Health experts have cautioned against use of the drugs, citing a lack of clinical trials for humans and the unknown long-term effects.
Page H15From§Eachthe evening edition — 29 October 2026
FDA sent the peptide plan to the White House two weeks before Kennedy called it new policy.
As it ran on the front
The protection that a drug prove itself safe in a human being before it is sold to one has died quietly, and the agency that killed it has an alibi ready: it was already busy answering a different hypocrisy charge.
On October 15, the Food and Drug Administration forwarded its peptide "interim access policy" to the White House for review, a filing that would let compounding pharmacies produce and sell drugs previously held back for lack of human testing. Four days later, on October 19, Donald Trump signed an executive order on women's health, promoted by Melania Trump, establishing a new Women's Health Division at the National Institutes of Health.…
…(cont) Ten days after that signature, on October 29, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the step the FDA had already queued: he moved to expand access to peptide drugs promoted for wellness, drugs that, per the wire reports, have not finished clinical trials in human subjects. The policy's own calendar is the obituary. Fourteen days from an internal filing to a public announcement, for drugs sold as wellness; a different clock, measured in years, still runs for the diseases that disproportionately affect women.
BBC News reported that health experts have cautioned against the drugs, citing a lack of clinical trials for humans and unknown long-term effects.
The old rule was not complicated. A drug proved itself first, on paper, in a trial, before it reached a shelf. It is survived by the paper trail that replaced it: an interim policy forwarded to the White House on October 15; a Women's Health Division signed into being four days later; and, ten days after that, a secretary who had unveiled price transparency on October 5 clearing a path for drugs with no human trial behind them.
Call it malarkey or call it policy; the paperwork does not care which word you use, and neither, it turns out, does the agency.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that before the next wellness peptide reaches a compounding pharmacy's shelf, somebody run the human trial first.
“They had this peptide plan sitting at the White House two full weeks before the health secretary stood up and called it new — that's not a policy rollout, that's a paper trail catching up to a press conference. The same month they're announcing a women's health order, they're still cutting women's health funding with the other hand. Nobody tested these peptides on a human being first, and the guy running your health department just told the drugstores to go ahead.”
“Look, this is about cutting red tape so patients get access to innovative wellness options faster — the agency's just streamlining, not skipping anything, it's an "interim" policy, which is a totally different thing from "untested"... actually, is it? Did I say interim? That's not landing the way I wanted.”
The receipts
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took steps on Wednesday that could expand access to some unapproved drugs called peptides, which are being promoted for wellness.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took steps Wednesday that could open up access to certain unapproved peptide drugs that are being promoted for wellness.
· FDA advances peptide push to White House from the morgue, 15 Oct 2026
· 'Blatant Hypocrisy': Trump Signs Executive Order on Women’s Health—While Attacking Women's Health from the morgue, 19 Oct 2026
· Watch live: RFK Jr., Trump officials unveil health care price transparency push from the morgue, 5 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.