Politics

38 Attorneys General Urge FDA To Offer Protection From Fake Weight Loss Drugs

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must act to protect Americans from fake versions of GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro and take “decisive action” against bad actors engaged in such trade, a letter from a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from 38 U.S. states said.
Boxes of the diabetes drug Ozempic rest on a pharmacy counter in Los Angeles on April 17, 2023. Mario Tama/Getty Images

“My fellow attorneys general and I are urging the FDA to protect consumers from the growing threat posed by adulterated or counterfeit versions of these drugs,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a signatory of the letter, said in a Feb. 20 statement.

“From inspections to enforcement actions, the FDA has several important tools at its disposal to help put an end to this unlawful and deceptive conduct. A federal response is necessary because many of the counterfeit drugs are shipped from outside of the country.”

The bilateral letter, issued a day earlier, said that demand for GLP-1 medications such as Mounjaro, Zepbound, Ozempic, and Wegovy has “skyrocketed.” The high costs of these medications and supply shortages “have created opportunities for wrongdoers to cash in and endanger consumers,” it said.

Fake GLP-1 drugs have entered the U.S. supply chain from nations such as China, Turkey, and India, the attorneys general said.

“These counterfeits can contain contaminants, other unknown drugs, or dangerously high amounts of active ingredient(s). Scammers have also repackaged injectable insulin and falsely sold it as Ozempic,” they said.

Injecting counterfeit drugs “can lead to serious side effects for consumers, sometimes necessitating hospitalization,” the letter said, adding that most consumers cannot identify fake from legitimate variants.

The letter raised the issue of retailers illegally selling active ingredients of GLP-1 medications directly to consumers online without any prescriptions. These active ingredients come from unregulated sources and pose a risk of contamination, it said.

Consumers use the ingredients to formulate drugs without adequate knowledge of safely dissolving the active ingredients, drawing it into syringes, and then injecting the substance into the body, the attorneys general wrote.

There are also compounding pharmacies that produce GLP-1 medications on their own, with some choosing to “cut corners” in pursuit of profits, the letter says. Last year, Eli Lilly and Company, the manufacturer of Mounjaro and Zepbound, said it had identified compounded drugs that have “safety, sterility, and efficacy problems.”

“Some have contained bacteria, high impurity levels, different colors (pink, instead of colorless), or a completely different chemical structure than Lilly’s FDA-approved medicines,” the company said.

Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Ozempic and Wegovy, has filed lawsuits against several pharmacies, weight loss clinics, and medical spas in multiple U.S. states for selling compounded drugs claiming to contain semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic.

The letter called on the FDA to “work with federal partners like the Department of Homeland Security to intercept counterfeit GLP-1 drugs before they reach unsuspecting consumers.”

It asked the agency to…

DOGE To Confront The DoD Checkbook

Authored by R. Jordan Prescott via RealClearDefense,

With unprecedented zeal, Special Government Employee Elon Musk and his DOGE team have descended upon multiple agencies to execute its cost cutting agenda. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said DOGE will be welcomed at the department but simply accessing its accounting systems will not provide the visibility needed. The Department of Defense has failed seven consecutive audits, its financial information systems are a disaster, and solutions have been elusive.

Thou Shalt Be Audited

In 1990, Congress passed The Chief Financial Officer Act and one provision required every agency to be audited in full. Between 1991 and 2013, DOD only subjected itself to partial audits. In 2014, Congress required DOD to comply in full by 2018.

Unsurprisingly, DOD failed this first audit. The DOD Inspector General identified 20 material weaknesses, which are shortcomings that, in simple terms, means errors will occur but they won’t be caught or corrected before it is too late.

For the next seven years, audits never reported less than 25 material weaknesses. The associated “notifications of findings and recommendations” would average almost 2,500 reissued and 850 new NFRs every between 2019 and 2023.

Big Checkbook, Antiquated Calculators 

Two major deficiencies have persisted throughout — the Fund Balance with Treasury (the department’s checking account) and Information Technology.

In the former, the department can’t balance its $800 billion-plus checkbook and lacks the tools to research discrepancies or produce the receipts.

On the latter, the department simply has too many obsolete systems; in 2021 the DODIG reported the department wouldn’t be retiring 140 legacy systems until 2036.

In 2017, the department’s Chief Financial Officer began using a data platform called Advana to build the missing universe of transactions so desperately needed to support auditability.

However, Advana is a data repository, not a tool for validating data; reliability is the responsibility of system owner from which Advana is drawing. Moreover, Advana does not have access to data across the entire department.

To overcome these challenges, the Deputy Secretary of Defense “decreed” in May 2021 that data sharing would be maximized. More pointedly, Advana would be the “single source of truth” for objective, informed decision-making.

Beginning with the 2022 audit, the DODIG began recommending the department use Advana to address the aforementioned Fund Balance with Treasury deficiency.

In May 2023, the Government Accountability Office credited the department with progress but noted its remedial plans still lacked basic details, such as interim dates to track the steps taken to achieve auditability.

Similarly, the DODIG identified problems with Advana. In October 2024, the DODIG examined whether billions of dollars in Ukraine assistance had been used in accordance with federal law.

The DODIG tersely reported “DOD did not.”

The DODIG found the department did not have documentation for $1.1 billion in outlays. More notably, the DODIG identified the amount as Questioned Costs, those transactions that may constitute legal or regulatory violations.

To date, Congress has appropriated $111 billion in Ukraine assistance

In 2025, the DOD budget totals $850 billion and the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair is aggressively pursuing a $200…

There Is A Method To The ‘Madness’

Authored by Christian Milord via The Epoch Times,

It’s common knowledge that President Donald Trump expresses original, off-the-wall statements in pressers and speeches. To some folks, this comes as a shock, although it’s a common occurrence.

Oftentimes, Trump’s ideas stun both Congressional members and foreign leaders. Why does he come up with so many out-of-the-box ideas? There likely is solid reasoning behind these zingers, although not all of the ideas pan out.

First, Trump has declared that our northern neighbor Canada could become the 51st state. 

However, Puerto Rico likely has a better chance at statehood than Canada does. In other words, “that dog won’t hunt,” as evidenced by the opposition by Canadians, their premiers, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The president appears to be applying leverage on Canada to pick up the slack in reducing drug trafficking entering the United States and urging reciprocal fair trade with America, which would obviate the need for tariffs.

Next, the president stated that he would help to rebuild Gaza and transform it into a prosperous and secure center of business.

Most are aware that America might only play a small part in the process. Trump may have floated this idea to persuade Arab leaders in the region to play a larger role in Gaza’s reconstruction and stability. Several Arab leaders claim to care about the Palestinian cause, so they can back up this claim by taking in more Palestinians and helping to rebuild Gaza with their know-how and wealth.

Third, it is also highly unlikely that Greenland will become part of the United States as Trump would like, although plenty of Greenlanders aren’t satisfied with how Denmark treats them.

Trump wants to exert more influence over Greenland to bolster the security umbrella that stretches from Alaska all the way over the Arctic to Greenland. A greater American presence could help mitigate the malign activities of China and Russia in the Arctic region.

Fourth, the president has threatened Mexico with tariffs if the government doesn’t help to halt lawless migration with its attendant drugs and human trafficking into the United States. 

President Claudia Sheinbaum responded by deploying Mexican National Guard troops to key areas of the U.S.-Mexico border, and Mexico is helping to return illegal immigrants to some Central American nations.

Fifth, Trump utilized similar threats regarding Panama and stated that if the country failed to push back against Chinese influence and charge fair prices for marine vessel transits, he would take over canal operations. 

President Jose Mulino has been open to these demands. The country has agreed not to renew its Belt and Road agreement with China due to China’s undue port influence on both sides of the canal. Apparently, Mulino will also help shut down the lawless migrant hub known as the Darien Gap.

Sixth, common sense informs us that Trump won’t halt the Russia-Ukraine war as quickly as he predicted. 

Based on historical precedent, wars are difficult to unwind. He’s likely throwing out ideas to see which ones will stick in bringing Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to…