by Christian Duque
We’ve known the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was coming for peptides for a long time. Peptides are nothing more than chains of amino acids that can improve the quality of life for athletes of all stripes. Everyone I know uses them, from physique-based athletes to strength competitors.
They can help with recovery, pain management, gaining size and helping others lose weight. There are practically no risks than I’m aware of, but let me stress that I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist or a researcher, and I didn’t go to school for nutrition, etc. I’m just an everyday kind of guy. I like to train, I sometimes like to diet down, and I love bodybuilding.
I can only speak to what I know to be the case for me. And what I know is that a great many people I know use BPC157, MK677, and many others. I’ve never heard anyone say they’ve had any issues. It’s not even like with prohormones where folks complained of nasty bloats or lactation. It’s not like gear, where users complained of acne or baldness.
Peptides are about the most harmless aides I’ve ever come across in the industry. They’ve been around for well over a decade and a half and I still haven’t heard of any horror stories. That doesn’t mean people haven’t had bad reactions or even done themselves irreparable harm – it just means I don’t know of anyone who has and haven’t heard anything. That is noteworthy, however, because we live in an age where everyone has social media and everyone has a voice. If peptides were dangerous, we would have heard about it by now.
So if no one is complaining and no one is sounding off, then could it be that no one has had any really bad experiences? And if that’s the case why are our grayhaired elected officials in Washington D.C. burning the midnight oil coming up with legislation to make these compounds illegal. Why is the FDA with its vast regulatory power trying to stop pharmacies from compounding peptides that help countless individuals. And mind you, some of these peptides are being administered by licensed healthcare professionals.
There’s medical doctors who are sounding off. There’s doctors who are taking great exception with the FDA for creating conditions where they can’t prescribe their patients peptide therapies that will dramatically improve the quality of their life. And why is the FDA doing this? Because peptides may pose risks. It’s not that peptides will pose them – it’s merely because they may.
Why else could the alphabet agencies take such an interest in hindering the ability of law abiding citizens from getting their hands on inexpensive supplements that work? It couldn’t be because pain management, weight loss, and strength gains aides could be acquired cheaply, couldn’t it? I mean who are they hurting?
If people battling muscle-wasting illnesses or walking around eating Advils can use fractions of amino acid chains to no longer double over in pain or gain mass instead of withering away needlessly – who’s it hurting? If peptides aren’t leading to a long list of side effects and aren’t sending people to the hospital draining their insurance policies or compromising the number of doctors or medical services, what’s the problem?
Profits might be the root cause of the FDA’s war on peptides. And it’s not even that money isn’t going into government coffers, rather, its not going into Big Pharma’s.
What people need to understand is that we live in a capitalist country. I’m not here to say that communism is the way to go but when you live in a society that’s driven by profits you come to find out that modern medicine is not purely concerned with saving lives as much as it is with lining its pockets. This is why in Cuba there is a lung cancer drug that costs one dollar but you will never see it for that price here in the United States or in Western Europe. This is because the pharmaceutical industry needs to make money and they’re not going to bankroll a medication that costs the same as a can of Coca-Cola. They’re going to drive the prices up through the roof and they’re going to keep it from going generic for a number of years until they have made enough money to pay their stockholders hefty dividends. If tons of people die waiting, oh well, that’s OK because at the end of the day it’s all about making rich people richer.
And this is the problem with peptides. What do you think Big Pharma would rather see: growth hormone that costs so much money only a select few can use it or MK 677 which is available to all at a nominal price?
I’m not saying that MK 677 works as well as synthetic growth hormone, but it offers a viable alternative at a fraction of the price. They cannot stand to allow MK 677 to compete with synthetic growth hormone. Even though it is at a much lower level, they cannot stand to lose even a cent. And the reality of the matter is there have been rave reviews for this peptide, and they want to kill it. So what do they do? They recruit their friends on Capitol Hill and the alphabet agencies. After all, it can be argued that they own them anyways.
The one good thing about the ban is that it seems to be a low priority for now. And as long as that is the case, I would imagine peptides will continue to be readily available for doctors to prescribe their patients. But a time will come when that may not be so and what’s to come is what always is to come.
These bans don’t stop people from using supplements that work. It merely pushes them into the arms of the black market. Once someone who has been in perpetual pain finds a way to live a better life they’re not suddenly going to simply stop because Washington tells them to. They have already discovered a better life. Do you think they are just going to go back to living in pain because bureaucrats tell them to?
Hell no!
And the big problem with the black market is, there’s no quality control. How many times can you buy a supplement with a picture of a rat on it that says not for human consumption? You’re playing with your health. And why?
This is a big part of the problem. The alphabet agencies are second-guessing the expertise of medical doctors. They are getting in the way of licensed healthcare professionals directing the treatment of their patients quite possibly because they are doing the bidding of the big pharmaceutical companies. Perhaps you think I am simply dishing out conspiracy theories, but you never know. Sometimes the truth can be found in the strangest places. But I digress.
At the end of the day we are all free to believe in what we want. And perhaps my skepticism rolls off your shoulders. Perhaps it doesn’t. But as I said from the beginning of this article I have been in this industry for over 20 years. If something is harmful, word gets out and spreads like wildfire. As of today, I have not heard anyone say peptides caused them any major health complications and I have not heard of a single person that has died. Therefore, in my humble opinion, there is no legitimate reason for why the government is cracking down on otherwise safe supplements. But you be the judge.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading my article here at IronMagazine. Is this witchhunt nothing more than Big Pharma looking out for its interests or is the FDA truly concerned with the health and well-being of the people? You decide.
