As the BBC has reported this morning:
A new weight-loss jab will be rolled out on the NHS in England - but it could take 12 years for everyone to receive it, the NHS drugs advisory body says.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) final draft guidance on Mounjaro has recommended it starts being given from March, alongside advice on diet and exercise.
It will be offered to people with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 35 and at least one obesity-related health problem - potentially 3.4 million people.
But because of concerns it could overwhelm services, and in particular GPs, NICE has agreed to give the NHS more than a decade to introduce it - an unprecedented move for a medication.
Let's just work out the economics of this.
There is little evidence that people who take this drug will sustain their weight loss when they come off it, so once on it, they will need to be treated for life.
The cost, according to the same report, is £122 per patient per month.
So, over the next 12 years, we will ramp up to spending £5 billion a year on this drug, without taking into account all the additional costs of prescribing, monitoring and dealing with the side effects.
The same effect could be achieved by controlling the sugar in ultra-processed food and by reducing the carbohydrate intake of most people whilst making it clear that we actually need some of the fat that the sugar industry has made the target of misinformation for a considerable period. Even I am not finding it hard to lose weight following that advice.
Instead of doing what is required by challenging the industrial food complex, this government would rather boost the profits of the pharmaceutical industrial complex.
They really are not on the side of people who - as ever - are simply a means for the delivery of profit to big business, whatever the consequence of doing so might be.
I will say it again. This government really does not care.
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Not sure about caring but very sure about not understanding or wanting to challenge
It’s plain to see. Ultra processed foods are good for those who benefit from our hyper-capitalist economy. Dodgy drugs are good for the same people, those who benefit from big pharma. Reining in the food and drug industries (and all the other “industries” designed to funnel money into the pockets of the 1 per cent: most of them successful because they tap into our tendency to addictive behaviour) would be good for ordinary people. So which group does the government chose to benefit?
If you have an hour to spare I can highly recommend the BBC 2 programme Irresistable, Why We Can’t Stop eating, available on iPlayer. It looks at ultra processed food, how it is designed, created and marketed, its health and addictive effects, and very interestingly, its history, stemming from the tobacco industry’s need to diversify into new markets.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0025gqs
“Chris van Tulleken takes a personal view at why ultra-processed foods are so irresistible and how they have come to dominate food culture.”
I have watched it and found much to agree with
A classic case of two basic errors: a lack of joined-up thinking, and treating the symptoms, not the cause. I blame the Treasury… the one department of Government that has visibility of all the others, and could take responsibility for identifying and fixing such errors. Sadly, that’s not how the Treasury sees its role at all, even though it would facilitate massive financial savings.
One of the most worrying in side effects of these drugs is a loss of both bone density and muscle mass, i.e. exactly what you don’t want to lose as you get older. The inevitable result of this policy of treating effects rather than cause, will be an increase in the number of falls and fractures suffered by our ageing population, together with an ever increasing strain on health and social care. And it will take years to come into effect, whereas doing something serious about ultra-processed foods would start benefitting the whole community immediately.
This is just the same as promoting ‘carbon capture and storage’ instead of taking all steps to stop the pollution in the first place.
Much to agree with
This government does not care to do anything unless – it seems to me – that it makes money for the private sector so that it can tax and fund its programmes – such that they are.
That is the twisted logic being applied here. In their tiny minds they see this as a win/win for government and the private sector
The test is ‘can we tax it?’ because if they can, that is what they believe they must do to fund public services.
They do not care to print money for the public sector – which they could and indeed do for Central Bank Reserve Account that stops the bankers repeating 2008.
Thank you, PSR.
PSR: “They do not care to print money for the public sector.” In 2008 – 9, it was suggested by, amongst others, Adair Turner and Avinash Persaud, that a percentage of the QE be given to individuals, even if means tested, in the form of time limited vouchers and to be spent on home insulation, cash for clunkers etc. Balls, Brown and Darling said no. I put in that order as Balls did the thinking for Brown and Darling.
Agreed