Quality testing re: Alex.
As many of you know, the past several months have been replete with accusations and confirmations of quality issues (primarily with regard to PKs). The issues have not been isolated to one or two specific vendors but have been widespread throughout the SY vendor community. We've had some recent at-home reagent testing as well as a pill sent to a lab that have confirmed that some of the meds in the SY supply chain were not what they were purported to be.
I've been on record as stating I do not believe this was/is intentional on behalf of the vendors that we deal with but that these bunk meds have simply gotten in to the broad supply chain. Again, ALL vendors have been affected in some way or another, and since I'm posting in Alex's thread, I'll say that I believe he's done the best job of all the vendors at being transparent and trying to clean things up. I do realize there are some different views within the member community as to the opinions I've expressed within this paragraph, but that's beyond the scope of this post and there's no need to rehash that debate now.
Impressively, I believe that we, as a community, have quickly become much smarter and more sophisticated in our efforts to protect ourselves and our fellow posters from both a financial perspective and, more importantly, from a safety perspective. Many of us have made investments in acid reagent test kits, and in some cases, having learned the limitations of those kits, made further investments in multi-acid regent test kits which allow us to more accurately interpret our testing results.
Having said that, the absolute gold standard for testing is the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) testing that must be done in a professional laboratory. There are expesive services out there like EcstastyData.org that will provide this service for a hefty fee ($150 per pill). One of our own memers Ttony, recently sent in a suspect Watson 853 received from Alex and the results came back as tramadol instead of hydrocodone/acetaminophen. This result was not only valuable for our members, but also for Alex (the vendor).
Part of the reason I've made this post in Alex's thread is that I have sent off two pills of my own (from Alex) to be tested. Honestly, I have no real reason to suspect these meds, with the slight exception of the second example, both meds met my expectations and have generally been well reviewed. I did this as more of a random test and to teach myself how to use the service.
Sample#1
Roxy 30mg - A215 (received 2/10)
Sample#2
Perc 10/325 - Watson 932 (received 2/10)
Both samples were sent on 2/12 and received by the lab on 2/13. The website states that results take 2-3 weeks, but given Ttony's experience, one in which their lab equipment actually went down for 3 or 4 business days, I think we can expect the results much quicker. The results are made public on the website when complete. I will obviously be checking daily so I will post the results as soon as they are available.
Like I said, the only reason I posted this on Alex's thread is because I received these from Alex. I will also copy and paste this into the "Quality" thread where most quality related discussion should take place. I also want to reiterate that I sent in these samples totally and completely randomly. I had no reason to suspect that these were bad. I've done this as a learning experience for my own edification.
Regards,
MC