Transcription
A Georgia woman says her GLP-1 weight loss drug made her blind. She says she took Wegovy to lose a few pounds and ended up losing her eyesight. Channel 2 investigative reporter Sophia Choi has her warning and the risk.
Tens of millions of people take GLP-1s for weight loss saying it works and even gives them more energy and focus. But for some like the woman we met trying to lose some weight led to losing so much more, including their eyesight.
"My vision's just not as what it was."
Diane Worth is home in Hartwell, Georgia a lot these days.
"It's a lot more difficult."
Trying her best to do the chores like cooking.
"Just your depth perception is off."
With blurry vision, the now former Grady nurse practitioner woke up on a Saturday just weeks after starting Wegovy in February of 2025 to lose a few pounds and could not see out of her right eye.
"It was heartbreaking. It was jarring. I was angry."
She says no one told her about any risk of blindness and it wasn't listed as a side effect.
"The bottom line is there's nothing you can do to prevent NAION if it's going to happen with these drugs because there's not a warning sign. You wake up and you're blind."
Jason Goldstein is her attorney and the attorney on the steering committee for more than 130 cases like hers. They're all part of a multi-district lawsuit going before a Philadelphia judge and all of them got NAION or non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy after taking GLP-1s.
"It comes on suddenly. You don't feel it and then it's permanent."
NAION is essentially an eye stroke caused by restricted blood flow. It's not painful, but it is irreversible.
"I have a client as young as 33 years old who has developed this. Client from New York, a 48-year-old gentleman lost it in both eyes."
Novo Nordisk and Lilly are the two big makers of GLP-1s, including Wegovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. Both companies say patient safety is their top priority and the evidence does not establish a causal relationship between GLP-1 RAs and NAION. Novo Nordisk says it conducted its own study of 96,000 patients and found no increase risk.
"Once it happens, it's permanent. There's no going back. So, it's it's scary."
The lawsuit says there is a risk and the companies knew about it from this 2024 study published in JAMA Ophthalmology, which found a link between GLP-1s and blindness, yet decided not to list it as a rare side effect.
"In Europe, the label has been updated for semaglutide, which is what Wegovy and Ozempic is, to warn about this rare condition. In the UK, the same thing."
Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy, says the FDA has not revised the currently approved labels for GLP-1 therapies to include NAION as a potential side effect. Diane lost a lot when she lost her eyesight. She had to quit her job and she lost her independence. She can no longer drive, relying on her husband instead.
"I would have read that there's a possibility that I could lose my vision. I would have never taken this drug."
We reached out to the big hospitals in town and to various ophthalmologists. I also reached out to the FDA and to the CDC. No one wanted to talk about this, but the CDC did send me a statement saying might be important to see an ophthalmologist for a baseline if you're on GLP-1s. You know, it really could take years for the outcome of this lawsuit and another one going before that same judge involving possible stomach paralysis from GLP-1s. We will stay on both of them.
Researchers at Georgia State say they may have found a way to prevent two side effects from weight loss drugs. Researchers told us they developed an antibody therapy that stops muscle loss and rapid weight regain after patients stop taking the medication. The next step is a clinical trial to determine whether the therapy is safe and effective.