Availability by country, dated, with primary sources posts 61–82

The arithmetic in post #60 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.

Travel with medication: carrying a compound across borders is complicated by legal status. Documenting that it is prescribed and carrying proof reduces (but does not eliminate) risk.

Worth reading the earlier posts in this thread before acting on mine.

Answering the question post #58 raises rather than the one it answers.

Source for the availability figure, since it was asked for. It is in the discussion rather than the abstract, which is why the version circulating is stronger than the paper is.

Reading the surrounding paragraph is worth the two minutes. The authors are more careful than their summarisers.

The useful distinction on availability is between what was measured and what was inferred from it. Both end up in the same sentence and only one of them has error bars.

Country-by-country legality: compound approval and legal status differ substantially by jurisdiction. Semaglutide approved in the United States and European Union; tirzepatide approved in some but not all; retatrutide approved nowhere yet (ongoing trials).

Thank you for the correction. I would rather find out here than later.

What would change my mind on availability is a second dataset collected by someone with no stake in the first. Until then I hold it loosely and I would rather say so than pretend to more.

On availability, the part that usually goes wrong is that the question is asked as though it has one answer. It has a range, and the width of the range is the interesting bit.

If you can post the two or three numbers you are working from, several people here will check the arithmetic rather than argue about the conclusion.

Post #66 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.

Nothing here is legal advice, and in this subcategory that caveat is doing real work rather than sitting decoratively at the end.

The reasoning is more useful than the number, which is why I have shown it.

Before the thread moves on from availability — what is the sample size behind the claim? I am not being difficult; I have seen the same figure quoted from an n of four and from an n of four hundred.

Language matters for finding primary sources. The authoritative document is usually not in English and the translation usually is not authoritative.

Answering the question post #69 raises rather than the one it answers.

Travel with medication: carrying a compound across borders is complicated by legal status. Documenting that it is prescribed and carrying proof reduces (but does not eliminate) risk.

A partial answer, offered because a partial answer beats none.

The arithmetic in post #69 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.

What I want from this availability thread is the list of things that would need to be true for the claim to hold. If we can write that list, we can check it.

Import rules for personal use: what you can import for personal use depends on your country's rules, not on where it is sold. Checking your country's rules before ordering is prudent.

The thing about availability that took me longest to accept is that a plausible mechanism is not evidence of an effect. It is a reason to look, not a result.