Editorial policy: how we decide what to write

What is this page?

The rules we write by. You can use them to check our work.

This site exists to inform, not to persuade. Many readers have already made a choice, or already have a product. We do not try to talk anyone out of it. We try to make the choice better informed and the use safer. That is called harm reduction.

How we grade evidence

How do you judge how strong the evidence is?

We rate four things separately. We also label each claim with the kind of study behind it.

The six labels we put on a claim, from least to most support.

Label on the page	What it means	What it can tell you
Hypothesis	Someone proposed it. No experiment has shown it.	An idea worth testing. Nothing more.
Cells	Shown in cells or tissue in a lab	That something can happen in a dish
Animals	Shown in animal studies	That it can happen in a living animal. People often react differently.
Humans, limited	Seen in people, in single cases or small studies without a comparison group	That a question is worth asking in people
Human trials	Shown in controlled trials in people	That it works or harms in the people who were studied
Established	Shown in large trials and in approved use	What a regulator has accepted, for a specific use

Each compound page also has an evidence profile. It answers four questions: has it been tested in people, how much lab and animal research exists, how many separate research groups did that research, and how well the harms in people are known. We never add these up. One number would hide important differences. The full method is on our page about evidence grading.

In detail The four scales, step by step

Question	The steps, from least to most
How far has it been tested in people?	None published → case reports only → phase I (small, about safety) → phase II (dose and early effect) → phase III (large controlled trials) → authorised by a regulator
How much lab and animal research exists?	Minimal (fewer than about 10 studies) → moderate (about 10 to 50) → extensive (more than about 50)
How many separate groups produced it?	One group dominates (more than about 7 in 10 studies) → a few groups → many groups, with key results repeated
How well are the harms in people known?	Uncharacterised (no organised data in people) → partial (short or small studies) → well characterised (large trials plus years of reports after approval)

We count only studies that have been completed and published. A trial that is registered but has no results does not count yet.

In detail Why we never give one overall score

Take a compound with more than 50 animal studies, almost all from one laboratory, and no trials in people. A single score of “medium” would describe none of that. The four separate grades say exactly what is known and what is missing. That is why the grades sit side by side and are never added up. See the Croatian lab for a worked example.

Where our facts come from

Where do your facts come from?

From the study, the regulator or the law itself. Each fact links to it.

Which sources we use first, and which we never use.

First choice: the original. The trial report, the regulator’s decision or product label, the law itself.
Then: systematic reviews. A systematic review collects all studies on one question by a fixed method.
Only for background: other reviews and expert statements. We say when a fact rests on one.
Never: anyone with something to sell. No sellers, clinics, coaches, influencers, forums or marketing material.

Every claim about a study says which species, how many subjects and what kind of study (“in a trial of 1,961 adults…”). Every legal or regulatory status carries the date we checked it. If we cannot check something, we leave it out, or we write that it is not known.

In detail How we check a source

Studies. We look each study up in PubMed, the database of the US National Library of Medicine.¹ We copy the authors, title, journal, year and DOI (the paper’s permanent web address) from that record, never from memory. A wrong DOI is one of the worst mistakes we could make.
Numbers. Every number on a page must appear in the source it cites. We report numbers as the source gives them.
Regulators and laws. We open each official page, read it, and record the date. Laws and statuses change, so pages show when we last checked.
Links. We link only to sites on a fixed list. It holds regulators, law databases, PubMed and science journals, universities, anti-doping bodies, patient and harm-reduction organisations, and a few non-profit services, such as the archive our photos come from. No one who sells medicines or peptides can be on that list. Every other link is blocked when the site is built.
Animal and lab results. We never turn an animal result into advice for people. See the translation gap.

In detail Who paid for the research

Who pays for a study can affect its results. A Cochrane review of 75 papers found that drug and device studies paid for by the maker more often reported favourable results and conclusions than studies paid for by others. By the usual quality checks, the company studies were not worse designed. On one check, blinding, they did better.² So we record who paid for each key study and whether it came from the group that first developed the compound. That does not make a study wrong. It tells you whose questions were asked. See conflicts of interest.

What we never write, and what we always write

Is there anything you will not write?

Yes. No doses, no sellers, no promises. And we always say what is not known.

We give practical safety facts. We never give doses or help anyone buy a product. The rules every page on this site follows.

	On this site
Doses, schedules, mixing sums or combinations of products?	No For untested peptides nobody knows a safe or useful amount. For approved medicines, your prescriber decides.
Names of sellers, links to shops, or tips on choosing a seller?	No That could count as advertising, which the law forbids for unlicensed medicines.^3,4
Stories from users, before-and-after pictures, or promises?	No A story cannot show what a product does. A fair trial can.
Practical safety information for people who already have a product?	Yes What to check, which tests matter, warning signs and when to get help
Species, number and type of study for every study claim?	Yes So you can see how far a result reaches
What is not known?	Yes In both directions: where evidence is weak, and where it is promising
The date we checked each legal or regulatory status?	Yes Because these change

We never assume where a product came from, and we do not lecture. We state each risk once, with its reason. We present a doctor as someone who can help: with check-ups, with tests, and when something goes wrong.

In detail Why the line is where it is

Dutch law forbids any advertising for a medicine that has no licence. It also forbids advertising prescription-only medicines to the public.³ The law defines advertising by its purpose: any attempt to get people to prescribe, supply or use a medicine.⁵ The EU Court of Justice ruled that information from an independent writer can also count as advertising. What matters is the purpose of the message.⁶

A link to a shop, a price or a tip about where to get a product would give our information that purpose. Without them, our information stays information. That is why we name no sellers and give no doses. See Dutch law and funding.

We do describe warning signs of a dangerous product, practice or seller, taken from regulators. These are always warning signs only. No sign can show that a product is good, and we say so.

In detail Words we avoid

We never call an untested product safe, and we never say something has been shown when it has not.
We avoid hype words, and words that make a compound sound like a cure.
We do not rank compounds against each other. If a trial compared two medicines directly, we give its numbers, its design and who took part.
For approved medicines we say what the official label and the trials show, and for which use.

Who checks our work

Has a doctor checked these pages?

Not yet. Review by a named doctor and by a lawyer is still pending. Each page says so.

Who has checked the pages so far, on 22 October 2026.

Check	Status
Every fact checked against its original source, in a separate step after writing	Done before a page is published, with AI help, overseen by the editor
Independent medical review by a named doctor in the Dutch BIG register	Pending
Independent legal review	Pending
Review of the Dutch translation by a professional translator	Pending

We will not present any page as reviewed until a named person has signed it off. Until then, each page shows a notice near the title. When a reviewer signs off, the page shows their name, their registration and the date.

In detail What the review line on each page means

Medical review pending. The page was written and checked against its sources, but no outside doctor has checked it yet. Read it as carefully sourced editorial work, not as reviewed medical advice.
Legal review pending. The page describes the law from the laws themselves and from official guidance. It is not legal advice.
“Reviewed by” a person. Only a real, named person can appear here. For a doctor, we will show their registration in the BIG register, the Dutch public register of licensed health professionals, so anyone can check it.
These About pages describe the site, not medicine, so our editorial board signs them.

In detail How we use AI

We prepare drafts with the help of AI tools. The tools also help us search PubMed, trial registers and official websites. After writing, a separate checking step compares every fact with its original source: the study record, the regulator’s page or the law. That step also uses AI tools, and the editor oversees the work. A fact we cannot check does not go on the page.

AI tools can make mistakes that sound convincing. That is why every claim links to its source, so you can check it too. It is also why no page is presented as reviewed until a named person, a doctor or a lawyer, signs it off.

Some drawings on this site were made with an AI image tool. They contain no text, they are labelled “AI-generated illustration”, and a person must check each one for errors before it is published. Photos come from open archives, with their licence and source listed under each one.

Translations

Is the Dutch page the same as the English one?

The facts are the same. Legal pages may be adapted, not just translated.

How each part of a page reaches another language.

Part of the page	How it is translated
Facts and numbers: evidence grades, study details, legal statuses, dates	Stored once and shown in every language, so they cannot change in translation
Explanations of science and medicine	Translated, then checked by a person; a notice shows until that check is done
Legal pages	Adapted where needed, not just translated, so the words match each country’s own legal terms
Emergency advice	English pages say “call your local emergency number”; Dutch pages give the Dutch number

A translation never changes how strong the evidence is. Until a professional translator has checked a page, it shows a notice, and the English page is the reference.

Corrections

What if you get something wrong?

We fix it, date it, and list every real change in a public log.

What we do when you tell us about a mistake.

Report. Someone tells us about a possible mistake.
Check. We check it against the original source.
Fix. We correct the page. A mistake that could affect someone’s safety comes first.
Log. Every real change goes into the public log, with its date.
Show. The page itself says that it was corrected, and when.

How to report, and the full log, are on the corrections page.

Facts and opinion are kept apart

Do you take sides?

On policy, yes, on one signed opinion page. The fact pages do not depend on it.

Fact pages tell you what is known. One page gives our opinion.

Reference pages (all other pages)	Opinion page
Describe evidence, law and safety	Argues what should change
Every claim sourced	Factual claims sourced; the argument is ours
Unsigned; checked as reference work	Signed by the editorial board and dated

We think some rules should change. We say so in one place: our position on reform. It is marked as opinion. No compound, safety or legal page relies on it.