A Pennsylvania woman is suing the maker of Ozempic after a near-death experience she blames on the medication.
Diabetic Juanita Gantt, 62, was faring well on the medicine for months until suddenly she collapsed at home and was found unconscious by her husband.
Parts of her intestine had died due to a condition called ischemic colitis, requiring doctors to remove her colon. She later went into cardiac arrest and her heart stopped.
Now without a colon, she will need to use a drainage pouch for the rest of her life to go to the bathroom.
Doctors suspect the weight-loss drug may have caused blood vessels in the abdomen to constrict, reducing blood flow to her colon. That lack of oxygenated bloodflow hinders the intestines’ ability to function properly, slowing the movement of food through the digestive tract and causing tissue to wither and die.
She is suing the pharma giant for what she argues was a failure to warn people of this risk, which has been identified in a small number of patients on Ozempic, Wegovy and similar weight-loss shots.
Juanita Gantt was found by her husband Robert unconscious one day in October 2023 and rushed her to the hospital to find she had a severe case of colitis requiring the removal of her colon
Mrs Gant always struggled with her weight, but she could only lose a maximum of 20 pounds on traditional diet and exercise plans.
Given her family history of diabetes, her doctor considered her a strong candidate for Wegovy and later Olympic, which was first approved to treat type 2 diabetes.
For several months, she was losing weight and feeling good.
She told CBS: ‘I was feeling fine. I enjoyed the days that I didn’t have to worry about my appetite. I didn’t have cravings. I just felt like I was doing something positive for myself.’
But her health crashed suddenly and without warning.
Having collapsed in October 2023 and rushed to the hospital, doctors found that parts of her intestine had withered and died, a side effect of ischemic colitis.
Ischemic colitis occurs when blood flow to the colon is reduced, depriving tissue of oxygen and causing it to die off.
Wegovy and Ozempic contain the same ingredient, semaglutide, which delays the rate at which food empties from the stomach.
While this may make one feel fuller for longer, making them less likely to eat extra pound-packing calories, doctors are beginning to see that this slower emptying might also contribute to a slower-moving GI tract.
Mrs Gantt, shown here with her husband Robert, is suing pharma giant Novo Nordisk for what she alleges was a failure by the company to adequately test for and warn about potentially severe gastrointestinal problems such as intestinal blockages and colitis
Reports of severe GI disruptions only came in after the drugs were approved about three years ago.
So far, around 20 cases of bowel obstruction, also called ileus, have been reported by patients to the FDA’s voluntary adverse reaction reporting service.
But scientists are still unsure what it is about the drug that changes gut motility so much that food cannot pass through the intestines.
Dr Dan Azagury, chief of bariatric surgery at Stanford University, said: ‘[Semaglutide] is a gut hormone. All of the very well known and very frequent side effects are all GI-related. One of its mechanisms is to slow down how fast your stomach empties. So, it’s in the realm of things that we know this drug does.’
Mrs Gantt had to undergo emergency surgery to remove her colon. Post-op, her heart stopped, and she needed to be revived. All the while, doctors thought she would die and called her daughter to tell her so.
‘Breaks my heart that my daughter got that phone call,’ Mrs Gantt said, holding back tears.
She added: ‘I had no warning that this was even a possibility.’
Mrs Gantt is taking Novo Nordisk to court over what she alleges was a failure on the company’s part to adequately warn the 15 million Americans who have used these drugs that they face the risk of suffering severe GI troubles.
Her attorney, Parvin Aminolroaya, said: ‘It’s put a lot of resources into marketing the drug, hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the market get new patients for the drug, but it hasn’t spent that money on warning patients the risk of gastroparesis, ileus, small bowel obstruction, and the fact that these injuries can be severe, even if it’s in a rare case.’
According to the suit, Ozempic and Wegovy ‘had not been sufficiently and/or adequately tested for safety risks, including bowel obstruction, ischemic colitis, malnutrition, and their sequelae.’
If they had been, the lawsuit goes on, Mrs Gantt would not have taken either drug.
Novo Nordisk has insisted that allegations of failing to warn patients about severe side effects, potentially putting them at risk, are false and will be disproven in court
This is not the first time Novo Nordisk has faced a legal fight against patients over a failure to warn about serious health events.
Earlier this year, DailyMail.com poured through dozens of lawsuits filed by people who have suffered dearly, mostly due to gastroparesis or stomach paralysis.
The condition, which can be life-threatening, causes a build-up of food in the gut and symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and severe pain.
In all of the lawsuits, Novo Nordisk is accused of failing to properly warn about the risk of gastroparesis on the drugs’ packaging.
In a statement to CBS about the latest lawsuit and the bevy of suits that came before it, Novo Nordisk spokespeople said: ‘The known risks and benefits of semaglutide and liraglutide medicines are described in their FDA-approved product labeling…. the allegations in the lawsuits are without merit.’
