Hims and their Super Bowl ad Sparks controversy about weight loss drugs

The first thing the ad shows is a scale. A narrator complains about the soundtrack of childish gambino’s hymn “This is America” ​​the nation’s obesity crisis and the “system”, which is “built to hold us sick and capture”. It is the “weight loss industry in the amount of $ 160 billion that feeds on our failure” as pictures of junk muesli, cake and a cheeseburger on the screen.

“Something is broken and it is not our body,” says the narrator and adds: “There are medication that work, but they are praised for profits, not for patients.”

The tiny advertisement that will run during the Super Bowl creates a “life-changing” solution for all of this: weight loss drugs, such as the Telehealth startup HIMS & HUSEN offer. The spectators see a refrigerator with HIMS & Heine branded bottles of medication. These are reinforced drugs, which means that you have not go through the traditional approval process to protect the risks for consumers – a point that the advertisement largely floods.

On Friday, the Senators Richard Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, and Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, sent a letter to the acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, in which the AD “Risks misleading patients”.

“Nowhere in this campaign is there a side effect, risk or security information that is usually necessary in a pharmaceutical advertising,” they wrote.

The AD also pulled the anger of some doctors who prescribe obese medications, as well as the partnership for safe medicines, a coalition of non -profit organizations, including some that are connected to the drug industry. The group sent a letter to the FDA on Thursday with the name “Dangerous” and only warned that the medication will be briefly and in a small font briefly and in a small font. The organization asked the FOX Corporation to withdraw the advertisement.

“Americans do not understand the security profile of increased medication. So if you make a drug display and do not disclose you, there is a security problem, ”said Shabbir Imber Safdar, managing director of the partnership for safe medication.

Khobi Brooklyn, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at HIMS & HULS, wrote in an explanation that was shared over time that the company complies with existing laws and “would be happy to continue working with the congress and the new administration to remedy the broken health system And this ensures that patients have options for quality, safe and affordable health care. “

Some experts were shocked by the proposal of the advertisement that a telemedicine company that benefits from the prescription of obesity medication was not part of it as part of it.

“They try to present themselves as an anti-establishment,” said Dr. Scott Hagan, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington, studies obesity. But the company represents “the top of capitalism in this space,” he added.

HIMS & HERS and its rivals have used experienced marketing and comfortable virtual prescription platforms to bring weight loss medication into the masses. The company and other telegesundheit platforms like it have used a provision that enables pharmacies to provide their own versions when branded medication such as Ozempic are in short supply.

According to a few estimates, millions of people now have compiled versions of these medication. HIMS & Her explained that around 100,000 consumers have registered for their weight loss program, which includes the medication composed. The company’s turnover increased in the months after he started giving access to increased medication for weight loss.

These composite medication cost a fraction of the list price for brand medication. Since the ads framed it, consumers are given access to the same powerful medication that are free of the bureaucracy of the “system”.

Some experts do not agree. “The idea that this non-profit company does not use it financially because it makes it a little cheaper to get Knockoff Ozempic that is a wild claim”. “”

For Mr. Safdar, the display is “Like an advertisement for a Cadillac and does not say to anyone that the car you sell is made by a Jugo.” It shows injector pencils that look similar to Ozempic and path nimble, but are blurred with brand names.

He and other experts argued that the kind of supervision that comes from an institution like the FDA is crucial for the security of consumers. Hims & Her has announced that the company offers access to medication from institutions registered with the FDA and also offers certificates to check the ingredients of a drug. However, the FDA has warned that there is risks to composite weight loss medication, including overdose.

In the advertisement it is found that the FDA does not rate reinforced pharmaceutical products. This message appears at the end of the video before the narrator asks the audience to combine with us in the fight for a healthier America!

“It only participates in this type of rebellious teenage language,” said Adrienne Bitar, lecturer for American Studies at Cornell University, the author of a book about diet culture. “But this is the absolutely mainstream, capitalist undertaking that you can get.”