Rolfe Winkler
Appearances
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
I asked him, 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? I said, oh, well, you found a typo.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
And, you know, when I spoke to former employees, the reason side effect information is not prominent is because it's what they called friction, right? 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?
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
Show up at the website, put something in the cart, check out with it. Maximize that. That's their job.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
And very soon after that, there were a lot of controversies about the drug, chiefly the side effects associated with it. Which are what? 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.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
I'm on HIMS.com, and it gives you all these different options for medications that they'll sell you on subscription.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
Insomnia, panic attacks, suicidal ideation and behavior, you know, GI issues.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
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 a cash pay model. You give them their credit card for the medications that you get from them. And they've grown, you know, very, very large.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
They had $1.5 billion in revenue last year, and they had over 2 million customers whom they call subscribers.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
It offers finasteride, which blocks DHT, a hormone that causes hair loss.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
Yeah, I think that's the main goal here. A lot of younger men are probably insecure about their hair. Guys with hair or without hair?
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
You know, 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 print goes past you on the screen. And you're supposed to, you know, 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.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
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.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
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.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
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.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
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.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
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.
The Journal.
A Quick Fix for Hair Loss Is Making Some Men Sick
For a medication that is being prescribed to millions of people, I mean, that's a lot of men out there.