questions
RFK Jr. boosts peptides, but is skeptical of vaccines. Why?
Camille MacMillin/STAT
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his supporters like to make health choices that feel natural — think “eat real food” and the overall emphasis on nutrition and vitamins over vaccines. But one of Kennedy’s favored interventions is not like the others: experimental drugs known as peptides.
Mainstream public health experts warn that peptides haven’t been sufficiently studied for efficacy or potential side effects like cancer risk. Kennedy, on the other hand, said he’s used them himself and indicated that the FDA would make them more accessible. STAT’s Sarah Todd dug into this apparent contradiction. Read more from her on medical libertarianism, powerful podcast bros, folk pharmacology, and more. And if you aren’t sure exactly what peptides even are? Sarah’s got you covered there, too.
first opinion
Children in psychosis need more help
As Liz Koch’s 13-year-old son descended into psychosis, the health care he received often felt less like treatment than like a temporary transfer of responsibility. And the direction of the transfer, consistently, shifted from professionals and experts toward her. “Asking parents to generate solutions after exhausting all known options is not partnership,” Koch writes in a new First Opinion essay. “It is system failure disguised as collaboration.”
Read more on Koch’s frustrating, scary experience within a flawed pediatric health care system, and what she thinks needs to change.
shopping
Raw Farm finally issues a recall
Remember last week, when I told you about the raw dairy farm that was refuting its connection to an E. coli outbreak? The FDA asked the business, Raw Farm, for weeks to recall its unpasteurized cheese products while the agency investigated the outbreak. The farm refused until last Thursday. Cheddar cheese products are the focus of the recall, as federal health agencies noted that raw milk from last year should no longer be on shelves.
“This Voluntary Recall is being performed under protest,” a company announcement posted Friday by the FDA read. If you take a scroll through Raw Farm’s Instagram stories, you can tell they mean it. The business continues to share posts from customers buying its (non-cheese) products. On Friday, it also reposted a political cartoon of a bumbling, sweating man wearing an “FDA agent” pin examining a block of raw cheese, while a fuel truck dumps out orange Kraft Heinz “pasteurized cheese product” full of wrenches, screws, and forks behind him. A masked journalist labeled both Ars Technica and “schooled media” takes notes by the truck.
