Health Secretary Wes Streeting has dismissed suggestions that plans to provide weight loss jabs to unemployed people with obesity are “dystopian”.

The UK government is partnering with pharmaceutical giant Lilly who are running a five-year trial in Greater Manchester to test if the weight-loss drug Mounjaro can help get more people back to work and prevent obesity-related diseases to ease the strain on the NHS in England.

The announcement prompted a backlash, with accusations that the government was stigmatising unemployed individuals and reducing people to their economic value.

Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Streeting said the jabs were part of a broader healthcare plan, adding that he was “not interested in some dystopian future where I involuntarily jab unemployed people who are overweight”.

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    But this drug doesn’t do that. A major way it works is by massively curtailing your appetite.

    This literally helps you stop endlessly consuming.

    If we’re going to twist this into a thing related to capitalism, then it is an anti-capitalist medication.

    It’s the diametric opposite of what you suggest.

    E: you’re getting offended at a description of what a drug does. That isn’t normal.