Prescription rules for obesity drugs may unfairly exclude non-whites

Potent new anti-obesity drugs can reduce body weight by 15-20%. However, regulation and costs limit who can take them. In America, the Food and Drug Administration (fda) has approved just one of the new drugs, Wegovy, for weight loss—and only for patients with a body-mass index (bmi) above certain thresholds. The cut-off is 27 for people with weight-related illnesses, and 30 otherwise. For someone 1.7 metres (5’7”) tall, these correspond to 78kg (172lb) and 87kg. People with lower bmis can try to get a prescription anyway. However, insurers rarely cover such “off-label” use of the $1,000-per-month drugs.