WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Tuesday the Trump administration aims to expand access to peptides by creating a regulated marketplace for the drugs promoted by social media influencers and by the health secretary.
They have attracted consumers in a gray market, bolstered by social media claims for a host of unproven uses, and with scant safety and efficacy evidence from human studies.
"Americans are going to be buying these anyway. Our objective was
to make sure that there is a regulated marketplace, so that what they're getting is what they claim to be, that is safe, that the factories are inspected," Kennedy said in an interview on Fox News' "The Will Cain Show."
Kennedy's comments were in response to a question about a proposed policy change that the FDA submitted on Thursday to the White House for review. The proposal could make it easier for pharmacies to compound certain peptides.
Outside advisers to the FDA had recommended in July that the agency loosen restrictions on six of seven peptides under review, including the popular BPC-157, against the guidance of Food and Drug Administration staff.
Peptides, which are being used for everything from pain to muscle growth and injury recovery and as a beauty aid despite the lack of scientific evidence of their efficacy, have been promoted widely on social media, and by Kennedy himself.
They are built from short chains of amino acids, the same building blocks the body uses to make proteins.
The ones under consideration have not been approved by the FDA as safe or effective. Compounding pharmacies are allowed to mix ingredients of approved medicines in specialized doses and under other circumstances, such as drug shortages.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
