Notes from the space between the laboratory and the loading bay: what the science says, what the paperwork says, and what happens when they disagree.
I did laboratory work in China for years before I bought anything here, and the habit that transferred was not commercial. It was the habit of asking where something was actually made, and of listening to who answers.
A certificate of analysis describes a batch on the day it left the factory. What happens between that day and a pharmacy shelf is the least documented part of a medicine's history, and on a hot route it is rarely the least important.
A certificate of analysis looks complete because every number on it sits inside its stated range. What decides whether it actually tells you anything is the list of tests that were never run, and that list does not appear on the page.
I spent years in a laboratory watching bacteria survive drugs that should have killed them. Then I started buying medicine for a living, and found the same problem waiting at the other end of the chain.