Latest news with #RolfeWinkler
Wall Street Journal
20-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Apple Embraces Brain-Implant Technology to Control Devices - Tech News Briefing
Apple wants to make iPhones more accessible to people with disabilities. Digital-health reporter Rolfe Winkler takes us into the world of brain computer interfaces . Plus, reporter Amrith Ramkumar talks about the revocation of the AI Diffusion Rule and how companies are reacting. Victoria Craig hosts. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Hey, TNB listeners, before we get started, heads-up, we're going to be asking you a question at the top of each show for the next few weeks. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the latest headlines and trends on all things tech. Now we want to know more about you, what you like about the show, and what more you'd like to hear from us. So, our question this week is what kind of stories about tech do you want to hear more of? Business decision-making, boardroom drama, how about peeking inside tech leaders' lives or tech policy? If you're listening on Spotify, you can look for our poll under the episode description, or you can send an email to tnb@ Now on to the show. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, May 15th. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal. A controversial rule restricting the spread of US AI technology around the world has been canceled, but what comes in its place is still unclear. Then, controlling your devices with just your thoughts isn't only the stuff of science fiction anymore. Our reporter has an exclusive look at how Apple is embracing development of brain implant control technology. But first, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead the next industrial revolution and create high-paying US jobs. That is how chip-making giant Nvidia described a US Commerce Department decision on Wednesday to rescind the so-called AI Diffusion Rule. It's a Biden-era policy that the Trump administration rolled back a day before it was due to go into effect. It would have imposed limits on how many AI chips US companies could sell to other countries. Speaking at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh earlier this week, White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks explained why he believed the rule was flawed. Audio: Imagine if Washington had created a diffusion rule for the iPhone because it was worried about bad guys somehow getting a hold of iPhones, and every iPhone transaction had to be licensed in Washington. This technology would not have spread all over the world. And the diffusion of iPhones is a very good thing for the United States of America. I think in a similar way, we want our technology to diffuse. Victoria Craig: WSJ reporter Amrith Ramkumar has been following the fallout of the rule since it was announced in January. Amrith, this rule has been a controversial one, not just for US tech companies, but ones outside the US that want to import these AI chips. So, just bring us up to speed. Remind our listeners why this has been so controversial. Amrith Ramkumar: In the final days of the Biden administration, their Commerce Department put out this super complicated rule that would limit how many chips, many countries and countries that are friendly with the US, the amount of advanced chips they could buy. A lot of companies thought that would limit their business opportunities abroad and push those countries to embrace Chinese companies, like Huawei, if they had easier access to those chips. So, people were really upset and frustrated and they weren't really sure what the Trump administration was going to do. Last week, people basically found out that the Trump administration was going to completely rescind that Biden-era rule, and then they'll come out with their own rule in the coming months. And we have reporting showing that one of the options they're considering is basically instead of having a tiered system where countries have caps on the amount they can buy, they're going to do a series of bilateral country-to-country chip purchase agreements. So far, the early indications are based on the president's trip to the Middle East and the big chip deals with Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices in Saudi Arabia and expected announcements to come in the UAE that this will all be good for US companies, because a lot of them were looking at caps in an uncertain environment, and now it seems like the administration with countries that are friendly with the US is basically willing to take off a lot of the guardrails. So, that's pushed up some of the stocks and there's a lot of enthusiasm now. People in the national security community though, are very cautious about this, and they're unhappy in some cases, because they worry that countries like the UAE could still send Nvidia chips or other sensitive technology to China. So, there is this tension that will play out in the administration over time. Victoria Craig: Is there a blueprint for what kind of guardrails the US could put in place since it's now taking this rule away for exactly what you just said, for preventing other countries from eventually just getting those chips in China's hands anyway? Amrith Ramkumar: It's not super clear. We have reporting showing that the Commerce Department has said that they want to crack down on smuggling and how chips get routed through third-party countries to China, but that's more on the enforcement side of these rules. And we've heard that whatever the Trump team decides to do, there will be language basically saying if these end up in China, you'll be in deep trouble. But again, that might not be the deterrent that some national security hawks want. Victoria Craig: Is there any indication how long some of these negotiations could take if they do adopt this country-by-country approach to rules-making? Amrith Ramkumar: People have said it could take up to a few months potentially to iron these out, and the assumption is that they'll start with big countries where US firms do a lot of business and try to reach those deals that way. But a lot of this is evolving rapidly, so the Commerce Department could end up not doing a bunch of bilateral deals. We've heard they're not too far along in the process. It's definitely going to take some time, and that's an issue because there's also evidence that countries like Malaysia are getting a lot more chips that are then going to China. Also, the technology is evolving so rapidly that a lot of the thresholds that are set for what's a high-performing chip and what you can buy, those can be outdated in a short amount of time. So, it's definitely a tricky one for commerce to figure out. Victoria Craig: Which countries are on the list of ones that could potentially be easier to strike first deals with? Amrith Ramkumar: Well, they're definitely prioritizing, again, this week they wanted to have good news in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So, those are a few. And then there are many other allies that were in tier two under the old rule basically, that people were very confused about and they thought shouldn't have such limits on chip access. So, countries like India, even a bunch of European countries like Switzerland, Israel, you can go on and on. Victoria Craig: That was Amrith Ramkumar, a WSJ reporter covering tech and crypto policy. Coming up, Apple has joined with a startup that's developed a brain implant that will help people who can't use their hands to better use technology. We'll tell you how after the break. What if to use an iPhone, you never have to actually touch the device? The idea is becoming more plausible thanks to new technology Apple hopes to harness with a startup called Synchron and its implantable brain device. Rolfe Winkler covers digital health for The Wall Street Journal. Rolfe, just explain how this new technology could actually work. Rolfe Winkler: Apple has always been big on accessibility features for disabled people, and they have something called Switch Control on your iPhone, for instance, that literally switches control of the device. Normally you use a finger to scroll around the screen, or on your Mac you're using a mouse, and it switches control to another input device like a joystick. But in this case, they're going to make Switch Control accessible via brain-computer interfaces. So, it's a neural signal that is being relayed, translated, and then relayed to the computer. Victoria Craig: And so, this could make Apple's devices more accessible for tens of thousands of people, like you just said, through a brain implant. Can you just explain a little bit more for our listeners how that exactly will work? If you have the implant, how then can you control your devices? And what devices? Rolfe Winkler: So, there's a number of companies that are working on these next-generation brain implants. They're called brain-computer interfaces because they're an interface between your brain and a computer. Basically electrodes that are implanted inside your skull and that read neural signals. And the way they work is those neural signals are relayed to a chip, which then relays the data to a decoding device. And that device, you basically trained this whole apparatus to understand which neural signals translate to actions in the real world. The first use of these devices is really to interact with technology. So, the first company to do this was a company called Synchron. Victoria Craig: So, how is Apple working with Synchron on this? Rolfe Winkler: Well, Apple isn't going to put an implant in your brain, to be clear. A better way to think about it, hearing aids, people with hearing aids wanted to be able to access their Apple devices. So in 2014, Apple creates a standard by which hearing aids connect via Bluetooth to your iPhone or to your other Apple devices. Makes a lot of sense, right? So, I'm wearing AirPods, that's how I hear my conversations on the phone, and that's how people with hearing aids would do it. So, let's just connect them. What we're talking about here is basically something similar where people who manufacture these devices will have an on-ramp to the Apple devices. Apple is building the on-ramp for them to make it easier for them to connect to its devices. Victoria Craig: And there have been some human trial participants who have had these kind of implants implanted into their brains. You spoke to one of those people. How have these early tests worked and what is their view about how they work? Rolfe Winkler: I spoke to Mark Jackson who has the Synchron implant, and Mark says, look, the Synchron implant can help a little bit. It's slow. This is the beginning of a clinical trial of this device. It's going to be a few years yet before it's proved out, it gets commercial approval, and lots of people are able to get these implanted. So, right now with the tests, Mark is saying, look, it's slow going. It basically mimics scrolling and clicking. It doesn't quite do what you do with a mouse where you can move the cursor around and select something. Imagine that you're in Netflix and there are rows of icons. What Switch Control might do is select the whole screen and then you think click, and then it narrows it to, okay, you want this row, you want dramas. Well, all right, now I'm going to run the selection tool over each individual one in that row because I know you selected that row. And then when you get to the one that you want, you can think click again. So, then drama, I just picked Marriage Story and that's the movie I'm going to watch. But that's not as fast as scrolling with a scroll wheel and moving across with your mouse. And if you want to type out a message, you're not typing on a keyboard very quickly. You're having this selection tool go across, okay, I want the first row of letters. I think click. Okay, A through G. I want F, or I want E, or something. But all that said, it still gives him an ability to interact with devices in a way he hasn't been able to. Victoria Craig: So, there's still a ways to go with the development of these kinds of implants. How far away is this technology from becoming more widely available? Rolfe Winkler: Synchron says theirs is several years away. Morgan Stanley thinks that commercial approval for BCIs won't come before 2030. Synchron says they can beat that. Victoria Craig: That was WSJ Digital Health Reporter Rolfe Winkler. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Emily Martocci. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.
Forbes
16-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Apple Loop: Disappointing iPhone 17 Pricing, Stunning iPhone Display Leaks, Discussing Apple's 2025 Problems
Taking a look back at this week's news and headlines from Apple, including all-display iPhone leaks, iPhone 17 pricing, iOS 18's last major release, AirPods Pro upgrades, discussing Apple's 2025 problems, and the final F1 trailer drops. Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Apple in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes. iPhone 16 on display inside the Apple Inc. store at Tun Razak Exchange in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ... More (Photo by) Will Apple's 20th Anniversary iPhone finally deliver on the sci-fi fueled goal of a one-piece iPhone? It's unlikely. But what looks achievable is an iPhone that looks—at least from the front—to be just the display. New leaks around the design of 2027's iPhone suggest that the bezels and frame will be 'out of sight' for owners: "ETNews writes that Apple is aiming to use "four-edge bending" display technology for the 2027 iPhone that would curve not just along the left and right sides as seen in some current smartphones, but also wrap around the top and bottom edges. This would create a truly borderless visual experience with content flowing seamlessly across all sides of the device." (MacRumors). With trade tariffs suggesting a potential impact of over $900M to Apple in this quarter alone, many are speculating if Apple will raise prices to boost income, and the prime candidate for this offset is the upcoming iPhone 17. The Wall Street Journal's Rolfe Winkler and Yang Jie look at the potential response, but highlight that, in the wake of Trump's pushback on the idea of Amazon highlighting the impact tariffs, Cook will look elsewhere: 'At the same time, company executives are wary of blaming increases on tariffs.. These circumstances have led Apple to look at what supply-chain insiders described as the least-bad choice: raising prices on the new iPhones to preserve profit and finding reasons other than tariffs to explain the move. It couldn't be determined what new features Apple may offer to help justify price increases." (Wall Street Journal). Ahead of next month's Worldwide Developer Conference and the debut of iOS 19, the final regular update to iOS 18 has been released. Version 18.5 is not heavy on new features—leaning into security and bug fixes—but it does bring new display options and a tweaked Mail app interface to the iPhone platform: "There's the Pride Harmony wallpaper which helped confirm release date rumors. This wallpaper is a regular thing from Apple, at this time of year before Pride month (June). It's available for the iPhone and iPad. There's a new watch face for the Apple Watch, alongside a new Pride Edition Apple Watch Sport Band (full details here)." (Forbes). Like many of Apple's products, AirPods Pro 2 will expect an update to AirPods Pro 3 in the future. That looks closer today, with code snippets suggesting Apple is upgrading the code in preparation for the next buds. Whether that is early at WWDC or later at an iPhone launch in September remains to be seen, but it does feel close. "Where the code once referenced a task requiring 'AirPods Pro 2nd Generation,' that same task now has a new description in the recent software release. Now, it says it requires 'AirPods Pro 2 or later.' In other words, something in Apple's code that currently required AirPods Pro 2 will work with AirPods Pro 3 as well, and Apple is preparing its software for that change." (9to5Mac). Is Apple simply too big? An interesting conversation between Nilay Patel and Jon Gruber touches on many issues, challenges, and legal jeopardy that Apple faces in 2025. Listen online now, after picking out some of the highlights: "All of that combined with Apple's scale created a kind of hubris and, as you'll hear Gruber say, a major blind spot for Apple that has pushed it toward these high-profile and public legal defeats that could reshape its business. If all of that weren't enough to put the heat on Apple, there's also Trump's tariffs to deal with and a Google antitrust trial that could see Google barred from striking an exclusivity deal for its search engine that currently pays Apple north of $20 billion a year." (The Verge). The Apple-financed F1 movie has released a second trailer in the weeks before it goes on general release. Apple has many of its own films, but the wide theatrical release and promotion of F1 is new territory for the company: "F1 is directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Brad Pitt and seven-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, among other respected names. Pitt stars as former F1 driver Sonny Hayes, who returns to partner rookie team mate Joshua Pearce, played by Damson Idris, at the fictional APXGP team – the movie promising to capture the sport's highs, lows and everything in between." ( Apple Loop brings you seven days worth of highlights every weekend here on Forbes. Don't forget to follow me so you don't miss any coverage in the future. Last week's Apple Loop can be read here, or this week's edition of Loop's sister column, Android Circuit, is also available on Forbes.
Wall Street Journal
15-04-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick - The Journal.
Telehealth companies make hair loss drugs easy to get. They also don't have to disclose side effects in ads. WSJ's Rolfe Winkler reports that some young men say they are suffering serious health consequences , and that they didn't understand the risks. Kate Linebaugh hosts. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Kate Linebaugh: My colleague, Rolfe Winkler, has a full head of hair, still he gets targeted for hair loss medications all the time, often by telehealth companies like HIMS. Rolfe Winkler: I'm on and it gives you all these different options for medications that they'll sell you on subscription. Kate Linebaugh: Rolfe and I decided to see how quickly he could sign up for hair loss meds online. Shall we hit regrow hair? Rolfe Winkler: Sure, let's try regrow hair. Kate Linebaugh: Okay. All right, I'm clicking that. Rolfe Winkler: It offers finasteride, which blocks DHT, a hormone that causes hair loss. Kate Linebaugh: Finasteride is the generic version of the brand name pill Propecia, and it has some known and potentially nasty side effects. Rolfe Winkler: Then there's an option to click on safety information or side effects, if I want to click on that, I don't have to, I can just sort of continue. Kate Linebaugh: And then you hit submit. Rolfe Winkler: Yep. Kate Linebaugh: And in your case, how long did it take before you got approval? Rolfe Winkler: 60 seconds. Kate Linebaugh: 60 seconds, just about as long as you've been listening to this episode, that's how quickly Rolfe got approved for finasteride. Why is this a problem? Is it even a problem? Rolfe Winkler: Well, there are a lot of men we spoke to who got some very gnarly side effects from finasteride that they got from telehealth companies, and they said they really weren't warned about the side effects. Kate Linebaugh: Telehealth companies say they disclose side effects and other risks on their websites, but a lot of men say they wish they would've slowed down and read the fine print because some of them are suffering serious health problems. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh, it's Monday, April 14th. Coming up on the show, a quick fix for hair loss is leaving some young men sick. The drug finasteride has been around for decades, the FDA approved it for hair loss treatment in 1997. Rolfe Winkler: And very soon after that there were a lot of controversies about the drug, chiefly the side effects associated with it. Kate Linebaugh: Which are what? Rolfe Winkler: Well, the ones that are well known are sexual side effects, but there are a lot of men who have talked about very serious, and I spoke to many of them, very serious cognitive side effects, insomnia, panic attacks, suicidal ideation and behavior, GI issues. Kate Linebaugh: One of those men who Rolfe talked to is Mark Millick. Mark Millick: I can't see a situation where I wouldn't have taken this medication unless doctors had told me directly, this is a risk. Kate Linebaugh: Mark is 31 years old, he's a veteran, and lives in Washington D.C. He's a construction health and safety manager, and gives presentations on how workers can stay safe on job sites, but we're here to talk about hair. Mark Millick: Right. Kate Linebaugh: Mark has short brown hair, but back in 2020 he started getting concerned about hair loss. He remembers the exact moment it really hit him, he was at a 4th of July party with his family. Mark Millick: And I was actually bringing my girlfriend over to introduce her to the family, and I walked into the bathroom and I noticed there was some very harsh overhead lighting, and I happened to notice, I could see right down into the back of my scalp, and I panicked, to be honest with you. I'm like, oh, that's not good. Kate Linebaugh: Mark took out his phone and made a Hims account, he filled out the online subscription form and hit submit. Mark Millick: I went through the process in a matter of about five minutes in the bathroom. Kate Linebaugh: In the bathroom. Mark Millick: In the bathroom. It took no time at all, that's how quick it was. It was actually pretty incredible. Kate Linebaugh: Why did you go through Hims and not go to your doctor? Mark Millick: I think there was sort of a denial phase, you don't want to go to a doctor and have them directly tell me to my face, you're losing your hair, so you kind of get to avoid confronting the issue while still confronting the issue, if that makes sense. Right? Kate Linebaugh: How did you feel at that point? Mark Millick: I felt like I was being proactive. Kate Linebaugh: In recent years, telehealth companies like Hims, Keeps, and Roman have boomed. Rolfe Winkler: A key reason they exist is convenience. Some people just want to go on the internet and get a solution. You never have to see a doctor in person, they don't take insurance, it's cash pay model, you give them your credit card for the medications that you get from them, and they've grown very, very large. Kate Linebaugh: Hims is part of the parent company Hims & Hers Health, which went public in 2021. Rolfe Winkler: They had 1,000,000,005 in revenue last year, and they had over 2 million customers whom they call subscribers. Kate Linebaugh: The main way hims and its rival companies get customers is through aggressive TV and social media ads. Hims Ad: Getting help for hair loss used to be hard, Hims makes it simple. It all starts with one click. Keeps Ad: By starting Keeps now, I can keep the hair I have, and get my treatment without leaving the couch. Hims Ad: Guys, listen up, if you want to not only have a better sex life, but also regrow your hair at the same time, check out this four-in-one pill by Hims, it contains (inaudible)... Kate Linebaugh: Are they tapping fundamental insecurities? Rolfe Winkler: Yeah, I think that's the main goal here. A lot of younger men are probably insecure about their hair. Speaker 6: Guys with hair or without hair? Speaker 7: With hair. Speaker 8: Hair. Speaker 6: Hair? Speaker 10: With hair. Speaker 11: I prefer hair. Kate Linebaugh: The way these telehealth ads handle side effects is very different from the usual drug commercial. Rolfe Winkler: When you watch a commercial for a drug on the evening news or something, a narrator says a whole bunch of things very quickly, and a whole bunch of small prints goes past you on the screen. And you're supposed to know before you go and ask your doctor about this medication that there are some risks, and moreover, your doctor is trained to tell you about those risks so you can make an informed decision whether this medication is right for you. Right? So, what's interesting about telehealth companies? Well, they're not required in their advertisements to disclose side effects, so they typically don't. Kate Linebaugh: But changes could be coming For telehealth advertising. This past February, Hims had a minute-long ad during the Super Bowl for its GLP-I medication, its version of Ozempic. Speaker 12: Obesity is America's deadliest epidemic. Speaker 13: This is America. Speaker 12: 74% of us are overweight, and obesity- Rolfe Winkler: They didn't include any side effect information or other risks, and two senators, one Republican, one Democrat, wrote to the FDA, saying, this is a problem, these companies should be disclosing risks in their ads, and they're not. Kate Linebaugh: Hims defended the ad, saying the company provides a telehealth platform and isn't a drug manufacturer. The senators have since introduced a bill called the Protecting Patients from Deceptive Drug Ads Act. While telehealth companies are able to market their services without the burden of disclosing side effects, they are required to disclose side effects somewhere on their websites. Rolfe Winkler: So, basically, you get into a situation where a lot of men are seeing these ads on social media, on television, and clicking through to these websites, that are designed to get you through a product flow quickly without reading all of this information. Kate Linebaugh: And that's what happened to Mark Millick. Mark Millick: So, I got to a point, I'm like, you know what? It's something that everything else in my life is going great, I've got a great job, I'm making great money, I've got this beautiful girlfriend, but it's like hair loss is bothersome, hair loss sucks, to put it bluntly. Especially when you're in your 20s, it's not something fun to deal with. So, it's like, if I just take this medication, I don't have to worry about it, I can carry on with my life without having to worry about this again. Kate Linebaugh: Mark started taking the medication he'd bought online, but it didn't go as he'd hoped. That's next. Mark was aware that finasteride did have possible side effects, he'd read through the Hims website and did his own research online, but to Mark the risks seemed minimal. Mark Millick: What I recall is that they talked about how side effects were rare, I think it was 1.2% was the statistic I had read, but the side effects only included sexual issues, and I think maybe some depression issues, that would go away upon cessation of the drug. So, that was it, it's like I don't really have anything to lose. If I deal with side effects, I come off the drug, and I just carry on with life, and that's the end of it right there. Kate Linebaugh: About a week or two after Mark started taking the hair loss drug, he began to feel off. Mark Millick: I do a lot of presentations, so I mentioned I do safety trainings, things like that, and I was just having a tougher time getting through my presentations, which is something I never struggled with before. Kate Linebaugh: Around six months later, things got even worse. Mark Millick: The transition came, and this was very notable, it was in June of 2021. I woke up that morning, it was a Monday morning, and it felt like I'd been lobotomized. Everything changed, I had developed, at the time, permanent slurred speech, anhedonia, couldn't feel any emotions, felt very foggy, it was like the worst hangover in my life. And I went to work that morning, that Monday morning, to do a new hire orientation, and information I had been teaching at that point for several years, I completely forgot. It's like the first time I'd ever read it before. Kate Linebaugh: Must have been so scary. Mark Millick: It was horrifying, and that was around the time when I realized I have to go to a doctor, specifically a neurologist, because these are neurological issues. Kate Linebaugh: Mark says he went to see a neurologist and other doctors who gave him tests like an MRI, EMG and EEG scans, but the results came back clear and benign. Still his symptoms kept getting worse. Mark Millick: I also developed severe muscle twitching, muscle twitching all over my body, my hands, my feet, my face, my arms, my back, my stomach, everywhere. Kate Linebaugh: It didn't occur to Mark that what he was experiencing may have had to do with the hair loss meds. Mark Millick: During that period when I'm going to the doctors, my mom even brought up, she said, "Hey, could this be the hair loss medication you're taking?" Because I had mentioned it to her, at that point, I was taking this hair loss medication kind of just in passing, and I almost got oddly defensive about it. I said, "Mom, it would make no sense, this medication doesn't have anything to do with the brain." So, I completely kind of blocked that out of my mind, to be honest with you. Kate Linebaugh: But then, about 15 months after Mark started taking finasteride, he hit a breaking point. Mark Millick: There was one day I just reached my wits end, I'm like, what could this be? Because this wasn't just a subtle, every now and then I'm tripping over words, it's like, I can't enunciate, I can't do anything. I'm a vegetable here. Kate Linebaugh: Mark went on Reddit and searched for finasteride side effects, he found a subreddit of people sharing horror stories. Mark Millick: And I freaked out, I'm like, okay, there's no evidence, there's no reason to believe this, this is all anecdotal, but let me just stop the medication just to see, maybe things will improve if I come off the medication. Kate Linebaugh: Mark stopped taking the drug, but the symptoms didn't go away, they only got worse. Mark Millick: It was like a complete nuking of my endocrine system. In six weeks, I lost 20 pounds. I developed loose skin. My face started to change, I developed lipoatrophy on my face. My voice became higher pitched. My cognitive impairment continued to get worse. I developed joint tissues, it was difficult to walk, I'd go to the gym and try to work out, my body would be shaking. My muscles became squishy, like they lost density in some sense. My beard started to fall out. Also, when I came off, that's when I developed the sexual issues, low libido, erectile dysfunction issues. I probably developed somewhere between 25 and 30 symptoms in that timeframe. And that was the scary thing, that didn't make sense, it's like, I'm off the medication, why am I now developing all these side effects? Kate Linebaugh: Mark's doctor said she believes the symptoms that he reported to her were caused by the hair loss drug. Hims declined to comment on Mark's care. Many of Mark's symptoms weren't identified as potential side effects during finasteride's clinical trials, and aren't listed on the drug's label. My colleague Rolfe spoke to an endocrinologist who said the clinical trials had flaws that might've underestimated the incidence and severity of side effects, and that they didn't follow its subjects long enough. Merck, the company that developed finasteride, referred questions about the trials to Organon, a company it spun off. Organon said it didn't run the trials, and stood by the drug's safety and efficacy. Regulators have revisited finasteride side effects in the past. In 2011 and 2012, the FDA revised the drug's label to highlight sexual side effects. In 2022, the agency updated the drug's label to include the risks of suicidal ideation and behavior. The side effects that Hims and other telehealth companies list on their websites are based on what's on the drug's label. Most men tolerate finasteride well, the drug's label currently says 3.8% of patients experienced one or more sexual side effects during the clinical trial. The risk of experiencing one of the main sexual side effects was under 2%. Rolfe Winkler: For a medication that is being prescribed to millions of people, that's a lot of men out there. Kate Linebaugh: That's Rolfe again. That less than 2% risk is the stat that Hims shows potential customers when they sign up online. Rolfe also noticed that Hims was citing a statistic in its list of side effects he'd never seen before. Rolfe Winkler: I asked them, "Where's that number from?" And their first answer was, "Well, our medical team reviews all our safety disclosures." "Okay, but that one doesn't appear anywhere on the drug's label, so where does it come from?" And they said, "Oh, well, you found a typo." Kate Linebaugh: A Hims spokeswoman said, "Hims communicates transparently with patients about all essential details and safety information, and customers can ask clinicians about side effects." She said, customers go through a "Comprehensive intake that is reviewed by a licensed provider who makes a clinical determination about the patient's eligibility for medication." Rolfe Winkler: And when I spoke to former employees, the reason side effect information is not prominent is because it's what they called friction. Again, this is an e-commerce model, and the people who are designing the websites are marketing people, their job is to get you through the funnel, through the purchase funnel, right? Show up at the website, put something in the cart, check out with it, maximize that, that's their job. Kate Linebaugh: The Hims spokeswoman said its systems help clinicians make decisions quickly by flagging if a patient's case is routine or more complex. As convenient as the process was, Mark wishes there'd been a little more friction when he signed up with Hims. Mark Millick: My wife and I were talking about this within the past two or three weeks, and she said, "Do you feel like you learned anything about vanity?" And I actually said, "No. I don't feel like I did, because I don't have an issue with people wanting to take care of themselves and wanting to look their best, the issue is that I just think they do everything in their power to market this medication, to get as many people to take it because it's about profit." At the end of the day, it is about profit for not just Hims, but all these other telehealth companies as well. If you had told me I would deal with one-tenth of what I'm dealing with, I would've never ever would I have taken that medication. Kate Linebaugh: That's all for today, Monday, April 14th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, we're out every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening, see you tomorrow.
