The growing demand for weight-loss injections has created a dangerous new frontier for criminals who are now impersonating legitimate online pharmacies to sell counterfeit drugs, a new poll has revealed.
A survey conducted by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), which represents about 6,000 pharmacies across Britain, found that roughly one in 10 pharmacies reported that their online presence was cloned by illicit sellers over the past year.
Among the 100 pharmacies surveyed, nearly two in five had encountered patients who unknowingly purchased fake weight-loss drugs within the last 12 months.
The level of concern among pharmacists is profound, with 95.2 per cent saying they were concerned about the illegal sale of these jabs and the risks that they pose.
NPA board member Sehar Shahid, obesity specialist pharmacist and founder of 24HR Pharmacy, whose own business fell victim to cloning, has shared seven key red flags of fake or unregulated weight-loss jabs to watch out for.
1. Prices that seem too good to be true
“Prices will slightly differ from one provider to the next, but on average, weight-loss medication usually starts from around £130 to £300,” says Shahid.
“So, if you’re being offered a price that’s far below the market range and it seems too good to be true, be cautious, as it’s likely that the medication is not genuine.”
2. No consultation
If a provider doesn’t undertake a thorough video or in-person consultation before prescribing weight-loss medication, that’s a clear red flag.
“All regulated providers are responsible for having a two-way dialogue with patients and should undertake a full medical history check,” says Shahid.
“They should independently verify the patient’s weight, check what medical conditions patients have and what medications they are currently on, because that impacts whether weight-loss medications are suitable or clinically appropriate or not.
“It’s also important that the provider checks things around mental wellbeing to see if the patient is fit to make decisions around their treatment and to check if there any history of eating disorders as well.”
3. Requests to transfer money
“If someone’s asking you to do a bank transfer or to pay via PayPal or via Bitcoin, that’s usually a red flag,” says Shahid.
“All regulated online pharmacies will make you pay with your card on their website through a regulated payment gateway and won’t take payments over the phone or over messaging on social media. All transactions should be done through a registered website so the patient is protected.”
4. Incorrect, misspelled, or slightly altered domain name
“These criminals have become very sophisticated and will replicate a legitimate website very well, so sometimes it’s very hard for patients to spot a fake website upon first glance, but there are some key things that you can do,” says Shahid.
“Every regulated registered pharmacy has to be registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council and should be displaying their registration number which then links through to the GPhC register. When you click onto the register, check under more details to see what the exact web domain name is for that registered licence, because these unregulated or illegal websites often add a letter or word which makes it different to the real domain name.”
5. Lack of communication
“A lot of these criminal businesses that are posing as regulated pharmacies often don’t speak to patients on the phone or have very minimal contact, so that is another red flag to look out for,” says Shahid.
“As a patient, you want to be assured that you know who is providing and prescribing your medication. If you have any questions or concerns, you should be able to speak to somebody on the phone.”
6. Cloudy liquid
“Usually with the injections, the liquid should be clear,” says Shahid. “So, if the liquid is not clear, is a different colour, is cloudy, or if there’s any particles in it, that is a red flag and I would always advise a patient not to use it.”
7. Unsealed packaging
“The packaging should always come sealed, so if that seal is broken, I would be worried because the medication inside might have been tampered with,” says Shahid.
“Also, if the packaging is discoloured, if the font doesn’t look aligned, if there are no batch numbers or expiry dates on it, if it doesn’t look like the original packaging or if it just looks poor quality, all these things could indicate that the product isn’t genuine.”
What are the dangers of using counterfeit weight-loss jabs?
“All regulated and licensed medications have gone through vigorous clinical trials, so we understand what dose to give, what the potential side effects are, and how to use it,” says Shahid.
“However, with anything that’s fake, unregulated or hasn’t been approved yet, you don’t know what you’re putting into your body. We won’t know for sure what dose to give, what the side effects are, or how to take it. Therefore, anyone who is using something that’s unregulated or fake will put themselves at risk of side effects and becoming really unwell.”
In addition, a proper consultation with a healthcare professional is crucial.
“The weight-loss jabs could interact with the other medications or other medical conditions that you already have, and it can be very difficult to then undo the damage that can be caused by an unregulated substance,” says Shahid.
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