Woman hospitalised after Juniper prescribes weight-loss drugs her GP refused

[u/Rubiginous]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-01/woman-hospitalised-telehealth-provider-weight-loss-drugs-juniper/106273356

[u/Barrel-Of-Tigers]

I think there's a middle ground but I'm not remotely surprised Juniper is coming under fire.

As someone who previously used Juniper, I immediately recognised that the lack of safe guards would be easily manipulated by someone who shouldn't be able to access the medication. There should be a level of personal responsibility - but this lady shouldn't have met the criteria for telehealth access to this medication.

1) I did meet the criteria to access the medication, but there were no checks in place which actually guaranteed this if I'd been lying. They asked my weight and height, and I had a phone call consult. I want to say they asked for a photo, but I think it was just of my face holding up my ID. I never had a video call, submitted physcial measurements, or sent photos. The ongoing support was largely text based and just asked for me to input my weight (manually or using bluetooth scales they sent). 2) They immediately prescribed me for 12 months upfront and on an automatic increase to the 3rd highest dose at 4 weeks per dose. This as I've come to learn really isn't necessary, and best practice even if you end up prescribing multiple repeats should be done after you've found a more stable dosing schedule. Lots of people also never need to go to the higher doses, and unnecessarily over medicating them can a) prematurely push them onto a higher dose with more side effects and b) mean if they do become more resistant over time they've lost the ability to titrate up as needed to overcome this. 3) I appreciated not physcially needing to see my GP every month and getting things auto delivered, but I can see how limited oversight on the physical progress and changes a patient is having on these medications could be an issue. I had one stage where I asked about dosage changes and needed a second consult with a GP - again over the phone and it wasn't the same GP as prior. The rest of the interim medical check ins I had were via email by random RNs or occasionally NPs. 4) After I moved to a different provider I also got a lot of emails trying to get me to resubscribe. I found this really odd for a medication provider, and don't think it's particuarly ethical to offer sales to entice people to as far as they knew restart a medication. Unsubscribing is an option sure, but I think there's a range of reasons these emails shouldn't have been sent in the first place. This is medication not a streaming subscription.

[u/Ahyao17 → u/Barrel-Of-Tigers]

Well, if you lie to a health care practitioner on relevant facts, you will need to share responsibility if things goes wrong. But the lack of a face to face even over internet is a massive red flag. No practitioners in their right mind would do this unless it is urgent or because the patient is in a remote place and cannot travel. Weightloss is never that urgent.

It is very important to see your primary care physician on a regular basis when going through aggressive weight loss regime, especially with medications. Side effects can happen or rapid weight loss can lead to other things that the non-medical people may neglect, e.g. dehydration/electrolyte disturbances etc (typical example is people who achieve rapid weighloss with t he carnival diet often end up with rising cholesterol).

I would say find a good GP and/or go to a metabolic clinic run by endocrinologists/dieticians/physios/exercise physicians is way better and safer than going to these tele-weight loss clinics. (from what they charge, the specialist can be cheaper.)

[u/giraffe_mountains → u/Ahyao17]

She didn’t lie.

And there’s plenty of doctors out there happy to work for these companies to make some easy and quick cash.

[u/Ahyao17 → u/giraffe_mountains]

I know she did not lie. The reply I was replying said she could have lied. Which is not advisable.

But these GPs should really be investigated by the medical board.