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Comment by __MatrixMan__ | Hacker News Reader

I imagine it's legally risky to buy a large quantity, test it, and then resell smaller quantities. That's a shame because the alternative is probably that some folks settle for products of dubious quality and end up getting hurt.

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Yes, I believe most people buy directly from somewhat shady Chinese factories. I tried contacting a few and they all refuse to meet or send samples from within China, so I assume what they're doing is illegal in China. In the US, it's legal to sell them as a "research chemical" but the FDA is cracking down on companies that are clearly engaging in b2c.

There's this company that offers free testing: https://finnrick.com/

Another popular testing company is https://janoshik.com

Some other useful resources: https://graymarket.substack.com/ and https://glp1forum.com/

There are a few subreddits as well.

FWIW, I never ended up buying any myself.

Right, but I don't know the people at those companies. I have local chemists that I trust. I'm just lamenting the fact that developing that kind of trust network everywhere, so everybody can be similarly sure of what they're putting in their body, is likely to run afoul of local laws.

FWIW, finnrick's claim to fame is being free. Someone is paying for it. They have also failed blind tests in the past, Janoshik (IIRC) never has. There are several US-based labs but none of them have the same reputation as Janoshik.

Actually, you just described most of the tele-health and compounding pharmacies that carry GLP1s!

Where do you think Hims, Ro, Brello, or the rest get the APIs they sell to their customers? They get them from grey market suppliers in China. They don't go to Ely Lilly or NovoNordisk and say, "politely sir, may I skirt around your IP and sell your drugs for 10x what they cost instead of 10,000x what they cost?" Hopefully, they test them and filter them and use sterile/pharma processes for what they sell to their customers. Well, except for the Medspas, those are just wild west snake oil farms.

Things have changed a little, but during the time that compounding was explicitly allowed, the licensed pharmacies were buying from FDA approved manufacturers, sometimes in China, and sometimes the same manufacturers who also do contract manufacturing for Lilly.

Today ... who knows? It might just be the same gray market stuff us plebes can get.

This actually isn't true. Hims compounded the GLP1s themselves. They broke/are breaking the law. Theres lawsuits.

We need to change the law so that the crime is selling mislabeled or contaminated drugs. If you can cook it well enough in your kitchen, you should be allowed to share it with a neighbor in need.

They compounded them, which just means buying the API, reconstituting it, adding another compound (Vit B6), and putting it in sterile vials.

They did not make the peptides. They sourced them from China.

It probably is, but that does not stop people from effectively doing it. There are a number of groups that specialize in conducting group buys, doing a bunch of testing on randomized samples, and then shipping out the product to individuals.

Also, if you plan to be on it a good long time, you can buy a bunch of kits yourself (a kit is 10 vials), run a bunch of tests, and then just have a nice stockpile that will last you years. The testing will likely cost as much or more than the product itself, but given how inexpensive the product is, you still come out way ahead financially.

>I imagine it's legally risky to buy a large quantity, test it, and then resell smaller quantities

It is illegal, but it doesn't stop people from doing it. In fact, if you don't have any sort of test results for your peptides people will absolutely avoid buying your wares until you have them. Purity and mg/ml are the 2 basic test results that any shop worth their stuff will have.

To be fair, most everyone I know who is buying on the gray market considers vendor tests to be minimally required, but still insufficient -- there is no assurance they tested the product they shipped to you. Plan on testing it yourself. I'm sure some people do trust nexaph enough, though, to not worry so much. Whether that trust is well placed, that is a separate discussion.

With most of these you can really tell if they work or not and there is a pretty predicable dose dependent reaction profile. With slow meds like semaglutide you'd maybe not notice it in the first week but you will by week 3. I had mine tested but if that wasn't available I probably would have considered the anecdotal evidence to be sufficient. It appears that most of the scamming is just people taking the money and not shipping anything.

The most dangerous failures I've seen have been sending the wrong peptide. 15 mg of tirzepatide and 15 mg of semaglutide is a very different experience.

After nearly getting hosed in a group buy (I did get refunded, but that is far from a guarantee) because of a product mismatch, I decided to just pay for nexaph. Love him or hate him, his popularity relies on his reputation and he has been more careful than most suppliers to cultivate it with more extensive testing and quality control.

That makes sense, I don't like that the bottles are unlabelled so the first thing I have to do is label them. The box is labelled and this seems to be standard practice. Semaglutide is falling out of favour so I guess they're substituting. I have 4 years supply now so I guess I'll check back then and see where the market is at.

> I have 4 years supply now

I know a bunch of people with multi-year stockpiles. I've got ~5 years of reta and ~6 years of tirz. This is too much, of course, but I determined a while back that under no circumstances do I ever intend to find myself unable to source it. My life is immeasurably better after losing 110 pounds.

Could you direct me to some resources you used to figure out dosing and sourcing? I’ve been interested in trying it out (need to lose a lot of weight) but have been paralyzed by too much contradictory information.

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