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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
It’s not for the needle-shy.The drugs are sold in vials, and users reconstitute the powder in sterile water, suck the substance into a syringe, stick the needle under their skin, and blast it into their body.These are peptides, short chains of amino acids that, when made naturally in the body, serve a wide range of functions, including stimulating the release of human growth hormone to build muscle and repair injury. Olympic athletes, bodybuilders, and major leaguers have sought out synthetic versions or variants of peptides, easily manufactured in a lab, in an attempt to speed recovery from injury and gain a competitive edge.Regulators have a word for it: doping.The Markup found 66 listings for peptides available for sale on Amazon in August and September, even though the company bans injectable drugs and told The Markup in May it would start cracking down on peptide listings. The peptides we found are not on the FDA’s approved drug list, and it is illegal to sell misbranded or unapproved new drugs. Several are classified as doping drugs by the World Anti-Doping Agency.We found sellers by the likes of Paradigm Peptides, whose Facebook posts include bulky bodybuilders and a claim that its peptide is best for “weight lifting,” Pharma Grade Peptides, which offered $120 vials of peptides from a business connected to a Los Angeles home that recently sold for $2.5 million, and Quality Research Chemicals, which offered an array of peptides from a signless storefront neighboring an insurance agent in Oklahoma City.While almost every peptide listing claimed to be for “research” purposes or “lab” use, reviews and product questions for at least 18 listings clearly showed people were taking it themselves—which experts say is dangerous.After showing Amazon our findings, company spokesperson Mary Kate McCarthy said the listings were “allowed in our store for laboratory or research use only and not for human injection or consumption,” despite the evidence of human consumption that we presented to the contrary. “We do not sanction customer misuse or abuse of products,” McCarthy said. “However, out of an abundance of caution, we decided to no longer allow these products and have been removing them since, as we have in this case.”Every one of the listings has since come down. McCarthy did not comment on how many vials had been sold before the company took action. ↩︎ linkFrom Experimental Racehorse Drug to Amazon.com While the peptides we found are not FDA approved, early enthusiasts believe the drugs may soon replace certain prescriptions, hacking into the body’s innate healing chemistry.Medical researchers are examining peptides for many possible applications. Researchers are studying the efficacy of synthetic peptides to assist in-vitro fertilization, reduce body weight in patients predisposed to obesity and for
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