FDA is investigating two deaths among women who ‘took fake Ozempic’ – as black market weight-loss shots are linked to three more hospitalizations

At least two Americans have died and three have been hospitalized after taking counterfeit semaglutide, including fake Ozempic, official data shows.

The reports are in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) adverse event reporting system and date from July to September this year.

The two deaths were both in women who suffered from blood clotting throughout the body — medically termed disseminated intravascular coagulation.

Among the patients hospitalized was a 66-year-old woman who suffered from a serizure after injecting herself with the counterfeit drug, another woman who suffered skin discoloration and bruising and a man who suffered a liver disorder.

The system says there have been 28 reports of counterfeit semaglutide, which is the active drug used in Ozempic and Wegovy, in the US since March last year.

Both medications have exploded in popularity in the US triggering major shortages of the drugs and pushing many patients into ordering online — raising the risk they may be sold counterfeit, or fake, versions of the drugs.

A huge spike in demand for Ozempic and Wegovy in the past year has created shortages, with consumers increasingly turning to counterfeit semaglutide, the active drug in those shots.

The hospitalizations are listed on the Food and Drug Administration’s open drug side effect monitoring system called FAERS, which was last updated at the end of September.

In total there were 42 reports of ‘adverse events’, with 28 classified as ‘serious’.

Only some of those specifically mention Ozempic, including one of the three U.S. hospitalizations. All were submitted to the FDA by Novo Nordisk, the company that makes Ozempic and Wegovy, citing reports to the company by either consumers or health care providers.