I was listening to a podcast recently in which a woman I respect talked about taking peptides. I have no idea which peptides she is gobbling or how she’s getting them, but she does look really good lately.
For a moment, I thought: Will these short chains of amino acids make my skin better or build muscle more efficiently or help me feel less tired, somehow? Sometimes I click through one of the many telehealth ads that I see every day and clock how many drugs I can load into my cart and seemingly purchase with no friction — just a smooth tap on a clean square.
I sometimes find it hard to resist what Big Wellness has to offer, even as I have been critical of an American system that allows so many drugs and supplements to be advertised without adequate disclosures and dispensed with the slightest nod to proper medical approval. I am not immune to the allure of an injection that promises the Fountain of Youth or the minor relief of knowing that the drugs are there, should I ever choose to take them.
The deep satisfaction of a consumer choice can feel like a form of agency, and that is the kind of medical freedom, free from government interventions, that our federal health apparatus wants to offer us all right now. As my newsroom colleagues Christina Jewett and Dana G. Smith explain, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration “recommended broader use of six unproven peptides, raising concerns that wellness and telehealth companies could adopt a once-obscure pathway to bring unapproved drugs to the commercial market.”
If adopted, the recommendation would allow compounding pharmacies, which create customized medications, to sell these six peptides. This goes against the advice of the F.D.A.’s own scientists, who advised the panel against increasing public access, as there’s not strong evidence that these peptides are safe or effective. The advisory committee is also tainted by conflicts of interest, as many of its members would probably profit off these peptides hitting the market.
Alec Ginsberg, a New York City pharmacist who writes a frequently funny and always informative newsletter called Drugstore Cowboy, described how the lack of appropriate gatekeeping at the F.D.A. is not an enduring form of liberty. Once these peptides are available via seemingly reputable businesses, he argues, they will take on the veneer of respectability, and their experimental nature will be obscured. Further:
“Medical freedom” is an appealing slogan because it allows everyone to hear whatever they want. Patients hear “autonomy.” Doctors hear “discretion.” Businesses hear “a large and lightly regulated market.” Freedom, however, does not erase the obligation to produce evidence. A patient can choose among treatments, decline treatment or accept greater risk after being properly informed. Those choices still depend on having some reliable understanding of what a substance does.
While some are happy to bear the unexplored risks of this flavor of medical freedom, the darker consequences of an underregulated public health environment are everywhere this summer. The recent cyclosporiasis outbreak, which has sickened thousands of people, has revealed how underfunded our food disease surveillance systems are. The federal government slashed requested funding by around 60 percent to states meant for monitoring and detecting food-related outbreaks. As a result of ongoing fears of cyclosporiasis, Americans are avoiding some types of fresh produce. (As one food safety expert told The Times, “Quite honestly, I don’t have time in my life for explosive diarrhea.” Honestly, same.)
In July the United States logged its highest number of measles cases since 1991. A majority of the infected are unvaccinated children. State legislators introduced over 200 bills so far this year that would weaken vaccination requirements. “The bills challenged every part of the system that states rely on to vaccinate the public, from the pamphlets patients receive before getting a shot to the requirements schools, day care centers and employers can implement,” The Times noted.
While only nine of these bills became law, supporters of the anti-vaccine branch of the medical freedom movement show no signs of slowing down. And why would they? They appear to have the support of the president, who The Wall Street Journal reports is pushing the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to continue to research the connection between vaccines and autism, even though that connection has been thoroughly researched for decades and debunked.
Freedom, by their definition, appears to mean that we are all more exposed to more disease and premature death. As individuals, we are now more anxious at the grocery store, inspecting the farm where our produce is grown or opting out of lettuce for an indefinite time because our choices have been curtailed by outbreaks. Some parents are rushing to get their newborns vaccinated for measles earlier than the typical and recommended 12 months because infants are especially vulnerable to the disease, and many people are having to tussle to get a Covid shot under the confusing guidelines outlined last year.
Too much risk and responsibility are being left to us. If we throw some peptides in our virtual shopping cart, we don’t really know if they will give us a desired glow-up or could help cancer cells grow.
The vials look so shiny in all the pictures on the direct-to-consumer websites. It feels wonderful to close the browser and walk away while I still can.
End Notes
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My husband and I have been rewatching the comedy “Party Down” before bed. The show had two brief, perfect seasons in 2009 and 2010. (There was a third season in 2023, but we prefer the vintage episodes.) The show is about a crew of caterers in Los Angeles who are struggling actors, writers and momagers and are very bad at serving food. Everybody’s broke — the vibe is very Great Recession — which feels appropriate in this moment. Adam Scott is particularly wonderful as the protagonist, Henry, who once had some success as an actor but quit after years of rejection. He pulls off depressed but still charming better than anybody else.
Feel free to drop me a line about anything here.
The post If This Is Medical Freedom, Why Do I Feel Trapped? appeared first on New York Times.
