An ABC News investigation reports that influencers promoting peptides not approved for human use are feeding a black market Bloomberg estimates is worth up to $4 billion, with supply traced to unlicensed factories in China.

The compounds named in the reporting include GHK-Cu, BPC-157, TB-500, CJC-1295 and retatrutide, short chains of amino acids promoted online for anti-aging, injury recovery, muscle growth and weight loss. None has been approved by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration for the injectable purposes advertised, and the ABC says the vast majority are manufactured overseas in unregulated facilities.

The number that should worry people

The scale figure here is not the $4 billion, it is the hospital data. Monthly emergency department presentations in New South Wales linked to these peptides went from 5 in July 2025 to almost 220 in September 2026, according to figures cited by the ABC. People aged 25 to 34 made up 32 percent of presentations and 16 to 24-year-olds a further 25 percent, which is the same demographic the influencer content is built to reach.

The economics of a discount code

Adelaide influencer Josh Sawyer told the ABC he was earning up to $2,000 a week in commission and free product as an affiliate of Vital Peptides Australia, a company that has not responded to the broadcaster's questions. The markup explains the enthusiasm: a 50mg vial of GHK-Cu bought in bulk costs less than $10, while an Australian distributor sells the same vial for about $60.

Sawyer, who has no medical qualifications, says he later heard from followers who paid and received the wrong product or nothing at all. He has since moved to a different supplier that does not publicly display product test results, and says he does not know where its peptides are made.

What the clinicians are seeing

Kara Joyce, a consultant pharmacist at the Butterfly Foundation, told the ABC there is little reliable evidence behind the transformation claims and that buyers cannot be sure a product was made in a sterile environment. Peer Qnect, a helpline for people using performance enhancing drugs, logged 199 calls in the first half of 2026, more than half about unapproved peptides.

Bottom line

Two vendors gave the ABC footage from facilities in Guangzhou and Shenzhen and confirmed they are not licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers. Enforcement exists on paper, and one dealer's summary of it was that you stop one shipment and twenty get through.