Editorial policy

Purpose

Open Assay exists to be the peptide category's most trustworthy independent voice. This document is the set of rules we hold ourselves to so that trust is earned, not claimed.

Source of every claim

Every factual claim on a peptide page links to a primary source: a PubMed ID, a DOI, or a ClinicalTrials.gov identifier. We do not cite other peptide blogs, influencer videos, or supplier marketing materials as sources of scientific fact. If we cannot find a primary source for a claim, we do not publish the claim.

Language we do not use

Peptides covered on Open Assay are sold for research use only. To preserve compliance and avoid implying human use, our style guide prohibits:

• "Users," "patients," "treatment," "therapy" (when attributing outcomes to peptide use by people)
• "Healing effects," "promotes repair" (active voice attributing outcomes to the peptide)
• Dosing recommendations, cycle lengths, on/off protocols
• "Under medical supervision"
• Any phrase implying human administration is intended

Preferred replacements:

• "In [species] studies, researchers observed..."
• "Associated with [outcome] in [study]"
• "Under investigation for [indication]"
• "In [citation], participants received [dose]; this is not a recommendation."

Evidence tiering

Every peptide carries an evidence-tier badge (1-4) reflecting the strength of independently-replicated human evidence. See /evidence-tiers for our criteria. A promising animal result from a single laboratory does not lift a peptide out of Tier 3 regardless of how widely it is cited in supplement marketing.

Independence from suppliers

• Rankings are determined before any affiliate relationship is established.
• Affiliate partner status is not an input to the ranking algorithm.
• Suppliers cannot pay to improve their ranking or remove unfavorable coverage.
• Failing test results on affiliate partners are published with the same prominence as failing test results on non-partners.
• We review suppliers who are not affiliate partners — including those without affiliate programs and those we have chosen not to partner with.
• If a supplier's affiliate program threatens editorial consequences for unfavorable coverage, we do not apply.

Pre-publication review

Before any new peptide page or stack page publishes, it passes three checkpoints:

1. Source audit. An editor confirms every factual claim resolves to a primary source and that each evidence-tier badge is supported by the cited studies. Claims without a source are removed.
2. Compliance sweep. A second reader searches for language that implies human use or dosing, and removes it. The style-guide checklist runs against every paragraph.
3. Conflict check. The page owner confirms they have no equity, paid advisory, or undisclosed supplier relationship that would conflict with the coverage.

The timestamp on each peptide page shows the most recent pre-publication review date.

Authorship and attribution

Every peptide page, stack page, and editorial piece lists its author and its scientific reviewer in a byline. Authors are responsible for the final text; scientific reviewers are responsible for accuracy of the claims cited. Material contributions beyond writing (data extraction, citation verification, chart production) are acknowledged by name in a "Contributors" footer. AI-assisted drafting is permitted but the final version is always reviewed and approved by a named human author.

Corrections, updates, and retractions

We treat these as three different things and log them differently.

• Update — new information extends or refines existing coverage without contradicting earlier claims. Logged in the page changelog with date and summary.
• Correction — a factual error is found and fixed. Logged on /corrections with the before/after values, reason, and affected references. Substantive corrections are surfaced at the top of the affected page for ninety days after publication.
• Retraction — a claim is withdrawn entirely because the underlying evidence no longer supports it (for example, a cited paper was itself retracted, or our testing cannot reproduce a result we previously published). Retracted claims are struck-through in place, annotated with the retraction date and reason, and the originating editor is named. Retractions cannot be deleted or back-edited out of the page history.

Re-test triggers

A supplier's assay result gets re-tested at our own expense in any of these situations:

• The supplier formally disputes a failing result with supporting data.
• Two or more independent community reports contradict our result for the same product within thirty days.
• Internal QA flags an anomaly in the original test (chain-of-custody gap, instrument calibration issue, reagent lot change).
• The vendor changes manufacturer, upstream API source, or compounding facility.

Re-tests are run on a freshly blind-purchased sample from the same product page the original sample came from. Both results remain on the supplier page — the re-test does not overwrite the original.

Disputes with suppliers

If a supplier disputes a test result, their response is recorded on the affected assay page in a "Remediation" section within seven business days of receipt. We do not remove the original finding. If the re-test upholds the failure, the remediation entry is kept as the supplier's on-record response. If the re-test clears the finding, the original result is annotated with the re-test outcome but remains visible.

Editorial firewall

The separation between editorial and business operations is structural, not just rhetorical:

  ┌──────────────────────────┐      ┌──────────────────────────┐
  │      EDITORIAL           │      │       BUSINESS           │
  │  rankings, test results, │◄  ✕  ►│  affiliate contracts,   │
  │  corrections, policies   │      │  partnership outreach,   │
  │                          │      │  revenue, marketing      │
  └──────────────────────────┘      └──────────────────────────┘
             ▲                                   │
             │                                   │
             │ Business side receives the        │
             │ finalized ranking as input, not   │
             │ a lever: it can decide whether    │
             │ to pursue a partnership with an   │
             │ A-ranked supplier, but cannot     │
             │ change whether the supplier is    │
             │ A-ranked.                         │
             │                                   ▼
             │                       Affiliate links are added
             │                       to the public page with a
             │                       banner after the ranking
             │                       is already set.
             └───── rank-frozen ──────────►

Mechanically: the composite rank for each supplier is computed from public assay data plus our own test results, with no field in the formula that anyone on the business side can touch. The formula is in /rankings and is open-source in lib/ranking.ts on GitHub.

Conflicts of interest

Open Assay editors and scientific reviewers disclose all financial relationships with peptide suppliers, testing labs, or compounding pharmacies on their team pages. Direct equity stakes in reviewed suppliers are disqualifying. Advisory roles, paid speaking engagements, and honoraria must be disclosed and are reviewed annually. If an editor develops a disqualifying conflict during their tenure, they recuse from all coverage of the affected supplier for the remainder of that relationship plus twelve months.

Data retention and transparency

Raw lab files (HPLC chromatograms, MS spectra, LAL data) are retained indefinitely and made available on request. A researcher who wants to verify our published purity number can email editorial@openassay.org with the assay ID and we will send the underlying instrument file. We do not redact sample origin, batch, or lot data except where doing so would expose an unrelated third party.

What this policy is not

This policy does not guarantee that Open Assay is never wrong. Science is provisional, and our interpretations of it are too. The policy commits us to correct errors visibly when found — not to avoid ever making them.