Spiralling demand for weight loss products has led to dangerous black market sales on social media of fake jabs that are potentially deadly, a Channel 4 News investigation has uncovered.
We reveal how powerful counterfeit weight loss jabs – including a fake version of a new product, still in development and not yet approved for human use – are being sold online and injected without medical oversight.
This leaves buyers gambling with unknown chemicals, and potentially their lives, in a market that one MP described as “alarming”.
Reporter undercover: Sophie Braybrook
I bought a fake weight loss injection online. It didn’t take me long to find a couple promoting weight loss injections on Facebook and Instagram.
After exchanging just a few messages, I was added to a WhatsApp group with more than 20 other buyers.
A few days later, I transferred £200 and headed to the address I was given on an estate in the North of England.
I was given conflicting usage directions.
At the doorstep, a seller told me to use the jabs twice a week.
But, when I later called his partner, who is also a seller, she told me it should be injected just once a week.
She spoke really confidently about the product, until I asked her where she got it from. She claimed she had obtained it from a pharmacy and that it was available on the NHS. This was inaccurate.
I’ve just bought a jab that is being falsely marketed as retatrutide. Now, you might not have read about this weight loss injection yet, and that’s because it’s still being developed by US pharmaceutical giant and the inventor, Eli Lilly. It’s still in clinical trials and has not yet been approved as safe for human use.
This means the real product isn’t legal to sell to consumers, and neither are fakes.
Reporter undercover: Sophie Braybrook
When I first opened my package it all looked legitimate, containing a ‘pen’ with a dosage measure and 12 needles.
There was even a leaflet explaining how to use the product. But the first thing I read was: “Do not use this product without proper training from your doctor or nurse” – which, of course, I didn’t have.
The branding on the box read ‘Synedica’, but I couldn’t even verify where they’re based and when I called Eli Lilly, it confirmed the product was a fake.
Nancy Allen
Medical experts and bodybuilder on dangers
I asked Dr Luke Turnock, a criminology lecturer at the University of Lincoln, where this fake jab could have come from. He told me illicit weight loss products are often produced and imported from China, for as little as £1.50 when buying in “sufficient bulk”, as well as India and Russia.
NHS GP Nancy Allen, who prescribes licensed weight loss medication to people who need it, was shocked when I showed her the counterfeit product I’d bought.
She said: “I’m a prescriber, and I have never seen it in my life. This raises serious concerns about patient safety.”
Despite the dangers of fake jabs, people are desperate to get their hands on them, and the sellers I bought from said they’ve had around 60 buyers so far.
Champion bodybuilder Richie O’Donnell told me he’s already seen many people using retatrutide, including teenagers.
Richie O’Donnell
He said if people can get “the body of their dreams” by getting from “A to B extremely fast” it’s likely they’re “going to go for it”, which is “a scary thing”.
Richie already uses seven different products for his fitness regime, but has bought retratrutide in case he “needs to use it”.
And gym-goer Marcus Perry told me he bought what he thought was retatrutide on TikTok because “everyone was talking about it” despite knowing the injection hadn’t passed clinical trials.
He did admit it’s “worrying” because “you don’t know what you’re putting in your body”, but said even though these jabs “could kill”, it is “the chance you’ve got to take”.
‘I’m either going to die or go blind’
As part of the wider investigation, Channel 4 News also spoke to a former Big Brother star Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace who shared her frightening experience after purchasing a copy of another weight loss drug on TikTok.
Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace
She said: “There were bags of vomit just lined up by my bed. I couldn’t make it to the toilet. It was the worst time of my life physically. My vision had gone in one eye. I thought, I’m either going to die or go blind. It was just torture. It was the most stupid thing that I’ve probably ever done.”
Dr Beccy Cooper, a Labour MP, former public health consultant and member of the Health and Social Care Committee, was shocked when we explained the findings in our investigation.
She said: “It’s alarming how easily you got hold of that. This is appalling, it is criminal and it needs to be shut down.”
Dr Cooper said that the Medical Health and Regulatory Authority (MHRA) has a criminal unit which tries hard to crack down on unregulated medication on social media, but explained that this is “very hard” because it’s “everywhere”.
“This is appalling, it is criminal and it needs to be shut down.”
– Labour MP Dr Beccy Cooper
The MHRA told us that anything claiming to be retatrutide is illegal and unsafe, and that legitimate weight loss medicines are only available on prescription.
Both TikTok and Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) told us they’ve removed the content we brought to their attention. They say they “don’t allow” the sale of weight loss injections on their platforms.
Meta added it is “constantly working to get better at detection”. TikTok says it is “banned hashtags and searches” related to Retatrutide.
As a result of our investigation, TikTok says it has “banned hashtags and searches” related to retatrutide.
Eli Lilly told us: “Any product falsely representing itself as a Lilly investigational product not yet approved by the FDA, like retatrutide, may expose patients to potentially serious health risks.”
It added that it works with regulators and law enforcement to “identify and remove fraudulent or unsafe content online and on social media”.
We put our findings in this investigation to two companies selling fake jabs claiming to be retatrutide – Synedica and Alluvi. We received no response.
Synedica’s website claims the jabs it sells are for research purposes only. But they’re clearly marketed to the public, and it’s illegal to distribute them outside of a clinical trial.
As a result of our investigation, Eli Lilly said it was taking action against Synedica and Alluvi.
Reported and produced by Sophie Braybrook, Samantha Everett, Helen Johnson, Ian Watkins and Girish Juneja.
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