Tennesseans join Ozempic lawsuit: Patients 'do not realize how dangerous it can be'

By the time he reached the fourth day of not being able to keep food down, Bob Tuttle knew he was in trouble.

The problem? He was 120 miles from shore, in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico working on an oil rig. Tuttle, 60, had to be flown off in a medevac helicopter. Two days later, back in Knoxville, he went to the emergency room. Within the week he was diagnosed with gastroparesis, a weakening of the stomach.

Tuttle, a Type 2 diabetic, is one of dozens of Tennesseans who joined federal lawsuits against the makers of diabetic and weight loss drugs including Ozempic, which his doctor had prescribed two years before he got sick.

Thousands of patients are preparing to sue Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly for injuries they allege result from taking drugs the companies created, including gastroparesis and gallbladder removal. Symptoms that can start as perpetual “morning sickness,” can become much worse if they go untreated.

‘It’s not a miracle drug’

Tuttle was a health, safety and environmental advisor on the rig, a job that required him to look out for the safety of employees working various jobs on the rig.

He was in good health, he said, in part because of his job. “Everywhere you go is steps and stairs and everything you touch is iron. You don’t have to hit the gym.”

In order to be on the rig, though, he had to maintain his blood sugar levels, per U.S. Coast Guard health regulations. To manage that, around 2018 his doctor prescribed Ozempic. The drug was a success.

Little by little, though, Tuttle began to lose weight, mostly in the form of muscle mass, he said. He would get fatigued quicker during his long hours on the rig. He'd be wiped out by regular days when he’d walk 10,000–12,000 steps and climb the equivalent of 100 stories up and down. Then, in the months before he got really sick, he started feeling nauseous daily.

Then the real sickness hit.

“Gastroparesis, in laymen’s terms, is just the inability of the stomach to process solids or liquids that one ingests,” Tuttle said. “My stomach was processing some of the liquids, but none of the solids during the tests that they ran on me in the hospital.”

Tuttle no longer suffers from nausea, but the episode forced him to quit his job. He took a job on an oceanic wind farm for less pay – and he still gets fatigued more easily, he said.

Curtis Caples had a similar experience. The 44-year-old from Memphis told Knox News he was prescribed Ozempic in 2023 for his Type 2 diabetes. He took it for seven or eight months, he said, and almost immediately began having trouble.

Multiple times a week, Caples would be racked with nausea that led to vomiting. At times he had severe diarrhea and it decreased his libido, he said. At one point his blood sugar got out of control, and he spent a couple of days in the hospital to get it regulated. He blames the drug for the spike; it was the only thing new to his system.

Sometimes his health required Caples to call off of work. Forklift drivers don’t have time to be throwing up, he said.

“I’m hoping they can come up with a better medicine, if anything,” he said. “Because everyone knows Type 2 diabetes is serious. We need better medicine without so many side effects.”

Both Tuttle and Caples jumped at the opportunity to join the lawsuit.

“I want to get the information of how dangerous Ozempic is out there to the public,” he said. “I see some people that are using Ozempic for a weight loss application. They do not realize how dangerous it can be, and the possible long-term effects that come from its use.

“Yes, you will lose weight, but you also will lose muscle mass and it could cause long-term damage and change your life in ways which you did not consider.”

Where the lawsuits stand

Like most patients in the suit, Tuttle has not yet filed an individual lawsuit but instead has added his name to the thousands who are ready to file claims once the court gets to that point.

After dozens of lawsuits were filed against Novo Nordisk for its drugs Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus, and Eli Lilly for its drugs Trulicity and Mounjaro, the federal court system lumped the cases together in a multidistrict litigation lawsuit, which functions similarly to a class action lawsuit. The combination makes for a confusing bunch of allegations, which the companies have denied.

They include:

• The companies knew or should have known that their drugs could cause gastroparesis or other gastrointestinal injuries.

• The companies didn’t adequately warn consumers or their doctors of the alleged dangers of the drugs.

• The companies made false or misleading representations about the safety of the drugs.

To complicate matters, the judge overseeing the lawsuit, Gene E. K. Pratter, died May 17. The court has not yet ruled on who will take over the case or whether it will remain in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Van Arsdale is an attorney in San Diego, California, and Billings, Montana, whose law firm AVA Law Group specializes in massive personal injury litigation and represents about 2,000 people who had side effects or negative reactions to these drugs, including nearly 70 Tennesseans. Those cases have yet to be filed because lawyers are waiting for the judge to advise them about how to file them to the court.

Some 40,000 people reached out to his office, Van Arsdale said, but most didn’t qualify for the lawsuit. The nearly 2,000 people who do were hospitalized with a gastrointestinal issue. Of those, he said, 10% will be impaired for the rest of their lives.

“On its face, it’s a good drug,” he told Knox News. “There’s a reason so many people are taking it. … We have an issue with obesity and addiction in this country and this drug has proven to solve these issues. But the drug has not matured enough to give you all the good because it has so much of the bad associated with it.

“The manufacturers have put so much money into marketing the drugs to consumers and doctors and the market caps are exploding, and you can go out and make money, that’s fine … but you still have an obligation and a duty of law to warn doctors and (label it correctly),” he continued.

USA TODAY’s Ken Alltucker contributed to this report.

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism. Connect with Tyler by emailing him at tyler.whetstone@knoxnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @tyler_whetstone.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennesseans join massive lawsuit against makers of Ozempic, Wegovy