Mom Suing Maker of Wegovy & Ozempic After Claiming She Almost Died

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Trying to lose weight is hard. Many people struggle while trying to get the numbers on the scale to go down. There are a lot of factors that contribute to a person's ability or inability to lose weight. Those who struggle will often turn to methods beyond diet and exercise to help, such as weight-loss drugs. Weight-loss drugs have been available for decades, but new types have gained popularity in the last year or so, particularly semaglutide-based drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic.

But like all drugs, they come with side effects. A Pennsylvania woman is speaking out, saying taking those weight-loss drugs nearly killed her. She is trying to warn others about the potentially deadly side effects of the popular medications.

The woman was prescribed the medications by her doctor.

Juanita Gantt told CBS News that she had always struggled with her weight. At the age of 62, she weighed 242 pounds, and even though she had tried dieting, she simply couldn't lose weight.

"Diabetes is rampant in my family, and I knew that that all plays with weight," she said. "I almost felt defeated and humiliated. I mean, why couldn't I lose this weight?"

Her inability to lose weight made her a good candidate for weight-loss drugs.

Gantt talked to her doctor, who agreed that due to her diabetes risk and inability to lose weight, she would be a good candidate for Wegovy and Ozempic, GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) drugs made by the company Novo Nordisk.

"I was feeling fine. I enjoyed the days that I didn't have to worry about my appetite. I didn't have cravings. I just felt like I was doing something positive for myself," she explained.

Everything was going OK, and then Gantt found herself in the hospital.

In October 2023, Gantt's husband found her unconscious on the floor. She says she had "no idea what had happened" to her.

She was taken to the hospital, where doctors discovered that parts of her large intestine had died and needed to be removed. During her recovery from that surgery, she went into cardiac arrest. Doctors called her daughter, informing her to prepare for her mother to die. Gantt said it "breaks my heart" that her daughter received such a phone call.

Gantt doesn't have a colon now, and now has to live with an ileostomy bag that is attached to her abdomen to collect waste. "I had no warning that this was even a possibility," she said.

Now she's suing Novo Nordisk.

Gantt is claiming that the drug labels failed to adequately warn doctors and patients about side effects including gastroparesis, stomach paralysis, and bowel obstruction.

"It's put a lot of resources into marketing the drug, hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the market get new patients for the drug, but it hasn't spent that money on warning patients of the risk of gastroparesis, ileus, small bowel obstruction, and the fact that these injuries can be severe, even if it's in a rare case," Parvin Aminolroaya, Gantt's attorney, told CBS News.

Gantt says she's sharing her story to make other people aware. "It just should not have happened to me. If it happened to me, it could happen to you," she said.

Novo Nordisk released a statement maintaining it did nothing wrong.

"The known risks and benefits of semaglutide and liraglutide medicines are described in their FDA-approved product labeling," Novo Nordisk said in a statement to CBS News about the lawsuit. The company also said "the allegations in the lawsuits are without merit," sharing their intent to "vigorously defend against these claims."

Additionally, it said that semaglutide has been "extensively examined in robust clinical development programs and large real world evidence studies."