023 to 12 stone.
Ms Ferguson said losing weight from taking Ozempic and then Mounjaro has prompted her to be an “advocate” for weight-loss drugs and has documented her weight loss journey to her 10,000 followers on TikTok.
