Woman develops lesions after TikToker sells her contaminated weight loss drug, feds say

A woman developed lesions and was diagnosed with a life-threatening bacterial infection after buying 30 injections of a weight loss drug from a person on TikTok, according to federal prosecutors.

She was one of several people who trusted TikTok videos made by Isis Navarro Reyes, a New York woman accused of using her social media platform to sell misbranded and contaminated weight loss drugs, including Ozempic.

Reyes, 36, who lives on Long Island, is not a doctor and was not qualified to promote prescription medications to her online followers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

She also had no business instructing the woman who ended up with lesions to inject herself every three days with a weight loss drug she shipped to her home, prosecutors said.

On May 1, Reyes was arrested and charged with one count of smuggling; one count of receipt of misbranded drugs in interstate commerce; one count of dispensing of a misbranded drug while held for sale; one count of conspiracy to introduce and deliver for introduction a misbranded drug in interstate commerce; and two counts of dispensing of misbranded drugs while held for sale, the U.S. attorney’s office announced.

A federal defender representing her didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on May 2.

“Reyes’s alleged unlawful dispensing of these drugs caused significant, life-threatening injuries to some victims and put all of her victims in harm’s way,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

‘Adulterated’ weight loss drug leads to lesions

For a year, prosecutors said Reyes shared dozens of detailed videos on TikTok about weight loss drugs.

In the videos, she instructed her viewers on how to use Ozempic — a semaglutide, injectable diabetes medication that some doctors prescribe to patients for weight loss — and other medications, according to prosecutors.

Ozempic has become increasingly popular in the U.S. for weight loss, and the demand for prescriptions is high, according to a Pew Research Center report published March 21.

Other drugs Reyes promoted on her TikTok account “beralyreyes88” included Axcion, weight loss pills sold in Mexico, and Mesofrance, another injectable weight loss drug made by a Mexican pharmaceutical company, court documents state.

Her TikTok does not appear to be active as of May 2.

In her videos, Reyes told her followers they can buy the weight loss drugs by contacting her over “an encrypted messaging application on her cellphone,” according to prosecutors.

She got the drugs — none of which were “approved for sale or dispensing in the United States by the FDA” — from Central and South America, prosecutors said.

The woman who later got lesions from Mesofrance ordered from Reyes had called her in November 2022 after watching her TikTok videos, according to prosecutors.

A few months later, the woman bought 30 injections of Mesofrance, which Reyes mailed to the woman’s home in White Plains without asking her to provide a prescription, prosecutors said.

Between February 2023 and June 2023, she “self-administered 28 injections” as instructed by Reyes, according to prosecutors.

By July 13, lesions appeared on the woman’s body, and she sent photos to Reyes, prosecutors said.

In October, her doctor diagnosed her with a “mycobacterium abscessus infection,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Mycobacterium abscessus is a “multidrug-resistant pathogen” and “requires aggressive management, including prompt surgical intervention and prolonged combination antimicrobial therapy,” according to a case report published in 2018 in the National Library of Medicine.

An infection can prove deadly, the report says.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, these infections are “usually caused by injections of substances contaminated with the bacterium.”

In November, after the woman’s diagnosis, the New York Department of Health tested the Mesofrance she bought from Reyes

It “tested positive for mycobacterium abscessus,” prosecutors said.

In January, an undercover law enforcement officer purchased Ozempic from Reyes for $375, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

She mailed a package with the Ozempic that had labeling in Spanish and was intercepted by authorities in Manhattan, prosecutors said.

“Selling misbranded prescription drugs, particularly injectable products that should be sterile, in the U.S. marketplace puts all consumers’ health at risk,” Fernando P. McMillan, the special agent in charge of the Food and Drug Administration’s office of criminal investigations, said in a statement.

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