Editorial policy
How a claim earns its stamp
Every case file carries a verdict and an evidence score. This page explains where both come from and what happens when the record changes.
What counts as evidence
Primary records come first: papers indexed in PubMed and PubMed Central, drug labels on DailyMed and Drugs@FDA, FDA and other regulator warnings and statements, trial registries such as ClinicalTrials.gov, and anti-doping lists. Named news and trade outlets are used for recent regulatory events and are cited as news, not as evidence of an effect.
Seller pages, clinic marketing, forum threads and influencer posts are quoted only as the source of a claim, never as support for it. A certificate of analysis supplied by a seller is not treated as independent testing.
How a verdict is set
The verdict judges the claim exactly as worded, for the product and the people it names. Human randomised trials outrank observational data, which outrank animal and cell studies. Funding and sample size are noted. The method page defines the four verdicts and the five-step meter.
Two kinds of files
The longer case files were written against a fact-check log and list their sources under the text. Twelve short starter files came first, as introductions written before that log existed. They show no source list yet and each one says so. We are reviewing them one at a time and will add sources or fold them into a longer file.
Doses and labels
Many readers arrive with a dosing question. For approved medicines a file may quote the label dose and cite the label. For unapproved compounds it may describe what studies used, in general terms, and says plainly that no established human dose exists. We give no personal dosing advice, no schedules or mixing recipes, name no sellers and list no grey-market prices.
Independence
There are no ads, affiliate links or sponsored files. No company reviews a file before publication or pays for a verdict. Files are published under the Peptide Footnotes desk; named authors and reviewers will be added only when real people sign their work.
Corrections and updates
When a study, label or regulator decision changes, or we got something wrong, we update the file and move its Last reviewed date to the day of the change. A changed verdict is stated in the file. Send corrections through the contact page with a link to the record that shows the error.
Last updated 28 Oct 2026. See also the editorial policy, privacy policy and how we grade.