Oprah Winfrey's prime-time GLP-1 special airs on ABC

Oprah Winfrey's prime-time special on prescription weight-loss drugs, "An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution," aired on ABC on Monday, March 18, 2024, in an 8–9 p.m. EDT slot, and began streaming on Hulu the next day ^[3][2]. The program, filmed before a live studio audience, brought together doctors, patients and executives from the two companies that make the leading GLP-1 medicines ^[3].

ABC promoted the hour as a conversation about "health equity and obesity with the intention to ultimately release the shame, judgment and stigma surrounding weight," in Winfrey's words ^[3]. The network framed the drugs as a possible "game changer" for an epidemic it said costs $173 billion a year in U.S. medical costs and affects 100 million Americans and more than 1 billion adults worldwide ^[3].

Who was on camera

The medical guests included W. Scott Butsch, MD, director of obesity medicine at Cleveland Clinic, and Amanda Velazquez, MD, director of obesity medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, along with ABC News medical correspondents Jennifer Ashton, MD, and Darien Sutton, MD, and patients — among them a teenager who was one of the first minors to take the new drugs ^[3].

Both Butsch and Velazquez were paid consultants. About 20 minutes and 46 seconds into the video, on-screen text read: "Dr. Butsch and Dr. Velazquez consult for and receive research funding from companies making GLP-1 drugs" ^[2]. The FDA later noted that federal Open Payments data showed Butsch received consulting fees, grants and other payments from Novo Nordisk from 2017 to 2023, and Velazquez from 2019 to 2023; the dollar amounts were redacted in the public letter ^[2].

Two drug company executives also appeared: Negelle Morris, senior vice president of cardiometabolic sales at Novo Nordisk ^[2], and Rhonda Pacheco, PharmD, then a group vice president at Eli Lilly ^[1].

Winfrey herself had stepped down from the WeightWatchers board weeks earlier. She told Jimmy Kimmel that she left because she wanted to "talk about whatever I want to talk about" without "the appearance of any conflict of interest," and said she donated her WeightWatchers shares to the National Museum of African American History and Culture ^[4]. In a December 2023 People interview she said she had been using an unspecified weight-loss medication as "a tool to manage not yo-yoing" ^[4].

The FDA weighs in 18 months later

On September 9, 2025, the FDA sent warning letters about the same video to both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly ^[2][1]. The agency said the video was "false or misleading" and misbranded Wegovy and Ozempic (semaglutide) and Victoza (liraglutide) under federal law ^[2].

The FDA said the program "creates a misleading impression regarding the safety" of the drugs, which carry a boxed warning for thyroid C-cell tumors, and that the companies had not submitted the material to the agency at the time it first went out, as required ^[2]. In the Lilly letter, covering Mounjaro and Zepbound (tirzepatide), the agency cited failure to adequately disclose the boxed warning and minimization of adverse events including pancreatitis and hypoglycemia ^[1].

The letters were part of a larger sweep. Reuters reported the Lilly letter was one of dozens issued that day, and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, said the agency planned roughly 100 cease-and-desist notices among thousands of letters ^[1]. Telehealth company Hims & Hers also received a warning over claims about its compounded semaglutide products ^[1].

Why it matters for patients

The special reached a huge audience at a moment when many Americans were first hearing about GLP-1 drugs, and it is still available on ABC's website and Hulu ^[1][2]. The FDA's position is that viewers were not given a balanced picture of serious risks — including the boxed warning for thyroid C-cell tumors and warnings about pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, kidney injury, hypoglycemia and suicidal behavior and ideation listed in the prescribing information ^[2].

It also shows how hard it can be to tell medical journalism from promotion. The on-screen disclosure about the doctors' industry funding ran once, roughly two-thirds of the way in ^[2]. The FDA's letters do not order the video removed as of the material in these sources, and it is not yet known from these sources how Lilly, Novo Nordisk or ABC responded.