[mise_en_place]

> TRT is no longer limited to men with clinical hypogonadism. Men’s health clinics that advertise on social media, TV, and radio will prescribe to anyone who contacts them (and pays cash for the prescription and gear). In some surveys of patients on TRT, 1/4 of patients didn’t even have testosterone levels measured prior to initiation of TRT.

That's hugely problematic if true. They should be investigated and if found of wrongdoing, have their medical licenses revoked.

[Aurornis]

It’s true. You can even go on Reddit and find anecdotes and guides about which clinics to call and what to say to get prescribed with minimal hassle.

Some of the clinics were even prescribing anabolic steroids intended for terminal cancer patients.

If you want to read about something even crazier, look up the services that were started during COVID to be prescription mills for Adderall or Xanax. The relaxed COVID prescribing rules allowed telehealth providers to give schedule II prescriptions to new patients remotely, so services were created to advertise on TikTok and give prescriptions for a monthly fee. The FDA cracked down on these, though.

There’s even a famous story of a whistleblower who worked at one of these clinics and got reprimanded for not prescribing Adderall enough. There was a leaked memo where they pushed providers to prescribe Adderall over other options because their data showed the highest customer retention rate that way.

[jstummbillig]

Did you use a LLM to write these comments?

[SpicyLemonZest]

I dunno. It seems straightforwardly analogous to the fake medical marijuana clinics you see in places where recreational use isn't legal, or the countless online pharmacies with doctors on retainer to prescribe Ozempic and Viagra. It's not how I would design the medical system if I were in charge, but these aren't addictive substances like opioids.

[Aurornis]

Testosterone induces physical dependency which can be irreversible when taken for prolonged periods.

I don’t think it’s analogous at all to medical marijuana.