Ozempic NAION Side Effects Led to Blurred Vision, Lawsuit Alleges

Woman’s vision continued to degrade even after she stopped receiving Ozempic injections, leading to continued deterioration of her eye sight, nerve pain and pressure.

Novo Nordisk faces a new lawsuit brought by a Missouri woman, who alleges that injections of the diabetes drug Ozempic permanently damaged her vision and significantly impaired her quality of life, leaving her with a condition known as non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION.

The complaint (PDF) was filed by Judy Mawhiney late last month in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, joining a growing number of former users of the popular diabetes drug now pursuing damages from Novo Nordisk, alleging that the drug manufacturer failed to adequately warn that side effects of Ozempic may cause sudden and permanent vision changes, including blindness.

Ozempic, Wegovy Vision Loss Lawsuits

With millions of Americans now taking or having taken GLP-1 medications, a concerning trend has emerged with users of Ozempic, Wegovy and similar medications reporting that they have been diagnosed with NAION, a rare eye condition that can cause sudden and potentially permanent vision loss.

In a study published earlier this month in JAMA Ophthalmology, researchers found that individuals treated with Ozempic, Wegovy or any semaglutide-based medication faced approximately twice the risk of developing NAION compared to those using SGLT2 inhibitor diabetes drugs.

As research continues to suggest a potential causal link, Ozempic and Wegovy NAION lawsuits are now being filed nationwide, each alleging that manufacturers failed to adequately warn about the risk of optic nerve injuries and resulting vision loss.

Given the growing number of claims, all federal GLP-1 vision loss lawsuits were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in January. U.S. District Judge Karen Marston has been assigned to oversee coordinated discovery into whether the medications increase the risk of NAION and is expected to prepare a group of representative cases for early bellwether trials.

Ozempic Vision Loss After Several Months of Use

According to the complaint, Mawhiney’s doctor first prescribed her Ozempic in February 2024, for glucose control and to help with weight loss. However, she was only on the medication for a few months before her vision was permanently damaged, the lawsuit indicates.

Signs of a problem first emerged in July 2024, when Mawhiney visited her ophthalmologist after noticing a smudge in the lower portion of her visual field. She was subsequently diagnosed with NAION. Although she was advised in early August to discontinue Ozempic, she continued to experience worsening vision in her left eye, along with a sensation of increasing pressure.

“Plaintiff continues to suffer from significantly decreased vision in her left eye with blurry vision, which negatively affects her daily life including her job. As a result of using Ozempic, Plaintiff was caused to suffer from Non-Arteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy OS and its sequelae, which resulted in blurry vision, visual disturbance, optic nerve swelling, and nerve pain.”

– Judy Mawhiney v. Novo Nordisk Inc. et al

Mawhiney’s lawsuit indicates she suffered the injuries because Novo Nordisk failed to warn her or the medical community that Ozempic injections could result in blurred vision and vision loss. She argues that the manufacturer has known about the potential risk for years due to studies that have linked semaglutide to NAION but instead decided to place profits over patient safety.

She presents claims of failure to warn, design defect, negligent failure to warn, negligence, negligent misrepresentation and marketing, breach of warranty, and violations of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.

GLP-1 Stomach Paralysis Lawsuits

As the number of lawsuits alleging NAION-related vision loss continues to grow, a separate group of plaintiffs are also filing a series of GLP-1 lawsuits over gastrointestinal injuries allegedly linked to Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and others.

Those cases are being brought by individuals who claim the drugs caused gastroparesis side effects such as severe vomiting, intestinal blockages and other digestive complications. 

The gastrointestinal injury claims have also been consolidated into their own multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge Karen Marston in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, separate from the NAION vision loss proceedings.

Judge Marston has indicated that the court plans to select a small group of representative cases as bellwether trials in the GLP-1 stomach paralysis litigation, allowing the parties to gauge how juries may respond to evidence and testimony likely to recur across thousands of similar claims. The court is expected to follow a similar bellwether process in the Ozempic NAION vision loss lawsuits.

While the outcomes of these trials will not be binding on other claims, they will be closely watched to see what kinds of payouts juries award to plaintiffs, which are likely to have a significant impact on negotiations. However, if no settlement is reached following the bellwether trials, Judge Marston is likely to remand the cases back to their originating districts for individual trial dates.

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