A purity result is not a safety result.
Independent testing of black-market peptides keeps finding the same thing: the label is wrong, and most of what is in the vial was never measured at all.
What testing actually found
In August 2026 the ABC reported on laboratory testing of counterfeit retatrutide sold online in Australia, alongside cases of acute liver failure in patients who had injected it.
- Dosing
- Of eighteen samples tested, one matched what its label claimed. The rest were over- or under-dosed in roughly equal measure.
- Composition
- The peptide accounted for around a tenth of what was in the vial. The remainder was unidentified.
- Harm
- Patients in Victoria were treated for acute liver failure after using vials sold as retatrutide.
- Status
- Retatrutide is an investigational compound. It is not an approved medicine anywhere, so every consumer version sold online is counterfeit by definition.
What a purity test does not tell you
“All that they know from this testing is that there is some retatrutide in their vials. It doesn’t actually tell them if there’s any other contaminants or any other drugs or medications that could be mixed with them.”
Dr Marie Sinclair, liver transplant specialist, quoted by the ABC
“We had two different laboratories help us with that and did a very extensive analysis of components in these vials, and even with extensive testing we don’t have the full picture.”
Dr Marie Sinclair, on testing vials from patients with severe liver failure
That is the part worth sitting with. An identity and purity assay answers one question: is the named compound present, and at what purity. It is silent on bacterial endotoxin, on heavy metals, on residual solvents, and on anything the method was not looking for.
We are not the exception to this
We ship a lot certificate of analysis with every order, and we think that is better than not doing so. It does not make this material safe to put in a person, and no supplier’s paperwork does.
- What a COA is
- Evidence of identity and measured purity for a lot, at the point it was tested, by the method stated on it.
- What it is not
- A safety assessment, a sterility result, an endotoxin screen, or a clearance for human or veterinary use.
- Why we sell as we do
- Businesses only, unlabeled vials, research use only. Not a marketing posture — it is the only claim the evidence supports.
- Your own release
- Anyone using this material for research should test what arrived rather than trust the paperwork that came with it, including ours.
Related reading: important safety notice and FDA compounding status.
Source: “New testing of black market peptides reveals dangerous dosing levels”, Rachel Carbonell, Caitlyn Gribbin and Andi Yu, ABC News, 28 August 2026. Read the original report. Quotations are the ABC’s; the commentary is ours.