Doctor breaks down peptide safety

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]While you may have seen this on your social media feed, peptides, they're the latest craze with people touting their alleged biohacking effects. Some also use them for weight loss, but now some health officials are telling medical professionals to stop prescribing or dispensing certain ones. On Tuesday, the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners issued an alert to doctors reminding them that research grade peptides, ones that are not FDA approved, have not been tested, reviewed, or determined to be safe for human use. The board says doctors in the state are not permitted to administer these drugs under any circumstances. So, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Celine Gounder joins us now. She's also the editor-at-large for Public Health at KFF Health News.

[00:00:39]So, Dr., what are peptides and what are the concerns with using them? Peptides are small chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. So, your body synthesizes these naturally. For example, insulin is a peptide. They can also be synthesized by pharmaceutical companies. So, for example, Ozempic is a peptide. Those are FDA-approved drugs, Ozempic and so on. But, there's a whole other group of peptides that have not been tested or approved for use in people. So, they're sold online. They're labeled for research use only, and people are injecting them for weight loss, for muscle, for bulking up, for anti-aging purposes.

[00:01:19]Alabama is one of many states now, over a dozen states, that have said to doctors, "Stop prescribing these. These are not safe."

[00:01:27]The FDA had previously sent out warning letters as well, and at least one doctor is already facing federal charges. So, some so-called wellness influencers are pushing these on social media. You mentioned some of the reasons why. Why are they doing this and why is this a problem? So, just last night I actually searched TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to see what had been posted about this in the past month. I found more than 400 videos promoting peptide injections with over 14 million views, and a lot of the people posting aren't just fans. They're making money off of this. So, they sign up as affiliates for peptide sellers and then they post before and after videos and include a discount code. And every sale earns them a cut. So, what looks like a personal story is actually an advertisement.

[00:02:15]So, let's also talk about whether state and local agencies are on the same page as the federal government. Are you finding that they are or is there a disconnect here?

[00:02:25]>> Well, it's interesting. Health Secretary Kennedy has actually said he's a big fan of peptides. He's used them himself.

[00:02:31]He's pushing the FDA to loosen restrictions on the use of peptides and in fact there's going to be an FDA panel meeting in July to consider this.

[00:02:39]This has also become a cause in the medical freedom, biohacking, anti-aging world.

[00:02:45]But at a conference in Las Vegas last year, two women who got peptide injections ended up on ventilators, so breathing machines. And unfortunately, in testing that has been done by the FDA and others, many of these vials contain contaminants and even sometimes not even the drug that they say they have in the vial.

[00:03:04]Okay, Dr. Slinkard, thank you.