The Word “Only” Has Been Referred to Committee

The copy editor had circled a word on the first page. Not deaths. Only.

The briefing concerned two death reports involving products sold as retatrutide, described in CBS News reporting on October 13, 2026. The reports did not establish what caused the deaths and were not a complete count of deaths involving peptides. CBS News October 13 reporting

A draft summary had placed ONLY before the number. Nobody had authorized this.

By nine, the Committee for Approved Meaning had assembled in a hotel conference room to consider whether the English language was adequately equipped for the situation. Pharmaceutical communications consultants sat along one side of the table. Legislative drafters sat along the other. At the head was a nameplate reading LEGISLATOR—TO BE CONFIRMED.

The draft Public Confidence in English Act of 2026 had not been introduced anywhere. Its implementation binder was already available.

“We’re not proposing to change the number,” the chair said. “The number has a source.”

He tapped the word beside it.

“This appears to be freelancing.”

The first amendment

A statistician explained that the sentence was incomplete in either direction. Two reports did not establish two confirmed drug-caused deaths. Nor did the available reports establish that no other deaths had occurred. FDA’s reporting guidance itself warns against using spontaneous reports to determine causation or calculate how frequently an event occurs. FDA reporting-system limitations

The chair asked him to prepare a shorter version.

“How short?”

“Something we could put before ‘two.’”

A pharmaceutical consultant offered already. An online peptide seller, invited to provide balance, preferred merely. The statistician recommended leaving the number alone until the sentence could say what it actually counted.

This proposal had no sponsor.

The committee instead recommended retaining only in the dictionary while requiring prior authorization for its use. Applicants would submit the proposed number, the intended audience and a brief explanation of the feeling they wished the number to produce.

Existing commercial users could apply for an exemption. New users would need to demonstrate that their use of the word was substantially equivalent to a previously accepted use.

The peptide seller asked whether he could advertise that no deaths had been conclusively attributed to his particular vial.

The statistician asked whether he had evidence sufficient to make any safety claim about the vial.

The seller returned to arguing about the dictionary.

A link with room to move

By midmorning, the review had reached linked.

The communications team valued the word’s ability to fit where a longer account of uncertainty would not. It could connect a product and an event while leaving the reader to choose the strength of the connection.

A consultant proposed two usage examples. In one, a competing product was linked to a reported harm. In the other, a client’s product had appeared in a report whose interpretation required considerable care.

“The evidentiary standard should be the same,” the statistician said.

“It is,” the consultant replied. “These are examples.”

Both were approved for inclusion.

The committee’s independent reviewer then submitted his findings. His invoice had been settled before the meeting, so there was no longer an outstanding financial relationship to disclose.

He found the draft reassuringly independent.

A delegate from the Committee on Appropriate Timing recognized the problem. In its earlier deliberations—described in Breaking Viral’s “Eli Lilly Discovers a Potential Problem With People Losing Weight Ahead of Schedule”—his committee had tried to coordinate a projected market with people who did not appear to have read the launch calendar.

That had been a matter of timing. This was more fundamental. Even a carefully scheduled announcement could be ruined by a reader arriving with an older meaning of safe.

The historical-use exemption

The evidence clerk had anticipated this and brought files.

The first concerned partially hydrogenated oils. In 2015, FDA determined that they were no longer Generally Recognized as Safe. Most manufacturing uses had a 2018 compliance deadline; certain products had longer to move through distribution. FDA determination on partially hydrogenated oils; FDA transition deadlines

The clerk placed the phrase on the screen.

A consultant asked whether safe could be removed from the historical version.

“No,” she said. “It’s what the term was.”

The committee studied the remaining words. Generally looked promising. It had occupied the sentence for years without attracting the attention now being given to only.

The drafter assigned it a new definition: “A qualification to be located after the main word has become difficult to defend.”

The next file concerned Red No. 3. FDA declined to authorize its cosmetics and topical-drug uses in 1990. The initial order revoking its food and ingested-drug uses came in 2025, with deadlines in 2027 and 2028. The cancer findings prompting the legal action were in male rats; FDA says there is no evidence that Red No. 3 causes cancer in humans. FDA Red No. 3 information; FDA July 2025 phase-out letter

A delegate had prepared a paragraph claiming millions of human deaths from food dyes. The clerk removed it. It was not in the file.

“What can we keep?” he asked.

“The dates.”

The committee moved to temporary.

Its proposed definition was “An interval whose end remains available for discussion.” The new edition would not require the interval to fit within the tenure of any one employee.

A distribution consultant approved of this. He had come to advise on the removal of obsolete dictionaries and could already see uses for a generous transition period.

The Vioxx file was shorter. Merck withdrew the drug in 2004 after trial findings showed increased cardiovascular risk, and FDA issued a public-health advisory. FDA Vioxx withdrawal statement; APPROVe trial report

One consultant suggested replacing withdrawn with completed.

“That would change what happened,” the clerk said.

“It would change how the paragraph ends.”

The amendment was left in brackets.

An established number

The alcohol file arrived without a suggested adjective.

WHO estimates that alcohol consumption caused approximately 2.6 million deaths worldwide in 2019. WHO alcohol fact sheet

The consultant assigned to the account preferred established.

The statistician pointed out that a global mortality estimate and two spontaneous product reports could not be compared as though they were two results from the same experiment. They had different populations, periods and methods. Dividing one by the other would not establish how dangerous a vial was.

The consultant said he had not intended to divide anything. He wanted to know whether established would fit on the first line.

The clerk also corrected the agency heading. Alcohol regulation was not simply FDA drug approval. TTB had major alcohol-labeling responsibilities; FDA had authority over matters including ingredient safety and adulteration. TTB alcohol regulation FAQ

The meeting now required a definition of shared responsibility. The first draft contained several office addresses and no active verb.

Glyphosate complicated the file further. IARC had classified it as probably carcinogenic to humans. EPA had reached a different classification and was updating its evaluation after the human-health portion of its interim decision was vacated. Its pesticide registration was an EPA matter, not an FDA drug-approval decision. IARC glyphosate classification; EPA glyphosate review

The communications team asked whether the agencies could be combined for the graphic.

The clerk said no.

The designer reduced the font.

The 2026 edition

By lunch, the committee had identified the principal obstacle to consistent language: people already owned dictionaries.

The draft bill therefore proposed recalling every earlier volume bearing the Webster name. Universities would receive the 2026 replacement edition and certify that superseded definitions had been removed from lectures, examinations and, where practicable, recollection.

A librarian asked whether the old books would be kept for historical research.

The distribution consultant turned to the disposal schedule.

The draft said burned.

The communications team changed this to thermally revised. A second amendment renamed the collection points access centers.

The librarian asked whether students could choose another dictionary.

“Choice is in the new edition,” the chair said.

She asked to see the entry.

It referred her to approved alternatives. That referred her back to the new edition.

A remaining problem was the proposed FDA endorsement. The consultant seated beneath the agency’s initials was privately retained and could not speak for it. His badge explained this in smaller type.

He said the agency might welcome clear communication.

The drafter typed SUPPORTS THE INITIATIVE.

He asked her to restore might.

The committee added might to the review list.

By late afternoon, the dictionary was ready. Its sponsors had one remaining condition: the new definitions would require a dedicated Dictionary Enforcement Agency.

The initials had already been approved for the jackets.

A clerk pointed out that DEA was taken by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The committee asked whether anyone had approached it about leaving.

Counsel was instructed to prepare a separate injunction seeking the existing agency’s dissolution. The draft alleged no misconduct. Its continued existence was obstructing an approved acronym.

One delegate suggested calling the new body the National Dictionary Enforcement Agency.

The chair declined to reopen settled language.

The Drug Enforcement Administration would be invited to comment on its proposed abolition. Its response would be assessed under the new definition of cooperation.

Until the naming issue was resolved, the legislation could not proceed. The enforcement offices could still be furnished, however, and the committee authorized recruitment so that someone would be available to enforce the new meanings once the people enforcing drugs had been removed.

The copy editor prepared a short status update:

“The entire initiative is being held up by only three letters.”

Legal removed only.

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Editor’s note: This is satire. The committee, model bill, participants, dictionary destruction, university requirements, Dictionary Enforcement Agency, proposed injunction and supposed endorsement process are invented—not reports about actual legislators, regulators or companies. The two reports are not a complete peptide death count or proof of causation. The dated health examples are sourced, not comparable risk estimates. Established harms elsewhere do not establish the safety of an unapproved product. FDA concerns about unapproved GLP-1 drugs

Image: AI-generated conceptual illustration of a fictional committee briefing.