OTC Weight Loss Pill

According to Reuters UK:

The first diet drug aimed at helping the growing number of fat Americans lose weight without seeing a doctor moved one step closer to U.S. approval on Monday after a health advisory panel endorsed the idea.

Called Alli, GlaxoSmithKline’s low-dose version of the prescription drug Xenical is generally safe and effective for adults when used for six months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s advisers said.

Now, while there are obvious benefits to having this type of drug available to the public over the counter - the potential negatives scare the bejeebus out of me.

• First and foremost, losing weight takes effort and hard work - I shudder to think of the amount of people who will look at this as a quick fix.
• I am also worried about the amount of people who will not change their diet at all and just take the pills in ernest. Where will their nutrition come from? Will this not lead to people becoming reliant upon the pills (i.e. because they have not changed the way they eat as soon as they stop taking them the weight will come back on)?
• This could also give people even less encouragement to make exercise a part of their lives. What is the goal here is it health or image?
• Regardless of the ingredients or the way the pills work, they are obviously running the risk of misuse by those with eating disorders. Could they even contribute to the number of people who have eating disorders?

I could be jumping the gun a little here, but these are my initial thoughts. Big pharmas do not have a habit of putting public interest before profit and the potential earnings from a weight-loss pill would be enormous.

Forgive my cynicism - I am a firm believer in diet, exercise and nutrition and am very skeptical about the motives of the large pharmaceutical firms who certainly do not have a history of altruism…