> it's currently difficult to get them prescribed by a legitimate doctor unless your obesity-related health problems are really severe
I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s difficult to get them covered by insurance unless your obesity-related health problems are really severe. In my experience, doctors have no problem prescribing GLP-1 drugs for weight management.
If you aren't significantly overweight a doc won't want to prescribe a GLP-1. Because if you die while on it for any reason, and your family sues, the expert witness will testify that a GLP-1 wasn't standard of care for a patient with your presentation. Then the doc's insurance loses the case (and he pays way more going forward assuming he can practice at all).
This is an argument that the litigiousness of American society incentivizes suboptimal health outcomes from the legitimate health care system because the employees of that system need to legally protect themselves; therefore a person might be better off if they go outside that health care system and buy grey-market Chinese pharmacy peptides labeled not for human use.
I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s difficult to get them covered by insurance unless your obesity-related health problems are really severe. In my experience, doctors have no problem prescribing GLP-1 drugs for weight management.