Weight loss jabs for unemployed not dystopian, says Wes Streeting - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk
The government is looking into whether weight-loss drugs can help get more people back to work.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18923980

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”.

  • Landsharkgun@midwest.socialEnglish
    21·
    1 month ago

    …the government is freely giving poor people a drug that costs $1000 a month to correct a stigmatized health condition and people are complaining? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

    • Hibernative_Naptosis@lemm.eeEnglish
      18·
      1 month ago

      Looks like it’s around £130-£180 per month on private prescription in the UK, or under £10 per month on an NHS prescription for those who qualify.

      $1000 is what it costs in the price-bloated American healthcare system.

    • beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      2·
      1 month ago

      It’s likely not the case. Somewhere between the truth and what we read here, truth has gotten hidden or twisted. This is an article on a news website: any info that someone deemed worthy to publish has some flavour of propaganda, even if we can’t see it clearly.