Drug regulator investigates deaths tied to weight loss injections
Australia's drug regulator is investigating further into three different deaths possibly linked to the use of Ozempic and other weight loss injections.
Tim Ramsay, 58, started using Saxenda because he wanted to lose weight so he could confidently walk his daughter down the aisle.
But, he tragically passed away just 19-days after he started taking the injections, and now his family want answers, after a coroner ruled his cause of death as undetermined.
"I don't believe that anybody should die without an explanation, you just don't expire, there has got to be a reason for Tim's death," Ramsay's wife, Sue, told 60 Minutes.
"19 days between his first injection and the day he left us, alarm bells in our heads, in the TGA's heads, and the coroner's head should be ringing," his daughter Elyse said.
Leonie Margetts is also looking for answers, and is angry at the ease in which the injections could be accessed, following her daughter's death after taking Ozempic injections she'd ordered online.
Margetts' daughter Naomi wanted to be a mum, but was told she needed to lose weight to to have any chance of falling pregnant.
"You just do not expect to find your daughter on her knees in front of the toilet bowl dead," Margetts said.
"She was a week away from turning 40 and that's a big thing for any female, she was feeling very vulnerable," she added.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration's Chief Medical Advisor, Professor Robyn Langham has responded, and told 60 minutes that the TGA has a responsibility to the families of the deceased.
"It's a very serious and a very tragic problem for the families that are concerned and we don't wish to minimise that at all," Langham said.
She added that they are carefully monitoring reports of severe gastrointestinal side effects caused by the medication, and will withdraw the drug if necessary.
"If we do see that there is a need to change the messaging or the information that goes with the drug or even in some cases to withdraw the drug, then we have the power to do so," Langham said.
Some people have been using Ozempic for weightloss, which has caused it to "explode" in popularity.
"I liken this to when the [Model] T Ford was first invented and suddenly we had changes in transportation and the horse and cart went," Professor of medicine and endocrinologist Dr Katherine Samaras said.
But, the professor has warned that Ozempic is only approved in Australia for diabetes, and should only be used when supervised by a doctor.
"We don't leave matches in the hands of children," she said.
"We shouldn't leave these drugs in the hands of people, it has to be supervised."
Images: 60 minutes