The world’s top pharmaceutical companies raking record profits from the latest generation of obesity drugs are bankrolling a group behind the contemporary phenomenon of “health at every size.”
A new report and database published by Baron Public Affairs last month outlines pharmaceutical sponsorships for trade organizations promoting obesity as a chronic disease warranting health care coverage rather than a preventable symptom of underlying metabolic dysfunction. One such group with funding from major drug manufacturers Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Boehringer Ingelheim is the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC), an organization at the center of the far-left movement for “body positivity.”
According to the database released by Baron Public Affairs, OAC has received contributions from at least six pharmaceutical companies in 2022, including Amgen, Biohaven, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer. The most significant sponsorships have come from the producer of Ozempic, Novo Nordisk, which contributed an undisclosed amount of more than $100,000. Pfizer reportedly gave $100,000, while Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Zepbound, and Boehringer Ingelheim, a company with its own weight-loss drug in progress, each gave between $50,000 and $100,000.
Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are the two largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, with a combined market cap of more than $1 trillion. Pfizer and Amgen are the 9th and 10th largest pharmaceutical giants, respectively.