Hims and her super bowl spark controversy about slimming drugs

First thing advertisement Show is a scale. Above the soundtrack of the hymn Childish Gambino “This is America” ​​the narrator regrets the crisis of the obesity of the nation and the “system”, which “is built to get us and get stuck”. He notes that “$ 160 billion dollars of the slimming industry that feeds on our failure” when images of garbage, cake and cheeseburger flash on the screen.

“Something is broken and it’s not our bodies,” says the narrator, adding: “There are drugs that work, but are valued at profits, not patients.”

A minute advertisement, which will last during the Super Bowl, contains a “changing life” solution to all this: slimming drugs, as the Hims and Her startup Shotdrowia offers. Viewers see a fridge with HIM and her dick vials. These are complicated drugs, which means that they have not undergone a time-honored approval process, which aims to protect against risk for consumers – a point where advertising is largely passing.

On Friday, senators Richard Durbin, a democrat of Illinois and Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, sent a letter to the duties of the head of food and medicine, talking about advertising “Risk in patients. “

“Nowhere in this promotion there is any information about side effects, risk or security information, which would usually be required in pharmaceutical advertising,” they have.

The advertisement also attracted the anger of some doctors who prescribe obese drugs, as well as a partnership for protected drugs, a coalition of non -profit organization, including some related to the drug industry. The group sent a letter to the FDA on Thursday, calling the advertising “hazardous” and warning that it only reveals that the drugs are complicated shortly and in a miniature font. The organization called on Fox Corporation to withdraw the advertisement.

“Americans do not understand the safety profile of complicated medicines. So when you perform drug advertising and do not reveal it, there is a safety problem, “said Shabbir Iber Safdar, executive director of partnership for protected medications.

Khobi Brooklyn, chief officer of the corporate affairs at Hims & Her, wrote in a statement in which the times were made available to that the company warns existing regulations and “willingly continues cooperation with Congress and the fresh administration to repair a broken healthcare system and ensure that it will ensure that Patients have a choice of high quality, protected and inexpensive healthcare. “

Some experts were shocked by the AD suggestion that Teradrowia, which is gaining from prescribing obese drugs, stands in defense of the slimming industry, not a part.

“They try to introduce themselves as anti-establishment,” said Dr. Scott Hagan, assistant to a medical professor at the University of Washington, who studies obesity. But the company represents “the most current edge of capitalism in this space,” he added.

Hims and its rivals used experienced marketing and comfortable virtual platforms prescribing to bring complicated slimming drugs to the masses. The company and other teeth platforms, such as this, used a resolution that allows you to compliment pharmacies to spend their own versions when branded drugs such as ozempic are unsubstantized.

According to some estimates, millions of people now take complicated versions of these drugs. Him and he said around her 100,000 Consumers have enrolled in their weight loss program, which includes complicated drugs. The company’s revenues increased by over 50 percent compared to the previous year in months after it began to offer access to complicated slimming drugs.

These complicated drugs cost a fraction of the catalog price for branded medicines. When this advertisement gives consumers access to the same powerful drugs, free of bureaucracy of the “system”.

Some experts do not agree. “The idea that this company focused on profit does not utilize you financially, because it is a bit cheaper to get a bogus Ozmpic-this is a wild claim,” said Kate Manne, author of the book “How to thep Sthing Fatphobia. “

To Mr. Safdar, advertising is “like running an advertisement for Cadillac and not telling anyone that the car you sell is made by jugo.” It shows injectors pens that look similar to Ozmpic and Wegova, but with your dream brands.

He and other experts argued that the type of supervision that comes from an institution such as the FDA is crucial for Caring for consumers. Hims & Hers said that the company offers access to compounded drugs from facilities registered in the FDA, and also assures Certificates verifying the ingredients of the drug. But the FDA warned that there is a risk for all complicated slimming drugs, including overdose.

AD notes that the FDA does not assess complicated medicinal products. This message appears briefly at the bottom of the film, before the narrator begs the viewers to “join us in the fight for healthier America!”

“He is simply involved in this kind of rebellious language of teenagers,” said Adrienne Bitar, a lecturer at American studies at Cornell University, who is the author of the book about diet culture. “But this is absolutely the most main current, a capitalist undertaking that can be obtained.”