TL;DR

British pharmacies are warning that some patients use AI-edited photos to appear heavier and qualify for Wegovy, Mounjaro and similar treatments, the Financial Times reported on 30 October, as relayed by Seoul Economic Daily. The General Pharmaceutical Council says pharmacists who fail to verify patients properly will face sanctions. For a UK audience, it is a clear case of easy-to-use image tools undermining a remote safety check.

We have not read the FT’s original, so what follows rests on the Korean paper’s account of it.

Sehar Shahid, one of the National Pharmacy Association’s directors, is reported as saying that manipulated images are being used by people who may not qualify clinically. She said regulation has to keep up with the technology. Asan Bhatti, who owns online pharmacy QuickMeds, said close inspection can expose warped door frames or lighting that does not line up, but that judging eligibility from pictures alone is getting harder.

An existing safeguard under strain

This is happening despite rules. Guidance dating back about two years already requires pharmacies to confirm the weight of people seeking obesity treatment through video consultation or medical records. The problem described is partly one of compliance: Kerry Fleming of the eating disorder charity Beat says she has heard of people getting the drugs easily with faked photos, and that real-time photo capture exists but is not universal.

The regulator’s position is firmer. Roz Gittins, the council’s chief pharmacy officer, objected to pharmacies checking body mass index by phone or relying on photos and pre-recorded video. In her words, details such as weight and BMI “should be verified by a healthcare provider other than the pharmacy”.

The risks are not cosmetic. Psychiatrists are worried too: the Royal College’s eating disorders faculty fears misuse among patients in its care. Most users buy privately: a University College London estimate cited in the report puts use at 1.6 million British adults in a 12-month period, mostly from online sellers at about £300 a month.

A wider verification problem

Neither the report nor the pharmacy bodies quantify how common this is, and no figures on AI-altered submissions are given. Weights hidden in pockets are mentioned alongside edited images, so AI is one method among several rather than a new category of deception.

In our view, the pattern extends beyond pharmacy. Any UK service that accepts a photograph as evidence, whether for health, insurance or age, is relying on something that became easier to fake. The council set out its first position on AI in April, which focused on professional accountability when staff use such tools. This story concerns patients using them.

Looking Forward

The immediate pressure falls on online pharmacies, and the regulator says it inspects hundreds each month. In our view, the durable answer is to treat a submitted image as a prompt for checking rather than as proof, and independent records seem the obvious route. Whether that survives commercial pressure as demand grows is the question to watch.