SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s Attorney General Derek Brown signed onto a letter along with attorneys general from 37 other states to ask the Food and Drug Administration to enforce the safety of weight loss drugs.
The letter asks the FDA to “ramp up enforcement against any compounding pharmacies that may be illegally participating in the market,” per a press release issued Wednesday by Brown’s office.
Brown said Friday that because of our “physical location,” Utah is dealing with a drug epidemic that includes the danger of buying and selling fake drugs. He added in the press release that the FDA needs to further investigate and protect consumers “against all the illegal and deceptive conduct.”
Weight loss drugs like Ozempic or Wegovy have become popular in recent years. Their main ingredient, semaglutide, has been traditionally used to treat diabetics, but according to a study by KFF last year, 1 in 8 Americans have used it to lose weight.
Its popularity has caused people to scour the internet looking for the drug — or a cheaper knockoff.
“People are really taking a risk by ordering these products online and not knowing the supplier that’s sending it to them,” Salvatore Ingrassia, a port director for Customs and Border Protection at New York’s JFK Airport, told CBS News.
Although they may look legitimate, Ingrassia added, “We’ve found things like antifreeze and incorrect amounts of active ingredients in these products.”
The purple issues
Though he is new to the office, Brown told the Deseret News that he is the newest member of the executive committee of the National Association of Attorneys General.
Unlike the Republican and Democratic AG associations, Brown said the NAAG includes all 56 AGs — from 50 states and six U.S. territories — collaborating on the office’s “nuts and bolts and business” through a bipartisan lens.
He said the role involves establishing relationships with fellow attorneys, evaluating funding for critical programs and collaboratively addressing challenges that impact all communities.
“This is an opportunity for Utah to really work with and get to know all the other attorneys general in the country, help them understand what matters to us, and work within a bipartisan fashion,” Brown said. “There are so many issues where it doesn’t matter if it’s a red state or blue state; it matters.”
According to Brown, NAAG is tackling many pivotal issues aimed at enhancing the lives of Americans through legal means.