Whether we like it or not, the peptide craze is massive right now. From semaglutide to NAD+ and hundreds more, even your faithful correspondent has been known to tinker with these amino acid compounds that pledge anything from more energy to rapid weight loss. Don’t worry, I’m not on the Ozempic. I love eating too much for that. But there is much to be said for some of these recent discoveries. I love my NAD, which is extremely useful for my energy levels. Anyone who knows me consistently comments on my ability to work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. So I use all the legitimate shortcuts I can get.
But as I’ve begun researching the origins of some of these compounds, I’ve stumbled upon a dark but predictable pitfall: Chinese knock-offs.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), I’ve found, is dithering around right now issuing warning letters, while Communist China is flooding America with illegal drug ingredients, fueling a black market of compounded weight-loss injections that could put Western lives at risk. Even one of my own NAD+ nasal sprays, which I thought was from a reliable U.S. supplier, turned out to be a Chinese-origin compound. It went straight into the garbage after that.
What’s happening is clearly no accident. It exploits weak enforcement and massive demand — a vacuum the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has always been ecstatic to fill, across various sectors. Now they appear to be doing it through U.S.-based compounders and telehealth grifters who ignore the law and mix unauthorized drugs with unverified, frequently non-sterile materials.
A good case study is tirzepatide, the main ingredient in something called Zepbound, used for weight loss and sleep apnea. After a two-year shortage, the FDA declared the supply stabilized in December. That should have ended compounding, which is only allowed when a drug is in short supply. Instead, rogue operators are still selling knockoff versions. When the FDA gave them a March 19 deadline to stop, they ignored it.
Semaglutide—the base for Ozempic—is next. The same players are already dismissing the FDA’s cutoff, which is actually today, May 22. Court orders are toothless, as they know the agency lacks the spine to enforce its own rulings. This isn’t civil disobedience. It’s lawlessness—and it really could put people in danger.
The Partnership for Safe Medicines recently noted that compounders import “suspicious, unauthorized, and illegal ingredients,” many of them from China. Remember, this is the same CCP that’s already smuggled fentanyl into America, pumped flavored vapes into schoolyards, and now sees a gold rush in unregulated “weight-loss drugs.” It’s exploitation disguised as commerce.
These drugs aren’t just illegal — they’re unsafe. Tirzepatide and semaglutide are injectables. They must be sterile. I should know, having tried many of the injectable NAD options in recent months. It’s nothing to take lightly or haphazardly. However, shipments from China have arrived as non-sterile liquids. That’s a threat to patient safety. The FDA has long warned that using non-sterile ingredients in compounded injectables can be “serious and potentially life-threatening.”
In 2012, 64 Americans were killed in a fungal meningitis outbreak linked to a Massachusetts compounder making injectable pain meds under filthy conditions. That disaster should have been a wake-up call. Instead, it may be a prequel.
The FDA has already logged more than 700 adverse events from these compounded weight-loss drugs, including 100 hospitalizations and 10 confirmed deaths. Those numbers, by the way, are likely undercounts.
With no oversight or consistency in dosages, patients are blindly injecting whatever arrives in the mail — and hoping for the best.
FDA-approved drugs are more expensive. Big Pharma has Big Problems. But at least these products are tested, traceable, and can be held to account. Compounders, contrarily, fly under the radar, work around safety protocols, and open the door to chaos.
Eli Lilly, Roche, and Regeneron are all currently investing in American facilities (thank you, President Trump) with at least some semblance of responsibility. In a post-COVID world, the idea of having more drugs in the U.S. supply with little to no accountability as to their origin baffles me.
The MAGA movement has the chance to shut the door on China here. President Trump’s efforts to rebuild domestic manufacturing and reassert American health sovereignty are underway. But that means encouraging U.S. production, enforcing the law, and choking off the Chinese pipeline of counterfeit precursors.
Dodgy compounding operations need to be shut down, and their suppliers exposed. Americans should stop playing chemical roulette with mystery injections made from foreign substances. The CCP isn’t going to stop trying to poison you for profit. They’ve found the loophole.
This isn’t just some boring regulatory issue I stumbled upon—it’s a national security and a personal health issue. We should never be forced to gamble on ingredients smuggled in from a hostile regime. And no foreign adversary should profit from an inability or unwillingness to enforce American laws.
