In this past December, Bloomberg News reporter Caleb Melby found himself watching some TikToks.

Unbox my cerebral package with me. Your meds come straight to your door. The process is stress-free and simple.

They were from the company Cerebral, an online mental health care startup.

The one that I remember the most is the one where a woman literally dances with a box of

pills.

My cerebral package with me.

Your meds come straight to your door.

Melby and his co-author, Pollymazins watched a lot of cerebral videos.

Here are 10 natural remedies for anxiety. Some of them were fairly generic mental health affirmations,

but others advertised how easily medication for anxiety, depression, and ADHD could come right

to your door. The ads were eye-popping, for sure.

It made us ask what's going on here, and we decided to start calling around the company.

They talked to employees and former employees, a lot of whom were nurses.

Some of those early calls, it was like one of those conversations where it's, I was wondering when I was going to get this call.

And that's when we knew that we might be on to something interesting.

Wow. That's a reporter's dream.

Yes. Yeah, it is.

What Caleb and Polly found was a company that promised to fill holes in America's fragile mental health care network,

but instead followed the Silicon Valley playbook, moving fast and growing at all costs,

and prescribing controlled drugs like Adderall and Xanax, over the internet.

Today on the show, what happens when the internet and mental health care collide?

I'm Lizzie O'Leary, and you're listening to What Next TBD, a show about technology, power, and how the future will be determined.

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