Online weight-loss injection boom sparks safety concerns

…NMRC flags Ozempic among others

Patience Makwele

Namibia’s booming market for injectable weight-loss treatments is facing increased scrutiny after the country’s medicines regulator warned that products sold through social media, online vendors and informal markets may contain the wrong ingredients, incorrect strengths or contaminants.

The Namibia Medicines Regulatory Council (NMRC), through the ministry of health and social services, issued a public notice on 13 August warning against unregistered GLP-1 receptor agonists and peptide-containing medicines being marketed for weight loss.

Among the products named are Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Saxenda, Rybelsus, Upret 30 and TB500+BPC-157, alongside active ingredients including semaglutide, tirzepatide, liraglutide and retatrutide.

The regulator said unregistered medicines may contain the wrong active ingredient or strength, be contaminated, falsified or counterfeit, or be manufactured without appropriate quality controls.

It also warned that some products promoted for weight loss may still be undergoing clinical investigation, may not be authorised for the indications for which they are being marketed, or may be intended solely for research purposes.

A beauty and aesthetics practitioner, who requested anonymity, said consumers should be cautious of providers whose advertising focuses heavily on rapid results while offering little information about the medical aspects of treatment.

“The biggest red flag is when the emphasis is entirely on the result and there is very little information about the medical side of the treatment,” the practitioner said.

A legitimate provider, the practitioner said, should be able to explain what is being administered, where it comes from, who is administering it, their qualifications, the potential risks and what happens if complications occur.

“Once you are putting a pharmacological substance into someone’s body, you are no longer talking about an ordinary cosmetic product,” the practitioner said.

The practitioner said social media has contributed to the normalisation of injectable treatments by presenting medical interventions alongside ordinary beauty services.

“Social media can make a medical intervention look as simple as getting your hair or nails done,” the practitioner said.

“The problem is that the photograph shows the outcome, not the medical history, the assessment, the product used, the dosage or what happened after the camera was switched off.”

Healthcare professional Nalucha Buchane said the central danger associated with an unregistered weight-loss injection is that consumers may not know exactly what they are putting into their bodies.

“With a properly regulated medicine, there are systems to assess its quality, safety, efficacy, manufacturing and distribution,” Buchane said.

“With an unregistered product, those assurances may not exist.”

She said an unregistered product could contain the wrong substance, an incorrect concentration, ingredients which a patient may be allergic to, contaminants or an ingredient the patient was never informed about.

A practitioner involved in the weight-loss sector, who also requested anonymity, said some clients had reported kidney-related problems after using unregulated products obtained elsewhere.

The practitioner acknowledged, however, that it was difficult to establish whether those products were directly responsible for the reported conditions.

Buchane cautioned against automatically attributing kidney problems to weight-loss medicines.

“It would be irresponsible to say that every kidney problem in someone who has used a weight-loss product was caused by that product,” she said.

She said establishing causation requires a clinical assessment that considers what the patient took, the dosage, when it was taken, their medical history, other medicines being used and clinical findings.

Buchane also warned that severe skin or tissue damage following an injection requires urgent medical assessment, as possible causes include infection, inflammatory reactions, vascular complications, inappropriate injection technique or the substance itself.

“You cannot determine the cause simply by looking at a photograph or video,” she said.

“The patient needs to be examined and, where necessary, investigated to establish what happened.”

Another individual familiar with weight-loss and cosmetic treatments, Selima Moses said not everyone involved in the sector should be treated as an underground operator.

Adding that she had personally used weight-loss injections and other treatments for 15 years without experiencing medical complications.

Moses said some suppliers obtain products from verified pharmaceutical companies or distributors and are transparent about their sources.

“Just like myself, I know of a lot of people who have used these injections and they’ve never had any bad health problems,” she said.

She acknowledged that side effects may not always appear immediatel