What about paid advertising? If the media is failing to get the message across, can’t the manufacturer simply buy advertisements stating that: if you are overweight and diabetic, there is a good chance that this drug will allow you to lose your excess weight and resolve your diabetes? Well, no. The daily barrage of erectile dysfunction adds on TV, and the previously noted plethora of fraudulent weight loss infomercials might lead one to presume that anything goes with regard to medical advertising. However the FDA is extremely strict about anything that could be construed as promoting off-label use and such direct to consumer advertising of Byetta could very well come under the rubric of that prohibition.

There are a number of other specific factors regarding Byetta which have exacerbated the situation, as will be discussed later. However, millions of people are experiencing progressively worse diabetes, gaining weight and are thus becoming destined to suffer from the horrendous complications of diabetes and obesity without trying a treatment that has resolved the problems for many similarly situated. This does not bode well for the future when many new drugs that could address specific genetic variations that cause obesity will appear. Those new drugs may very well face obstacles similar to what is now impeding Byetta. As long as many, including a distressing large number of medical professionals, still consider obesity a willpower issue rather than the consequence of specific genetic variations, millions will suffer and die needlessly......