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Comment by bookman10 | Hacker News Reader

I found it very disturbing how heavily these were marketed as miracle drugs that would "bankrupt fast food". Seems like another instance of create a problem ("food" industry) and sell a recurring "solution" (big pharma).

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That would be really bad marketing. When's the last time you bought something because it'd bankrupt fast food?

They aren’t marketed as bankrupting fast food. They’re marketed as weight loss drugs, which is honest and accurate.

The stories about bankrupting the fast food industry were from journalists looking for sensational stories to write, not from the marketers.

> Seems like another instance of create a problem ("food" industry) and sell a recurring "solution" (big pharma).

There is no conspiracy between the food industry and pharmaceutical companies. They’re all just selling products that people demand.

> The stories about bankrupting the fast food industry were from journalists looking for sensational stories to write, not from the marketers.

Those are not necessarily disconnected. Marketers pitch stories, they fund studies they know will show X outcome, etc etc, which are picked up by journalists.

Do you have any evidence of this happening, like a link to the studies you’re talking about? Or is this just speculation?

I mean it isn't a conspiracy. People love food that makes them fat cuz it's fucking tasty. But being fat is cosmetically unappealing, is socially stigmatized, makes it hard to do things, and is bad for your overall health. All of this, the drugs, the fat burning "cures," diet culture, surgery, all of it going back to time immemorial is trying to resolve this inherent conflict:

* Shitty food is fucking delicious.

* For whatever reasons an individual cites, being fat is undesirable.

And... you can't. At least not with today's technology. But people hate that answer and so there's huge money in figuring out how to make it so people can eat like fatasses without being fatasses.

And... same. I'd fucking love that, I just don't expect it coming anytime soon.

I have understood that mechanism these drugs actual work with is making fatasses not eat like fatasses. While possibly continuing to eat what fatasses do, but less of it and less often.

Though I might have misunderstood.

No that's basically what they do, AFAIK. Seems to something with the rewards center of the brain since it also seems at least somewhat effective in treating addiction too.

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