Methodology

How Fair Witness grades evidence, reviews content, and decides what to publish.

Fair Witness commits to transparent editorial practice. This page describes how our content is researched, reviewed, and published; who reviews what; and what we disclose. It is the page we'd want to read before trusting a source ourselves.

Editorial Process

1. Research — our editorial team gathers the primary literature for a compound: the studies themselves, regulatory records, and clinical-practice guidance.
2. Synthesis — we synthesize that literature into an accessible per-compound explainer, grading each claim by evidence tier and making the human-vs-animal split and FDA status explicit.
3. Drafting — the editorial team authors the piece in our clinical-confident-hedged register, citing primary sources inline.
4. Clinical / expert review — for any piece that touches safety, dosing, contraindications, drug interactions, or vulnerable populations, our Medical Director reviews and signs off before publication.
5. Publication — the piece publishes with its reviewer attestation, citation list, and publication + review dates.
6. Refresh — we refresh on a six-month cadence (and out-of-cycle for significant new evidence or regulatory change), with a visible changelog.

Reviewer Credentialing

• Named reviewer: Dr. Sam Walters, NMD — Medical Director. A Naturopathic Medical Doctor with an active medical license, four decades of clinical practice, and direct clinical experience with peptide protocols. Full credentials on our About page.
• Reviewer-byline convention: Every YMYL-classified piece (safety, dosing, contraindication, drug-interaction, vulnerable-population) carries Dr. Walters' named reviewer attestation at the top, above the article. Per-compound pillars where his clinical experience is cited, and comparison pieces making cross-substance safety claims, also carry his byline. Pure research-summary, news, and publisher-engagement pieces may not require his review.
• Reviewer attestation: "Reviewed by Dr. Sam Walters, NMD on [Date] for clinical accuracy, safety, dosing protocol coherence, and contraindication completeness."
• Reviewer voice-conditioning: Where Dr. Walters' clinical experience adds practical context the literature lacks, we surface it as a bracketed, attributed note — for example, "[Reviewer note: In my clinical practice, I've observed [peptide] protocols used in [context]; published studies use a wider range. — Dr. Walters, NMD]." These notes inform; they never prescribe a dose or protocol for you.

Editorial Team

Our content is researched and authored by the Fair Witness editorial team and reviewed by our Medical Director. [Editorial team roles + names — operator to fill on the published page.] The editorial team has final say on the shape and register of non-YMYL content; Dr. Walters has final say on the clinical accuracy of YMYL-classified content.

AI-Tool Disclosure

The Fair Witness editorial team uses AI-assisted research tooling for source discovery, literature synthesis, and drafting. Every clinical-substantive call — claim grading by evidence tier, hedging discipline, reviewer-attestation language, safety and contraindication content — is human-authored by our editorial team and human-reviewed by Dr. Walters before publication. We do not publish AI-generated content without human editorial authorship and human clinical review.

Disclosures

• Conflicts of interest: Dr. Walters serves as Medical Director under a paid arrangement; specific terms are held in operator records. He has no commerce, vendor, or pharmaceutical-company financial relationships that would create a conflict of interest for peptide content. Any conflict we discover is disclosed inline on the affected piece.
• Sponsorships: We have no sponsored content at launch. If we introduce sponsorship later, sponsored pieces will be clearly labeled at the top of the piece, on the masthead, and in the footer — and sponsored content can never reference Dr. Walters as a reviewer (an editorial-commerce wall).
• Affiliates: We have no affiliate links at launch. If we introduce affiliate links later, each will be inline-disclosed and categorized here on the methodology page.
• Editorial independence: We sell no substances and run no vendor storefront. Our editorial decisions are walled off from any commerce, sponsorship, or affiliate consideration.

Refresh + Correction Policy

See our Source Standards page for our refresh cadence, changelog discipline, and correction policy.

Comments + Reader Engagement

We welcome reader questions, citation challenges, and correction requests at [contact channel — operator to fill]. We read them and respond, and a well-founded correction request results in a documented correction.