The FDA’s War on Natural Thyroid: A Medical Tyranny That Threatens Millions

Robert W Malone MD, MS Aug 16 · Malone News. TARCZYCA
Please read this important essay and then take action to protest this latest affront to logic and natural medicine from the FDA. FAERS data show natural thyroid is very safe. Fortunately, Dr. Marty Makary @DrMakaryFDA recently tweeted that “FDA is committed to pursuing the first-ever approval of desiccated thyroid extract, pending results of the ongoing clinical trials. In the mean time, we will ensure access for all Americans.’ Please help Marty overcome his own bureaucracy and support women’s health! And consider subscribing to my fellow MAHA advocate Sayer Ji’s substack!

The FDA’s War on Natural Thyroid: A Medical Tyranny That Threatens Millions

How Regulatory Capture Threatens Access to a 130-Year-Old Treatment That Patients Overwhelmingly Prefer

SAYER JI AUG 16

Read, comment and PLEASE SHARE the X post dedicated to this article and call to action: https://x.com/sayerjigmi/status/1956722425493643308

The Opening Salvo

In what represents an unprecedented overreach of regulatory authority that prioritizes pharmaceutical profits over patient welfare, the FDA has declared war on 1.5 million Americans who depend on natural thyroid medications for their very survival. As Dr. Robert Malone warned in his urgent alert: “You might think that the FDA wanted older women to be disabled with brittle bones, cognitive decline, metabolic disease, obesity, and poor health.”[1]

This is the systematic dismantling of a treatment that has worked successfully for 130 years—since 1891 when Dr. George Redmayne Murray first used desiccated thyroid extract to save a woman dying from myxedema, an extreme form of hypothyroidism.[2] The FDA’s August 6, 2025 enforcement letters threatening to ban all natural desiccated thyroid (DTE) products—including Armour Thyroid, NP Thyroid, and Nature-Throid—represent medical tyranny designed to funnel billions into synthetic drug manufacturers while condemning millions to unnecessary suffering.

But here’s what makes this particularly egregious: natural thyroid is essentially ancestral food—organ meat that humans have consumed for millennia. The FDA is attempting to ban what is fundamentally a concentrated form of dietary thyroid gland, the same substance our ancestors prized as sacred medicine and nutrient-dense food.

The Bioidentical Illusion: Why Patient Experience Is Ontological Truth

Natural desiccated thyroid extract from a porcine source is the most physiologically complete thyroid replacement available. Unlike synthetic levothyroxine’s single-molecule approach, DTE provides:

  • T4 (Thyroxine): The storage hormone
  • T3 (Triiodothyronine): The active metabolic hormone
  • T2 (Diiodothyronine): Critical for mitochondrial function
  • T1 (Monoiodothyronine): Emerging metabolic roles
  • Calcitonin: Essential for bone health
  • UNKNOWN YET HIGHLY LIKELY: Yet to be fully characterized indispensable biological co-factors

As Dr. Malone emphasizes, “T3 is the active thyroid hormone responsible for controlling metabolism, heart and digestive functions, muscle and brain activity, growth, and temperature regulation. Its actions are more potent than its precursor T4, and balanced T3 levels are essential for good health.”[3]

The Molecular Deception

The FDA wants you to believe synthetic levothyroxine is “identical” to natural thyroid hormone. This is scientifically false. As GreenMedInfo’s research has revealed for over a decade, synthetic T4 is produced through a mind-numbingly complex chemical process involving “nitrating L-tyrosine,” “tetrazotized and iodized” compounds, and treatment with “aqueous HI in acetic acid.”[4] This Frankenstein molecule is then contaminated with up to 6% dextro-thyroxine, a mirror-image stereoisomer that is cardiotoxic and acts as an endocrine disruptor.[5]

One patent describes the dizzyingly complex process of levothyroxine synthesis as follows:

“The process for preparation of Levothyroxine sodium comprises the steps, wherein compound obtained from steps a-g is prepared by conventional methods, a. nitrating L-tyrosine to give 3,5- dinitro-L-tyrosine, b. acetylating 3,5- dinitro-L-tyrosine to give 3,5- dinitro-N-acetyl L-tyrosine, c. esterifying the compound obtained from step (b) to give 3,5- diπitro-N-acetyl L-tyrosine ethyl ester, d. reacting the compound obtained from step (c) with p-TsCI in presence of pyridine to give corresponding tosylate salt, which is further reacting with 4-methoxy phenol to give 3,5- DinKro-4-p-methoxy phenoxy-N-acetyl-L-phenyl alanine ethyl ester, e. the compound obtained from step (d) is hydrogenated to give 3,5-diamino-4-p-methoxy phenoxy-N-acetyl-L-phenyl alanine ethyl ester, f. the compound obtained from step (e) is tetrazotized and iodized to give 3,5-Diiodo-4-p- methoxy phenoxy-N-acetyl-L-phenyl alanine ethyl ester, g. the compound obtained from step (f) is O-demethylated, N-deacetylated, and deesterified using aqueous HI in acetic acid to give 3,5-Diiodo-4-p-hydroxy phenoxy-L-pheπyl alanine followed by preparing hydrochloride salt of same and isolating, drying it h. lodinating 3,5-Diiodo-4-p-hydroxy pheπoxy-L-phenyl alanine HCI salt using methyl amine.”

The critical epistemological issue is this: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because current assays cannot detect functional differences between synthetic and natural T4 doesn’t mean such differences don’t exist. Biological systems are nonlinear and exquisitely sensitive to subtle variations that cascade into significant physiological effects.

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The Thyroglobulin Reality: Nature’s Infinite Complexity

The image above exposes the breathtaking gulf between natural and synthetic thyroid hormone. Natural desiccated thyroid contains T4, T3, T2, T1, and calcitonin bound to the massive thyroglobulin protein—a 660,000 dalton molecular complex representing millions of years of evolutionary optimization. Each hormone exists in specific conformational states, held in precise spatial relationships, creating an information-rich matrix the body recognizes holistically.

In contrast, synthetic hormone consists of isolated T4 molecules floating in pharmaceutical void, stripped of biological context, devoid of the intricate molecular choreography that defines natural thyroid function.

Levinthal’s Paradox and the Information That In-Forms

To understand the true magnitude of this difference, we must invoke Levinthal’s Paradox. For thyroglobulin to fold from a linear chain into its precise three-dimensional structure requires navigation through near-infinite conformational possibilities—a journey that would take longer than the universe’s age if done randomly. Yet it folds perfectly in milliseconds.

What Levinthal’s Paradox teaches us is that biological specificity contains inconceivable amounts of information—but not information as mere data. This is information as that which in-forms—that which puts form into biological matter, guiding the transformation of potential into actuality.

When thyroglobulin folds into its native state, it demonstrates information as a formative force. Each T4 molecule bound to thyroglobulin is literally in-formed by this protein matrix. The scaffold puts form into:

  • How the hormone is held in three-dimensional space
  • What microenvironmental conditions it experiences
  • How it relates to neighboring hormone molecules
  • When and how it will be released
  • What conformational memory it carries forward

This formative information—accumulated over millions of years of evolution—cannot be replicated in a reaction flask.

The Hydration Shell: Water as Information Carrier

Consider a dimension rarely discussed: every biological molecule exists within a hydration shell—a structured water envelope. Research into water’s fourth phase reveals it as an exquisite carrier of information and memory, capable of structuring itself in ways that drive molecular actions and cellular communication. The water surrounding naturally-produced hormones has been structured by living processes, carrying biophysical information that influences hormone behavior.

Remarkably, even when natural thyroid is desiccated, this information is not entirely lost. The freeze-drying process preserves molecular architecture, and upon rehydration in the body, water restructures itself according to the biological template, partially restoring the information field. It’s like a compressed file expanding back to its original form—not perfectly, but with far more fidelity than starting from scratch.

The synthetic hormone’s hydration shell, formed in industrial conditions, lacks this biological structuring entirely. The qualitative difference between natural and synthetic forms is ontologically vast—an insurmountable chasm that the false equivalence model cannot bridge.

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From “Subjective” to Structural: The Science of Patient Experience

When patients report life-changing improvements on natural thyroid—like Vicera co-founder Chrissy, who shared with me her experience of restored energy, mental clarity, weight loss, and emotional balance using the natural thyroid product she developed with her husband Heath —the medical establishment waves these away as ‘subjective’ or ‘merely anecdotal.’ But the molecular science reveals why dismissing these patient experiences is anti-scientific:

1. Conformational Intelligence: Each hormone bound to thyroglobulin exists in a specific three-dimensional state that carries information. The protein presents hormones to the body in evolutionarily optimized conformations that synthetic hormones cannot replicate.

2. Synergistic Delivery: The thyroglobulin complex ensures coordinated release of ALL thyroid hormones, creating cascading physiological effects patients experience as comprehensive well-being.

3. Information Beyond Chemistry: The 660,000 dalton thyroglobulin molecule represents biological information—protein folding patterns, binding sites, enzymatic cleavage points—all influencing how the body receives and processes hormones.

4. Evolutionary Recognition: Human physiology evolved with thyroglobulin-bound hormones. Our cellular machinery is optimized for this natural presentation. Synthetic T4 is a 70-year-old pharmaceutical approximation of a system refined over evolutionary time.

When patients report feeling profoundly different on natural versus synthetic thyroid, they’re experiencing the difference between medicine that carries biological information and medicine that doesn’t.

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The Science Is Devastating to FDA’s Position

The landmark 2013 Hoang study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism revealed a truth the pharmaceutical industry desperately wants suppressed.[6] In this randomized, double-blind, crossover study with 70 patients: natural thyroid was preferred by nearly 3x as many patients as synthetic levothyroxine—48.6% preferred DTE versus only 18.6% for levothyroxine.

Those choosing natural thyroid reported dramatic improvements in their lived experience. Their scores showed statistically significant improvements (p < 0.001) in energy, mood, mental clarity, and quality of life.

Perhaps most tellingly, patients on DTE lost an average of 3-4 pounds without trying—actual metabolic activation from receiving the full hormone spectrum.

The 2021 Shakir study reinforced these findings. Among the most symptomatic patients—those failed most dramatically by synthetic monotherapy—switching to DTE produced significant improvements in mood, memory, and well-being.[7]

The Conversion Crisis No One Talks About

The dirty secret of synthetic thyroid treatment: up to 15% of patients cannot efficiently convert T4 to T3 due to genetic polymorphisms affecting deiodinase enzymes.[8] For these millions, synthetic levothyroxine is metabolic poison. Their bodies flood with inactive storage hormone while being starved of active T3.

When they report persistent symptoms despite “normal” TSH levels, they’re told it’s psychological. Meanwhile, their bodies deteriorate with:

  • Progressive metabolic dysfunction
  • Cognitive decline stealing mental sharpness
  • Weight gain resisting all efforts
  • Cardiovascular complications
  • Bone loss setting up fracturesShare

The Postmenopausal Crisis: FDA’s Betrayal of Women’s Health

Dr. Malone’s warning about postmenopausal women exposes a particularly cruel dimension. Research demonstrates that declining estrogen levels directly impair the body’s ability to convert T4 to active T3.[9] The FDA’s mandate forcing these women onto T4-only treatment is tantamount to prescribing metabolic dysfunction.

The calcitonin component becomes critical during this life stage. Studies reveal 50% of thyroidectomized patients develop osteopenia specifically from calcitonin deficiency.[10] Postmenopausal women already facing dramatic bone loss from estrogen decline are essentially guaranteed osteoporosis without access to DTE’s calcitonin.

Clinical evidence shows postmenopausal women on natural thyroid experience:

  • Better cognitive function
  • Improved energy levels
  • Modest but significant weight loss
  • Enhanced mood stability

Given that thyroid disease incidence is 5-20 times higher in women (much of which is preventable and even reversible through root-cause resolution medical approaches applied early enough)*, with highest rates in postmenopausal and elderly women, the FDA’s actions appear designed to maximally harm the population most dependent on comprehensive thyroid support.

*Consult the extensive Greenmedinfo.com Hypothyroidism database for more primary literature and translational articles on this health area.

The Safety Deception: 130 Years of Success

From Dr. Murray’s first use in 1891 through seven decades as standard treatment, DTE has 130 years of real-world safety data.[11] During this time, it transformed myxedema from death sentence to manageable condition.

The FDA’s own adverse event database tells the story they want buried. Between 1968-2025, only 500 adverse events were reported for DTE—approximately nine per year across millions of doses.[12] Compare this to synthetic levothyroxine:

  • Associations with increased lung cancer risk
  • Documented links to atrial fibrillation and fractures
  • Recent FDA recall of 160,000+ bottles for subpotency[13]

Most damning: the X account OpenVAERS’s analysis of FDA’s FAERS database shows synthetic medications have proportionally higher rates of injury and death, even accounting for larger user population.[14] Their conclusion: “There is no world in which taking natural hormone is more dangerous than the synthetics.”

The agency’s selective enforcement reveals the truth. Smaller manufacturers face recalls for minor potency variations, while AbbVie’s Armour Thyroid—made by the same company producing Synthroid—continues unimpeded. Safety isn’t the concern—market control is.

The Economic Conspiracy: Follow the Money

The global levothyroxine market generates $4 billion annually, projected to reach $5.88 billion by 2033.[15] The DTE market, serving only 1.5 million patients, represents a dangerous precedent that natural solutions can outperform patented drugs.

Synthetic levothyroxine costs 50-100 times less to produce than natural thyroid extract. When you can charge the same price for a product costing pennies versus dollars to make, eliminating competition becomes a business imperative.

AbbVie’s unique position reveals the conspiracy. This pharmaceutical giant, spending $4.53 million on lobbying, manufactures both Synthroid and Armour Thyroid.[16] While smaller competitors face extinction, AbbVie remains untouched. Consider:

  • RLC Labs ($30 million revenue) can’t afford regulatory lawyers
  • Acella Pharmaceuticals ($120 million) lacks political connections
  • These companies face extinction not for safety reasons, but for lacking financial firepower

Research documents that 73% of FDA advisory meetings include members with drug manufacturer ties.[17] The endgame is clear: force 1.5 million DTE patients onto synthetics, eliminate competition, establish precedent for banning natural alternatives.

The Resistance Movement

Multiple Change.org petitions have gathered tens of thousands of signatures. Board-certified endocrinologists who personally take DTE lead opposition campaigns. The Alliance for Natural Health and numerous medical professionals condemn the FDA’s action to “Protect Natural Thyroid!”, and have created a call to action you can participate in right here now.

The post-Chevron legal landscape offers hope. The Supreme Court’s elimination of automatic deference to agency interpretations means the FDA must prove clear Congressional authorization, scientific basis, and rational enforcement after 130 years—all impossible.

The Thyroid Disease CARE Act of 2024 (H.R.10297) specifically addresses “barriers that individuals diagnosed with thyroid disease face in accessing treatments.”[18]

The Call to Action

This is about medical freedom—the right to access ancestral foods and traditional medicines that have sustained human health for millennia.

What You Must Do NOW: [—-]

1. Contact the FDA Immediately: