During his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared his personal experience with peptides and discussed the regulatory challenges surrounding these treatments.
During the conversation, Rogan mentionedg Jelly Roll’s physical transformation before pivoting to peptides. He asked: “Where are we at right now on peptides and getting them regulated and making sure it’s not this weird gray area because we know they’re effective but we also know that there’s a lot of push back on peptides.”
Kennedy did not hesitate to share his position. He stated: “I’m a big fan of peptides. I’ve used them myself and used them with really good effect on a couple of injuries.”
Kennedy then went on to explain the complex regulatory situation that has created problems in the peptide market. He described how there was previously a law allowing compounding pharmacies to make treatments that were part of approved drugs for individual patients who needed specific formulations.
“The compounding pharmacies and peptides was part of that group. There were 19 peptides that were widely formulated by compounding pharmacies during the Biden administration,” Kennedy said.
According to Kennedy, the Biden administration illegally moved these 19 peptides to category 2, which designates them as “do not formulate.” He emphasized this was done without proper justification: “It was illegal because they’re not supposed to do that unless there’s a safety signal. And they didn’t have a safety signal. They’re not allowed to look at efficacy. They’re not allowed to say, ‘Well, we don’t believe these are efficacious or whatever.’ They can only look at safety.”
Kennedy explained that when the legal market disappeared, “a black market came out and the black market is run by companies that say that they’re making the peptides for animal use or for research purposes.” He noted that this black market “basically completely replaced the legal market.”
The quality difference between legal and illegal sources concerns Kennedy greatly. “The legal market for peptides, the compounding pharmacies were getting those peptides from FDA inspected facilities and some of them in India and China but they were the same one that the pharma industries are buying them and we inspect those. You’re getting a good product. You know, you’re getting what you bought, what you what was advertised with the gray market. You have no idea.”
Kennedy stated his intention to restore access to peptides through proper channels: “I’m very anxious to move not probably not all of those peptides. Some of them are in litigation, but about 14 of them back to making them more accessible.”
He indicated that action was imminent: “FDA is in the middle of, I think within a couple of weeks we will have announced some kind of new action. And my hope is that they’re going to end up with, they’re still looking at the science. My hope is that they’re going to get moved to a place where people have access from ethical suppliers.”
