I nearly died after buying skinny jab from friend of friend

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. 'I nearly died after buying skinny jab from friend of friend'1 hour ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleGill DummiganNorth West health correspondentPA/Andrew MatthewsSome black market weight loss jabs contain windscreen wash, a campaign group has saidA woman who nearly died after injecting herself with a weight loss drug she had bought from a "friend of a friend" is warning others of the potential dangers of unregulated jabs. Chloe (not her real name), from Liverpool, ended up in intensive care and was off work for three months after just one dose of a pen. Campaign group Save Face said some black market "skinny jabs" had been shown to contain windscreen wash and want the law to be more strictly enforced on illegal sellers.

Chloe is a dress size eight – nowhere near the weight these injection were intended for. But she has an eating disorder, and said many of her friends were already getting them on the black market. PA/Chris RadburnChloe was a dress size eight when she managed to get hold of the injectionsI did at one point think "I'm dying, I'm dying," said Chloe, who fell ill after her first injection.

The Details

They took me straight into resus and I was there for about 18 hours. "It's easy to get hold of really if you know the right person. You can see it everywhere, wherever you go people are talking about it," she said.

Since their introduction to the UK in 2023 as an obesity treatment, GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro have rocketed in popularity. They mimic a gut hormone which tell the brain the stomach is full. People taking them lose their appetite, particularly for fatty food.

The result is dramatic weight loss. Clinical studies have shown that patients can lose more than 20% of their body weight in a year and a half. The injections are intended to treat obesity, but social media is full of adverts for "snatched" beach-ready bodies – aimed at mainly women who want to lose weight for special occasions.

What Experts Say

'Vomiting uncontrollably'In this country you can only legally buy GLP-1s if you have a BMI of more than 30, which is classified as obese. They can only be bought from a pharmacist with a prescription, and checks need to be carried out. So people under that limit end up getting them from illegal sellers – often beauticians.

Chloe admits that she tried several beauticians, who turned her down because she was not overweight. "As I've always said, it's no one else's fault but mine – I was the one who wanted it and I was the one who was determined to get it," she said. She paid a heavy price.

Within hours of her first dose she was vomiting uncontrollably and was unable to stop for days. "There was that much of it, it burnt my stomach, my osophagus. It even burnt my nose because it was coming out of the top of my nose as well," she said.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.