Mass and Purity Testing vs. Safety: The Noob Explainer I Wish I Had From The Beginning

[deleted.user.18]

I’m just wondering how you can justify the cost for the testing on a batch of say 10 vials? If all of the testing on a particular sample ends up costing $1000 but I only spent $100 on the test kit? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Can somebody explain how analytical testing on a research peptide from China makes financial sense? What am I missing here? I am 100% on board with being safe, but the simple fact of ordering peptides from China does sound a little sketch to start off with. Maybe it would be safer just to pay the extra money upfront from a reputable German Peptide Dealer or maybe even an American Peptide Dealer that guarantees all of their products have been safely tested? These are my thoughts.

…where do you suppose the reputable German peptide dealer is sourcing his product? Can you verify that they are a manufacturer, not a wholesaler or reseller? Why is their guarantee worth more than the COAs provided by the Chinese manufacturer or the resellers from Chromate or Janoshik? P Magic at Jano is on record saying that in his research he is confident there are only 2-3 manufacturers for Reta, probably the same for Tirz. (See FAQ above) If buying from them satisfies your risk tolerance Godspeed. No judgement. But go with a clear knowledge of the actual risk, not some heuristic bias.

My point is not whether it makes financial sense, or even health sense. My point is, the typical ID, mass and purity test is not what may of us newbies think it is. Heck there’s a ton of experienced users who don’t understand it either. Specifically the 99.xx% purity is only for the compound tested. Vial could have 100mg of stuff, only 10mg is the compound. That 10mg is 99.xx% pure. The test doesn’t tell you anything about the other 90mg of filler in the vial.

From that fact, we went down the rabbit hole of what would it take to know what all of the stuff in the vial is. It gets really expensive and still won’t show a complete picture. It’s a lot less expensive if you don’t want interpretation or screening and just want the raw data… but what you save in money you’ll have to make up for in knowledge.

At the end of the day, it comes down to risk tolerance and trust. Trust that what the various labs are saying is true, that the most common problems aren’t endotoxins, sterility, heavy metals, fentanyl or anything else; the common problems are low purity, wrong compound, wrong amount.

If you don’t trust them, or your risk tolerance requires you know as much as possible about the contents of your vials, broad LCMS(raw data), broad GCMS(raw data), and the 4 heavy metals test is about the same cost as ID, mass, purity- but you need to learn how to read the raw data. Even then you still cannot be sure! You cannot pay away the risk. Fear is very expensive.

 

[juGGaKNot]

It’s true, further testing can eliminate some risk. I appreciate your perspective and engagement. But, that’s the type of overstatement of fact that makes this topic so confusing to us noobs. The “contamination add-on” is a GC-MS screen with a basic NIST library according to their site details. It will probably flag some additional volatile or unexpected compounds, but it’s not a full chemical breakdown, it won’t tell you “all of the chemicals in the vial.” You’ll never find what you don’t test for.

A broader panel, as discussed -plus a few extras, could include heavy metal screening (As, Cd, Pb, Hg), LC-MS and LC-HRMS, HPLC-DAD, ¹H NMR, endotoxin, and sterility testing. It covers 4 metals, organics, peptide purity, structural confirmation, and microbial/endotoxin contamination. Usually 1–2 vials are needed, plus shipping, and the cost is probably $1,500–$1,600 depending on sample complexity.

Jano support told me this :

Contamination testing, in this case LCMS - checks for contamination with other peptides - it would detect (ID) any other peptides that could be inside the sample.

So it just checks for other peptides, not other chemicals ?

On STG i read a bit about TFA:

Spot testing for TFA — since TFA is both typically present in the manufacturing process and highly volatile like the class 1 solvents, it’s a good proxy marker for whether proper lyophilization was done. If TFA isn’t present, it’s highly likely other volatile residuals with similar boiling points (like Benzene, etc.) were also removed.

Would TFA be a better marker of chemical contamination ?

 

[deleted.user.18]

Jano support told me this :

So it just checks for other peptides, not other chemicals ?

On STG i read a bit about TFA:

Would TFA be a better marker of chemical contamination ?

No idea. For the money, if I ever test it’ll be the raw data LCMS and GCMS