Jodi Lee: Hello, and welcome to COVID, a podcast that helps you figure out what's going on in the news and how you feel about it.

Annie Pullar: Here to guide you through the biggest stories of the week, we are your hosts, journalists, I'm Annie Puller and this is Jodie Lee.

Jodi Lee: On this week's episode of COVID, we dive into

Annie Pullar: Australia's cash rate has hit an 18-year high as David Jones plunges into administration and thousands of jobs are on the chopping block.

Jodi Lee: The midterm elections in the United States have dealt a devastating blow to the Republican Party and to President Donald Trump.

Annie Pullar: And the peptides craze has turned deadly, why there's an urgent push to restrict the unapproved substances. But first let's go to our honorable mentions. These are the stories that don't quite warrant a deep dive, but are worth getting your head across this week.

Jodi Lee: Yes, and the very first story is that the Sydney Swans have again been forced to defend their culture, announcing this week that an external company has been brought in to conduct a cultural review. It comes after senior player Tom Papley tested positive in a roadside drug test. He was pulled over after receiving a parking fine and failing to pay his registration only to test positive to methamphetamine. A second sample has now been taken, and it's expected that those results could take. up to four weeks to come back. Papley is due to face court. Obviously this all comes on the back of the Pullman five, that is, five Sydney Swans players who were accused of sex assault allegations after a wild night of partying at Melbourne's Pullman Hotel.

Annie Pullar: Mmm, it is not a positive development. but moving on, experts in the US actually believe human error could be to blame for the horrific plane crash that killed all nine people on board. You have no doubt heard that really distressing Mayday call as that private jet nosedived into a mobile home park, killing a tech entrepreneur, his young family, two of their friends, and also their nanny. Aviation experts have now told the New York Post that the pilots flew straight. straight into a really hectic storm instead of going around it, and ice likely built up on the aircraft's wings. When they tried to climb out of it or get around the storm, the plane apparently stalled and plummeted, and investigators have also found parts of the tail broke off before that plane hit the ground.

Jodi Lee: Incredibly tragic. our third honourable mention this week is that Sam Wood, the disgraced former Bachelor Star, is making yet another attempt for bail. His team is set to apply to the Queensland Court of Appeal to have him released before his case goes to trial. His legal team argues that the court didn't take into account just how long he could send he could spend in pre trial custody and didn't consider the conditions that could be put in place on his bail to mitigate any risk of re offending. Sam Wood case will return to Queensland's Court of Appeal in two weeks' time. By that point he would have spent six weeks locked up in a maximum security prison over domestic violence charges.

Annie Pullar: Jesus, a third attempt for bail. We'll be watching that one closely, but... I don't even know how to start this first story. I feel like it has been such a doom and gloom week across the country. We have had yet another cash rate hike taking us to an 18-year high. And also the blame game around this between the federal government and the RBA has erupted. The Reserve Bank has essentially come out and said this week that the problem goes much deeper than surging oil prices and the war and around, but We probably want to park that because we'll get to that blame game very soon. I think we want to talk about what's happening to retail, to businesses in our country at the moment, because it really looks and feels like we're in the the midst of a recession.

Jodi Lee: Absolutely, and you only have to look at the pictures that were coming out of David Jones stores right across the country today to say that it more than feels like a recession. I dare say it looks like one too. I was really

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: shocked to see that people were filming on their phones. Australian retailers going into DJs and pulling their stock off mannequins, pulling it off shelves. The likes of, you know, Victoria and Woods, Zimmerman, just packing boxes on the floor of David Jones stores that were still open to the public. It's because that David Jones went into voluntary administration today. The store that is 188 years old actually employs more than 6,000 people, and now many of their jobs are hanging in the balance. They had the store had been in negotiations with Centre Group, which owns Westfield, trying to renegotiate the terms of a lot of its leases. They couldn't come to an agreement, so the decision was made to put the business into administration.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and the warning signs had been rattling around for the last few weeks because a lot of stockers, the the businesses that supply DJs, had reported that, you know, the company was defaulting on payment plans and David Jones now owes businesses, small businesses across the country, hundreds of thousands of dollars and still no word if any of them are gonna get paid. But it's probably important to point out that this isn't just affecting the retail market. You may have also heard Canva, that's the Australian company behind the hugely popular design platform that we use here on Covered has announced a restructure of its own, and that's set to affect more than 1,200 employees. To put that into perspective, that is 22% of Canvas workforce. So not all these people are apparently going to be losing their jobs, but it is an enormous shake-up for an Australian company that has largely been considered a success story. And even the founder came out this week, her name Melanie Perkins, and she described it as one of the hardest moments in the company's history.

Jodi Lee: Yeah, it's two separate industries that rather than expanding and growing are effectively shrinking at the same time given Australia's economic kind of Outlook. And it is pretty bleak. That's what brings us back to the Reserve Bank of Australia. So we've talked about the RBA a lot. At their board meeting on Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday of this week, the board voted not unanimously, I should say, but there was a majority vote to raise the cash rate for a fifth time this year. So the cash rate is now sitting at 4.85%. And that is because the Reserve Bank believes that Australia's economy is still running too hot. There's still too much steam in the economy. Even the governor, Michelle Bullock, actually announced that Australians will start to feel like we are in a recession because we are effectively getting poorer, which is a pretty dire situation to be in, to have her have her sort of call out as well. Unemployment, which speaks to the DJs and the Canvas situation you just mentioned, is now at 4.7% compared with about 4.3% late last year. So unemployment is up. And the Reserve Bank expects unemployment to still climb further to about 5.1% by the end of 2028. So the bank is slowing down the economy, knowing full well that more and more Australians are in the firing line to lose their jobs.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and we have more and more of them now sitting out of work. But if we bring it back to households, what people are going to be experiencing at home, for mortgage holders, this is, I think it's an understatement to say it's another significant blow. These five consecutive cash rate hikes have added roughly $530 a month to repayments. So that's on a $700,000 mortgage. That's more than $6,000 a year. And it sounds maybe from the outset like it's not that bad, but when you consider that we are paying more for everything in our life at the moment, fuel, groceries, travel, expenses, this is a huge hit to particularly families who have forecasted and budgeted for you know the properties that they live in. Mortgage repayments, according to the Australian Financial Review this week, now take up to 37.4% of a typical household income, which is just it's

Jodi Lee: It's insane.

Annie Pullar: It's wild to me. that's that's almost 40% of someone's income. It's apparently almost matching the records that we saw back in 1989. Like I struggle to reconcile with how how much of a chunk that is taking out of people's incomes.

Jodi Lee: And don't forget that back in the late 80s, early 90s, when interest rates were at a this is interest rates, not the cash rate, interest rates were at a record high of I think it was close to 17%. Interest rates now are hovering around almost 7%. So it's insane to

Annie Pullar: Hmm.

Jodi Lee: think that it's set just 7-ish percent. That's almost 40% of someone's income. But the thing for me is if DJs, let's DJs is a great example, if a major department store in Australia just literally can't pay its bills. That tells us that Australians are tightening their purse strings. Aussies are simply not shopping and spending at the rate that we once were. So The RBA says there's too much heat in the economy, but everyday Australians are now pumping almost half their wage into their mortgage alone. They don't have enough money to be shopping at places like DJ's. We're very much feeling like we're in a recession. If companies are also cutting back like Canva, it begs the question, who is doing the spending? Where is the heat coming from?

Annie Pullar: Been asking this question, I think, for several weeks now. You should see Jody and I's chat on WhatsApp. It's just like a revolving cycle of where the who the fuck's spending the money. Because you're right.

Jodi Lee: Who is it? I will find them.

Annie Pullar: We don't have these disposable incomes, but one area, and we have touched on this before, and I'm so sick of AI, I'm sick of talking about it, but it does largely come back to artificial intelligence. So companies right around the country, we're seeing data centers pop up everywhere, and they're pouring money into these massive centres that are basically these giant warehouses full of powerful, you know, technical computers that run AI. And for these computers, Computers to operate, they run off a range of things. They need, specialized computer chips, they need electricity, cooling systems, water, construction workers. So demand for all of that technology is exploding, not just here in Australia, but globally. And the RBA says that this data center boom and investment is helping keep our economy stronger than expected. So while yes, we might be cutting back our spending and we're conscious of the outgoing costs. costs, enormous amounts of money is flowing directly into a very different part of the economy. And there's a contradiction there because we largely don't see that.

Jodi Lee: Yeah, and the other thing we don't see, and this has been the elephant in the room for some time, is government spending. So and

Annie Pullar: Yes.

Jodi Lee: the RBA is expected, is expecting or forecasting that government spending is continuing to increase. It's growing, it estimates, by 3.8% this financial year. and when governments and private companies compete for the same workers and the same materials, it inevitably pushes prices higher. So The RBA is effectively intimating that a lot of the heat in the economy at the moment is coming from government spending. That's on a range of different things, but it doesn't really matter where it comes from. So the federal deficit here in Australia is forecast to hit $31.5 billion this year. That's up from $10 billion in the In the 2024-25 financial year. So it jumped from 10 billion to 31.5 billion. And for someone who might not understand what that deficit is, some of that is high interest payments and rising costs, but some of it reflects the government's own spending decision. So that's spending more than you have in the kitty.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and that's on departments from health and transport and infrastructure, all sorts of things.

Jodi Lee: On staff, on a range of different things.

Annie Pullar: but should we talk about Albow?

Jodi Lee: yeah, this is a good one.

Annie Pullar: So while essentially our economy is blowing up and we're seeing some of our oldest retailers collapse, Anthony Albanese has been overseas, in the Caribbean, I believe, for basically this Commonwealth.

Jodi Lee: Well wasn't stunning himself. Hang on, he's at a conference.

Annie Pullar: He hasn't just Ducked off to the Caribbean for some for some light tanning work. He's actually over there. He's been meeting King Charles. He's been there for this Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, which happens annually. So, he was entitled to go there, it's his job, but the optics of this have been really bad. Basically, as all of this was unraveling, Anthony Albanese came out, he did a press conference, and he said that the global conflicts were essentially causing our economic problems here back home, which is kind of in In direct contradiction to what the RBA governor Michelle Bullock said, because she came out and said the RBA was specifically responding to local pressures that existed before the war. So which one is it?

Jodi Lee: Well, you don't actually even need to ask Michelle Bullock her opinion, isn't it just obvious? The Reserve Bank

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: of Australia only has jurisdiction over what happens here in Australia. Decisions made by the RBA cannot physically impact the cost of, say, oil overseas. So they don't have that kind of jurisdiction. They can only pull certain levers, and the ones the RBA has are. it's monetary policy here in Australia. The fiscal policy side of it is what the government is doing. And I found it really interesting. So while the Prime Minister was saying, look, it's all these external global factors, Jim Chalmers, the federal treasurer, actually took a different tone. And he said, but our government's done a lot to curb spending and reign in budgets.

Annie Pullar: That would have gone down like a lead balloon. Let's have a listen.

Jodi Lee: Well have a l yet, have a listen.

Annie Pullar: I'm sorry, but the the blaming on the predecessors, I think we're past that point. And also can I just point out, didn't you just mention before that our budget deficit is 10 was it 10 million or 10 billion?

Jodi Lee: No, our budget deficit is now I think thirty one point five billion. it's forecast to

Annie Pullar: So and you

Jodi Lee: hit thirty one point five billion this year, up from ten billion in the twenty four twenty five financial year.

Annie Pullar: And he's saying there's no more fat to cut. Jim?

Jodi Lee: very girl mathy. when when my partner says, do you reckon you can save an extra hundred bucks? And I'm

Annie Pullar: Ha ha

Jodi Lee: like, I have cut in every way I possibly can. I've moved from getting my nails done weekly to fortnightly.

Annie Pullar: It's throwing the tantrum. It's the toys out of the cot and going, how dare you?

Jodi Lee: Well, it's just also, you talk a lot in news about passing the pub test. And the question is, is this

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: gonna is that gonna pass the pub test when you've got people who are at home deciding between paying for prescription medication or keeping the lights on, whether they default on their mortgage or they buy, you know, groceries this week. Like if Australians are spending close to forty percent of their income on their mortgages alone, that means that people, mortgage holders across the country are doing it incredibly tough. it's now not about the nice to have, it's about can I make ends meet. So to have the treasurer say, look, we've done everything we can, why don't you tell me how we could do this better? I think is diffic would be difficult for a lot of people to swallow.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and it's just a lot of excuses at a time that I don't think people are willing to cop them. Like people just need a clear path forward and a direction for how we're getting out of this mess. And blaming the war on Iran continually and global conflicts, I just don't think that it's convincing the Australian public right now. I mean, even in the US, their their cash rate rises have been well below what Australia has. So I don't know.

Jodi Lee: It's interesting that you talk about a clear path forward because even the RBA board was split. So six members

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: of the board voted in favor of hiking the cash rate, which is why the majority ruled on this occasion, but three wanted rates unchanged at the moment. So I don't know. I guess the the real question is how much more pressure can households deal with before we know whether this, you know, this strategy of hiking the cash rate is working at all and whether we can start to look at a potential turnaround or a way forward.

Annie Pullar: Well, it's probably a good segue to our next story because over in the US they've given a pretty clear reflection of where they sit in their economy. You have probably no doubt seen the headlines this week or heard the term midterm elections. And if you're sitting there going, what the hell has happened to Donald Trump and what does it all mean for the US and for the president, then you're definitely not alone. So basically the US president has been dealt an absolute crushing blow this week, with his conservative Republican Party losing control of the Congress to the Democrats who generally sit on the more progressive side of politics. Now, for those who are not up to speed with politics in the US, Congress is essentially America's Parliament. It's made up of the House of Representatives and also the Senate. And it's where laws are passed and debated. But what's so interesting about this midterm elections is that millions of Americans turned out to the polls. We saw pictures in every state, lineups at polling booths. Yet Trump's name wasn't even on the ballot. And that's because they weren't voting for a president. They were voting for politicians who can either help. him govern or stand in his way.

Jodi Lee: Yeah, it's quite a foreign concept, I guess, for Australians because we don't Deliver this kind of a report card on our Prime Minister halfway through his term, his or her term. So in Australia, we go to a federal election, you get to vote for a party that has its elected leader, and that's how we come to a prime minister here. You'll remember that Trump was elected for the second time in November of 2024, which gave him four years in the White House. So halfway through that presidential term, Americans basically have another say over who controls Congress. So they go to it's like a it's like a half-yearly report card, if you will. They go to the polls, it's a sense check and they get to basically

Annie Pullar: Hm, it's a sense check. Yeah.

Jodi Lee: say whether or not they're it's it's unofficially a community

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: commentary on whether or not they're happy with the direction That the the president and his party is taking the country. And I think in on this occasion we've talked a lot, well, you've heard a lot rather, and we'll go into further detail about the blue wave that swept the United States. So just quickly on background, Donald Trump, obviously a Republican president. the Republican Party is traditionally red in color, and they're traditionally on the right side of center. The Democrats are blue and they sit on the left. And so they talk about states swinging red or blue based on which w which party the winning senator has come from.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, it's actually really I love how they colour code it because it makes it really easy to digest But I think the takeaway from these midterm elections is that people in the US are not happy and they are very fed up with the way that the country is being governed. So the reason why this is such a big deal is because for the past two years, the Republicans and Donald Trump have essentially controlled the House and the Senate. And that's made it a lot easier, quite frankly, for Donald Trump to do whatever the hell he wants. He hasn't been stopped by anything or anyone. Now we've sort of seen this blue tsunami. Democrats have taken control. It means going forward, so for the next two years of Trump's term, they can block laws they don't support, they can investigate his administration, they can call inquiries on Donald Trump and they can demand answers about decisions that he makes. So, yes, while Donald Trump is still the president, he still has two years left. He could spend a lot of that time answering some very difficult questions about the decisions he's made, particularly when it comes to government spending on the war in Iran, which we know is a hotbed topic around the world.

Jodi Lee: Well, yeah, it's essentially that he's now gonna spend the next two years coming up against a great deal of opposition. But to speak about the swing against the Republicans and the swing against Donald Trump, it's really worth taking a look at the states and the numbers just to understand how drastic and severe it really has been. So there were 35 Senate seats that were up for grabs, and the Democrats only had to swing four of those or flip. Four of those seats in order to gain power. But they managed to flip so many more than that, and they flipped Republican strongholds that had been held for decades. Kansas has been a Republican state for 94 years. This week it turned blue. The other really big one is Texas. How often do you see someone from Texas kind of upheld as the quintessential all-American Republican MAGA-supporting Donald Trump fanatic? They're conservative traditionally by nature. nature and Trump won in Texas by 14 percentage points at the last election in 2024. That's a massive margin. This week, it turned blue. They elected a Democrat to the US Senate.

Annie Pullar: People were literally erupting and we're talking about a state, you're right. It is literally ground zero for the MAGA base. They're cowboy conservatives. Anyway,

Jodi Lee: Ha ha

Annie Pullar: take a listen.

Jodi Lee: just say it's really interesting we speak about the swings from red to blue what that speech or that excerpt of that speech really makes me realize is how cyclical politics is that

Annie Pullar: yeah.

Jodi Lee: The rhetoric there was so reminiscent of the Democrats pre-Trump, like the Obama, the Kamala Harris, the Biden administrations, talking about unity and peace and the power of the people. And at that time, when Donald Trump was first elected, he was the protest vote. People were unhappy with the status quo, so they swung towards the unknown and went, let's give this guy a go. Now

Annie Pullar: Yeah.

Jodi Lee: the same thing is happening, albeit against him.

Annie Pullar: Yes, you're so right. And we'll get to that soon and the reasons why so many people are turning blue. But for those who don't know who just spoke, that is James Tallarico. He's 37 years old. He's a former school teacher. He is now behind this historic Democrat Senate victory. He's a diehard Christian. He apparently campaigned on faith, fighting corruption, making life more affordable. But what's really interesting is that his opponent, his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, had Trump and Elon. Muss backing. So when you heard James Tallerico then speak about the billionaire backers, that's who he's referring to. And Ken Paxton was kind of dogged by these corruption allegations, which he's continuously denied, but he very slowly lost trust in the public there. And James Tallarico presented himself as this honest, upfront, diehard Christian who spoke directly to families who are really. really financially struggling at the moment.

Jodi Lee: It's such a juxtaposition. people voted initially for the cash of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the proposed

Annie Pullar: Yeah.

Jodi Lee: success stories, the all-American success stories, the American dream essentially. And now it seems like they're voting in The everyday American. if he's a school teacher and a devout Christian, you know, look at Michigan as well. That's where Abdul El-Said became the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. He's the son of Egyptian migrants, a former public health official who campaigned on healthcare and the cost of living. Like he's very much an everyday American who has a similar story to most to a group that was largely vilified by the Trump administration,

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: migrants. but Michigan is particularly important where El Said was elected because it's one of those states that is a swing state. So it's not traditionally Democrat or traditionally Republican. People sway and swing. Trump won Michigan in twenty twenty four, and now we're seeing that a Democrat has won.

Annie Pullar: Well, the reaction from Donald Trump has been fairly extraordinary but not surprising. Of course, his first port of call and communications after these states started swinging was Truth Social. I'll read you what he posted. He said, I wasn't on the ballot, and if I was, we would have won in a landslide. Caps lock exclamation mark. Like this man is such a sore loser that he's basically been coming out and blaming individual candidates who represent his Republican Party, who he's been sprooking over the last. few months making it about them rather than making it about himself. It's still unclear whether he's willing to work with the Democrats moving forward considering they control the House and that Senate. But one thing is for sure we are shaping up for a real roller coaster over the next two years.

Jodi Lee: Yeah, and as you said earlier, there's a number of issues that people voted on. They went to the polls angry about very specific things. When Trump was elected, Americans were really angry about the cost of living under the Biden Democratic administration. He Trump promised to bring down the cost of living. He promised to make life easier for Americans. and he really hasn't been very successful at that. Even before the midterms, he was offering people a payment of five thousand dollars apiece if the Republicans were re-elected in specific states. He was calling it a Trump dividend, but there was no clear funding plan and it would have cost more than a trillion dollars. So it's just a really enormous promise that Trump and the Republicans were offering people. while still not yet delivering on the last one that they made.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and particularly when you look at where his focus has been. we have the war playing out in Iran, he campaigned as the president that wasn't gonna get involved in conflicts. What did he do, attacked Iran, attacked the Venezuelan president. he's he's gone after trouble. And then on top of that, he's also spent an enormous amount of time funding this White House ballroom where he's put in gold plates and lavish accessories and been parading it all over social media. So you can understand why a lot of Americans are sitting there and going, hang on a second, you sold us success, you sold us a booming economy, you sold us like this futuristic world where we were all gonna Be able to thrive and now we're in the middle of a war that you promised we weren't gonna get involved in and you're spending all this money on your bloody ballroom.

Jodi Lee: Ballroom. there was an interesting point because at the end of the day, Donald Trump is still the president. So he's still the sort of chief in charge and he still makes the decisions until the end of his term in two years' time. But because the Democrats have won so convincingly, they can now hold him to account on a lot of the decisions he does make when it comes to defence. That's not to say he can't make the decisions, but he'll have a lot more questions to answer, I imagine, about armed conflicts and the situations, you know, in Venezuela, in Iran, and how he plans to bring them to some kind of resolution.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and there's an interesting lesson in all of this, bringing it back to Australia. We only just spoke about the economy here, the cost of living crisis. But this is a very clear example of, you voters showing us that they don't necessarily have to love the opposition to turn against a government. Sometimes they're just so fed up with the broken promises that they're constantly fed that they feel like there really is no other alternative. And the reality is loyalty doesn't exist in a climate when people aren't getting ahead or they don't feel seen. And I think that's what's happened in the US.

Jodi Lee: Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better myself, sister.

Annie Pullar: Okay.

Jodi Lee: on that note, let's move to our third story. I should probably say that there's

Annie Pullar: Yeah.

Jodi Lee: not a great silver lining at the end of this week's episode, but they are three really important stories that we felt were worthy of discussion. And This week, peptides have very much been back in the headlines.

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: It's not a subject matter that we've actually touched on on the podcast before, although behind the scenes we've toyed a lot with it and try asked the question of whether or not it was the right time. But this week, a more than a year after the death of Australian actor and stuntman Richard Norton, a coroner found that his death was triggered by injecting peptides. Richard Norton's death is believed to be the very first in Australia from unapproved. Peptide use. And as I mentioned, he was, you know, a very successful martial artist, an actor, and a stuntman. And he worked with some pretty big names, the likes of Chuck Norris and Margot Robbie. So it's an incredibly interesting finding that could have repercussions for the drug industry right across the country.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and he's an interesting case because I think he reflects a lot of the population who are getting older. they're losing their muscle mass, they want to retain their strength, and it sounds like that was the reason why he leant towards peptides in the first place. He was dealing with fatigue and sore shoulders after having to undergo two reconstructions. And apparently he went to a doctor, had blood tests, even signed a consent form because these particular peptides he was prescribed hadn't been approved worldwide. If we get to the nitty-gritty of the two that he was prescribed, and I might not pronounce these right, but the first one was CJC1295 and Ipamolin, and they're apparently made up by a licensed compounding pharmacy. And then apparently he actually told the nurse at the clinic that he was visiting that he had been injecting double the prescribed dosage. So he was doubling up what he was initially supposed to take. She told him to go home, take it back to the initial dose that he was meant to be giving to himself. Hours later he injected again, and that he apparently went into cardiac arrest and had this anaphylactic reaction to the peptides.

Jodi Lee: I think what's probably most challenging and confronting about this situation is that he wasn't taking drugs that he'd bought off the black market in unmarked vials or something he'd found on social media or Instagram. As you said, he had consulted a registered doctor in Australia, he had been warned of the risks, he had signed the paperwork. The peptides themselves had come from a registered compounding pharmacy, not from the black market. So the medical board investigated after the coroner, the coronial inquest, and the medical board found that there was insufficient evidence that peptides are safe, effective, or even beneficial for humans. Norton's doctor got a caution and some conditions, mostly over kind of sloppy record keeping. But the Victorian coroner. has now asked the medicines regulator to review peptides and consider tighter restrictions.

Annie Pullar: I feel like diving into the world of peptides has opened such a can of worms for me because I have never really taken the time to understand what they are and how they can implicate people. But the distinction to make is there are some peptides that are legally approved medicines, like Ozempic, for example, but then there's this whole other realm of peptides that aren't approved that we don't know a lot about, we don't know the substances. that make them up and when you start to break down what a peptide actually is, it's a short chain of amino acids. So that's the building blocks of protein, and our bodies produce them naturally, and they kind of act as these messengers telling us to do certain things like releasing hormones or repairing tissue, making sure that we're fit and healthy and strong. So it's exploded because people are using them in all sorts of ways. I had no idea. I thought peptides were mainly used for. muscle mass, but it sounds like you can use them for weight loss, for tanning, for beauty, for hair growth. it is just a whole new world.

Jodi Lee: they're prolific. Like I literally only have to open TikTok. It would take me less than 20 seconds to scroll before I find someone who is sprooking the benefits of a peptide that for their skin or talking about how they glow or their year-round tan. Like they're spoken about so prolifically and used so prolifically that I think I just never stopped to consider whether or not they were approved.

Annie Pullar: No, either did I. You just assume because people are so openly talking about it that you're like, yeah, this is safe, this is cool, play on. Like

Jodi Lee: Well, so that's the thing. So I didn't actually know that while there are some peptides that are used in legitimate medicines like Ozempic, these peptides that so many people talk about, the BPC one five seven, the GHKCU, they're unapproved. For human use in Australia, certainly. here's how the system works. Before a medicine can be approved for sale in Australia, the medicine's regulator or the TGA, the therapeutic goods administrator, checks that it's safe, that it's well made, and that it actually does what it says on the box, right? If it passes, it goes on the National Drug Register and it gets an OSTR number on the packet. So it's approved by the TGA. For you and I to take at home. Insulin is a peptide that passed the test. Ozempic is a peptide that passed the test. So there are some of them that are approved by the therapeutic goods administrator. The peptides all over social media have not gone through those stringent tests yet. That makes them unapproved, and it means that they can't legally be sold, supplied, or advertised to the public, but there's a loophole.

Annie Pullar: but the thing is, unapproval isn't the same thing as banned. And if you look more broadly at the medical industry, doctors historically have actually been able to prescribe unapproved drugs in one-off special cases. For example, if someone has a rare cancer or a child can't take a standard medicine, we do hear of cases where certain drugs might be approved in the US but banned here, but they'll make that exemption for the person. What's interesting is pharmacists can also mix up a medicine for one particular patient without it ever being tabled on a registrar or documented. And that rule exists for turning things like tablets into a liquid for people who can't swallow. So all of those things are probably largely necessary. But what wellness clinics are apparently now doing is they're using that same rule to have these peptides made up as injection pens and they're posting it out to these patients interstate and because these particular forms of medication are only made for one person, it never sort of undergoes that safety check. So

Jodi Lee: It's also there's also a gap in the in the regulators. So the Therapeutic Goods Administration oversees the drugs themselves, but APRA,

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, oversees the doctors and pharmacists and their behaviors. So people are saying that this individual prescription of unapproved peptides is falling through the cracks between the TGA and APRA.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and we haven't even touched on the black market yet, which is where most people are apparently getting these peptides from. So you can buy a vial and a syringe on Facebook Marketplace for $50, and that's with free delivery, and it's often imported from places like China that don't have any sort of stringent rules or regulations to get through. Sellers apparently slap sort of different titles on it, like research use only, not for human consumption, you know, as a disclaimer. But the reason The reality is these are peptides being bought off websites and most of the time no one even knows what these vials consist of or what the side effects can be.

Jodi Lee: speaking of side effects, the ABC did an investigation and it tested a range of peptides purchased off the internet in in in the lab. There were 18 samples of black market sales and only one actually included ingredients that matched the label. Which is horrifying. It's like buying any kind of drug, I suppose, 'cause you hear about that a lot. You think you're buying ecstasy but you're actually taking methamp you're actually taking ketamine or something else entirely. other

Annie Pullar: Or you're like sucking on a vape and there's copper in it or lead or

Jodi Lee: Yeah.

Annie Pullar: we think

Jodi Lee: other tests found doses anywhere from 40 to 190% of what was claimed. So it might be incredibly diluted or actually way stronger than what you thought you'd been consuming. And some vials contained none of the peptide at all. The lab that was was specifically involved says the peptide often makes up only around 10% of what's in the vial, and nobody knows what the other 90% is.

Annie Pullar: And aren't there these copper peptides which contain metallic copper? And they that can be very toxic in itself. And then they turn that into a liquid and a shade of blue as a marketing ploy to make it more, I don't know, attractive to people buying. Like it is wild what we are willing to fall for and put into our bodies without actually digging into any of the research behind it. But I'll be the first to say, like. I just didn't know how harmful peptides really were.

Jodi Lee: I just think the results kind of speak for themselves, and I'm not talking about the results in people's physical appearance, but you have to look at the hospital stats in New South Wales

Annie Pullar: Mm.

Jodi Lee: alone to realize that it's clearly a problematic area of medicine, if you can call it that. I mean, in New South Wales, monthly emergency department visits linked to peptides. Jumped from five to almost 220 in a single year, with 1,180 people going to the emergency room as a result of peptide use. In Victoria, seven people have been hospitalized with serious liver damage after using fake retrutide. Some of them turned yellow in a matter of weeks. Doctors suspect that there might have been a contaminated batch during the rounds of Victoria, but like that's just a single theory. People were still very Very ill.

Annie Pullar: why isn't this on TikTok? Like why why aren't our algorithms hitting us with this? Clearly, you know.

Jodi Lee: Maybe that says more about me and my algorithm than it does about who is on TikTok.

Annie Pullar: We just want glowy skin. Don't don't hate us. No, but clearly authorities are catching onto this because unapproved peptides have been made a priority for, medical regulators And apparently more than 94,000 products have been destroyed since the start of the year. There's also been multiple raids, including one which was allegedly leaked to a social media influencer, and then I'm pretty sure only recently a former NRL player. Was charged with manufacturing illegal peptides. there must be a lot of cash in this market. Like it's a booming industry and a part of me feels like it's here to stay and it's not going anywhere. It's just how do we tighten the grip to make this safe?

Jodi Lee: Yeah, look, I think the demand is definitely there. I'm definitely not gonna tell people what they should and shouldn't be doing. I guess for me, as we said earlier, I just just I had seen it become so prolific and it was being spoken about so openly that I never stopped for myself to consider how safe or dangerous it might be. I've obviously never used them, but this has definitely made me think twice.

Annie Pullar: Yeah, and I would never judge someone for taking something that they choose to, put into their bodies. But it is sad that we live in a world where there is seemingly so many quick fixes to everything. you want to lose weight, you take a peptide. You want to get more tan, you take a peptide. You want to have better skin, you take a peptide. Like all of you know, those old ways of just being fit and exercising and eating healthy and getting your vitamin D. It just feels like we are living in such uncharted territory with this and It scares me, but sorry to leave you on such a negative note.

Jodi Lee: Yeah, well it's all part of that biohacking. Everybody's trying to live longer and look younger. anyway, I'm

Annie Pullar: Mm, well

Jodi Lee: embracing my fine lines and wrinkles.

Annie Pullar: I'm doing the same. But we hope you enjoyed this week's episode. We hope you took something away. And we also hope that you hit us with any story suggestions for next week. Please hit subscribe and we'll see you again soon.