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

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”.

  • br3d@lemmy.world
    61·
    15 hours ago

    Isn’t the dystopian bit of this the scary capitalism of it? This approach allows the food industry to continue selling people crap that is making them unhealthy rather than reforming their business model, and it’s doing this by handing a massive amount of money to the pharma industry. This is exactly the solution I’d want if I were a wealthy investor with money in lots of vast global businesses, and for me that’s the dystopian bit - the way it’s all about handing money to The Man to continue unhealthy lives rather than, y’know, fix anything a bit

    • thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      2 hours ago

      I hear you. But this isn’t necessarily one or the other. I think it’s beneficial to have these types of product available for those who have already become obese, whilst leglistating the food that people are pushed towards eating by the system.

      I’m not saying that the government will necessarily do both, but that it’s not an issue with this study that the food available isn’t being managed.

    • FarceOfWill
      6·
      13 hours ago

      The drug works mostly by them no longer wanting to eat it.

      This isn’t a way to lose weight without changing diet, it’s a way to change diet.

      • br3d@lemmy.world
        2·
        7 hours ago

        Sure, appetite drops a bit in that specific person, but this still doesn’t do anything to motivate the big food industry to change its ways - they can assume that specific person will still eat their products, and can carry on selling ultra-processed food to everyone else