Ethical weight loss?
There is a fine line in collaboration between a community pharmacy and a GP practice. The collaborative model illustrated below has a global Pharma company in the mix as well, and is therefore suspect because of this. Still, all models need refining over time and at least this model is tackling weight loss from a different perspective. More control needs to be built back into the principal collaborators - the pharmacist and the GP - before the process becomes sustainable.
Gerald Quigley - An advocate for Integrative Medicine
What an interesting link between Novo Nordisk and their pharmacist-led weight-loss support program!
This is a clinical trial of a human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and is a hormone that suppresses appetite.
Using the former National President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia as a brand ambassador might even add some credibility to enhance the uptake of the drug.
How cosy is that?
Let’s look at the facts here…..
$100 a week, 56 week trial (you do the maths!) and a sensational 5% weight loss.
Who’s kidding whom?
Good grief – where is our professional responsibility to advise food portions, food choices, sensible eating and exercise options?
Sure, we need to monitor the requests for magic solutions for weight loss…..maybe a visit to Bunnings, buy gaffer tape, apply it carefully and leave it in place all day, except to drink water?
This strategy is an incredibly cunning copy of the new novel anti-coagulant therapies a few years back.
Spread the love through the GP, encourage the pharmacist to get involved with the GP’s blessing, run some PR sessions through the popular media and maybe a segment on TV, and even, maybe, demand for it to listed as a PBS item, all for the good of overweight Australians.
Let’s get on board……quickly. It sounds too good to be true, and you know what they say……..
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