Trust the Jab for Weight Loss, Not the Virus?
Ever wondered why people privately pay hundreds of pounds a month for a weight loss injection, but reject a free covid or flu vaccine? I do!
Ever wondered why people privately pay hundreds of pounds a month for a weight loss injection, but reject a free covid or flu vaccine? I do! The last few years have really opened my eyes to some new trends. In 2021-22, people were personally calling me and asking if we had any left-over vaccines from our covid vials after vaccination clinics. They were literally queuing down the street in hope for a jab. And now? It feels as though we need to convince people that these vaccines still offer protection. We tirelessly advertise our vaccination clinics in the hope to increase uptake, even by 5%. I get it, ‘Vaccine Fatigue’ is a thing. But then comes along a trendy newcomer to the injectable scene, the GLP1 agonist, coming in the form of Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro and we get daily requests for these injections to be prescribed.
Why the dichotomy I ask myself?
Availability
We live in a country where 1 in 5 children and over a quarter of all adults are living with a chronic illness - Obesity. Italy has recently become the first country worldwide to legally recognise Obesity as a progressive and relapsing chronic disease. Go Italy! Yet despite the UK’s high rates and the cost impact of obesity related illnesses on the NHS, we are currently being instructed in primary care to only offer weight loss jabs to those patients with a BMI over 50, plus 4 obesity related conditions (hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and obstructive sleep apnoea). Guess how many patients that equates to in my practice of 10,000 patients… 3 out of 10,000 patients is the answer. It is no wonder really that people are going elsewhere to seek help.
Data and communication
When rare side effects have occurred with covid jabs (e.g. inflammation of heart muscle known as myocarditis, or nerve-related issues such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome), people feel misled, even if these risks were tiny. A single adverse story is more impactful than the millions of uneventful doses. We all know that trust, once lost, is hard to regain, especially in healthcare.
However, are we hearing about the adverse effects of the weight loss injections? In the NHS, we must report every new adverse outcome of a drug to the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency). Imagine when a new drug arrives like a covid vaccine, there will be plenty of ‘new’ side effects to report. Are privately sourcing patients reporting the adverse side effects of their weight loss drugs to their providers in a similar fashion? Are the providers reporting all these adverse effects to the MHRA?
Autonomy
Another common symptom that I have seen in recent years is that people want agency to weigh up information and make their own decisions. They don’t like to be sent multiple reminders from their GP practice to get a flu or covid jab. They equally dislike being lectured on the benefits of vaccination and herd immunity. I will often hear “natural infection is better”, “Covid’s not really a thing anymore”, “my immune system is fine”, and my favourite… “the flu vaccine gave me the flu so I’m not having it again”.
On the flip side, it feels increasingly difficult for patients to get hold of some medication e.g. effective weight loss help. They must contend with long waiting lists to access a weight loss service or demonstrate that they have been unsuccessful at non-surgical weight loss attempts before becoming eligible for weight loss surgery. The list of hoops to jump through goes on. So why not take matters into one’s own hands and get hold of a weight loss injection. GLP1s are so much more accessible now – as one online slogan read “No GP Referral. All Online. Less Strict Than NHS Criteria”.
Cost
Have you ever noticed that the expectations of a product that is paid for differs from a product that is free. There is a real paradox of paid for advice and medicine being more valuable than free/NHS advice and medication, even though the clinicians giving advice often work in both sectors!
Doses of the weight loss jabs cost upwards of £159 a month for a low dose of the drug. Affordable for many it seems, but the same amount of weight is regained in 1.5-2 years after a patient stops taking the medication. This is 4 times quicker weight regain than a person on any alternative form of weight loss plan. The long-term costs are far from negligible.
Effectiveness
Trials have shown upto 22% weight loss with mounjaro over 72 weeks, an incredible result! Compare this to a reduction of up to 40% of flu-related hospitalisations with the flu vaccine and 20% of covid-related hospitalisations with the covid vaccine. Also incredible results but somehow it doesn’t hit people in the same way.
Trends
Let’s not forget those wonderful ‘Ozempic faces’ of the rich and famous who flood our social media outlets. No one is posting pictures of reduced flu and covid hospitalisations on their social media, that’s not sexy. The power of influencers remains louder and more effective than that of the NHS it seems. It’s the world we now live in!
So perhaps this isn’t really about vaccines versus weight-loss injections at all. It’s about trust, autonomy, access, and the stories we choose to believe. We trust what feels exciting, personalised, and within our control, even when it’s expensive and long-term data are limited. We distrust what feels imposed, repetitive, or badly communicated, even when the evidence is robust and the benefit collective. As clinicians, this should make us pause. Because if people are willing to inject themselves weekly to reduce future risk, yet reject a vaccine that does the same, the issue isn’t science.