Kerre Woodham: If we have a cure for a problem, why wouldn't we invest in it?

I know that there are people who think that being fat is indicative of moral weakness. You're a slave to the pleasures of the flesh if you're fat. You can't control your appetite. No self-control. Being greedy is an unattractive trait, in fact gluttony is right up there in the list of the seven deadly sins, all of which I seem to commit on the daily. And sure, if back in the day food was scarce, if you had to grow or gather your dinner, it was a precarious business. It was difficult to store food in times of plenty, hard to find food in winter, during famine, during difficult times. So anyone whose belly hung over their belt would have been looked at askance. You wouldn't have trusted him, or her for that matter. But times have changed and now we all have enough, at least in this country.  

But some of us don't stop when we reach enough. And because we're a little more sophisticated than we were in the 18th century, we know now that it's not a sign of moral weakness, moral corruption, but merely different bodies processing food differently and the brain playing a bigger part than the stomach when it comes to obesity. It makes sense surely to treat obesity differently. Rather than castigating people for their lack of self-control or for their poor decisions, you look at the brain and work on that.  

Obesity related illnesses cost us a fortune as a country. The direct costs are $2 billion a year, the indirect costs are around 7 billion a year. Surely if there's a way to keep people out of hospital, out of the healthcare system, we take it. Pharmac certainly thinks so. Pharmac's cardiovascular experts have recommended funding a weight loss drug for people with cardiovascular disease and a BMI of 27 or more as a high priority. Fat jabs are already used widely in New Zealand, but they're unfunded, meaning that patients have to cover the cost.  

In May, Pharmac added Wegovy, one of the fat jabs, to its list of medicine suitable for future funding specifically for weight loss, but this too remained unfunded. The most recent recommendation, which comes from the cardiovascular team, is a high level provisional outcome, so it doesn't reveal the reasons behind the recommendation, which are surely obvious to even those of us who haven't done six years at med school. And we're not certain how many New Zealanders would qualify for treatment if the drug was funded specifically for cardiovascular disease.  

According to Health New Zealand, about a third of New Zealanders over 15 were considered obese, giving New Zealand one of the highest adult obesity rates in the OECD. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for almost one in three deaths in New Zealand, and maintaining a healthy weight helps you manage cardiovascular risk. So we have a problem on the one hand, we have a way to solve it on the other hand. Why don't we get over the pursed lips and the moral judgment of 1762 and accept that the cost benefit ratio of funding Wegovy or something similar would save lives and save the country billions. It's a no brainer, isn't it?  

I would love to hear from you on this one. We've heard from people who have taken Wegovy before or the other fat jabs, whatever they are. It helps with the weight loss, it helps with appetite, it helps with nail biting, compulsive shopping, drinking, smoking. I've heard that from all of you, or not from all of you, from those of you who rang in talking about taking the jabs. Doesn't just help you with the weight loss, it helps with all sorts of things.  If we have a problem and we have a cure for the majority of people who take it, doesn't it make sense to invest in it and stop spending billions and billions of unnecessary dollars?