“Patients need to worry about themselves, not other people’s conditions.”

That is the view of Gold Coast psychiatrist Dr Manfred Penzhorn, who was prescribing semaglutide for weight loss until the explosion of off-label prescribing made the drug disappear from pharmacy shelves.

While he had to stop when supply hit zero, he is a counterpoint to the view that off-label prescribing of the drug is simply a TikTok-driven trend of young people demanding the “skinny pen” that the New York Post has described as “the hottest drug in Hollywood”.

Dr Penzhorn’s patients include those relying on clozapine to manage schizophrenia, given the antipsychotic’s well-known weight gain side effect.