This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Narrowing post #60, because the general version has more than one answer.
Filing a mild objection to the consensus on submitting a sample. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit.
Everything in post #58 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.
Submitting a sample was covered in the wiki last year and the page has a review date on it, which is a better starting point than my memory of a thread.
Post #64 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Blind sampling: submitting without the laboratory or seller knowing the source removes the two easiest ways for a result to be shaped: selective submission and selective reporting. The extra effort is worth it.
Following, with nothing to contribute beyond having asked the same thing elsewhere.
Worth separating two things that post #67 runs together.
Two sentences on submitting a sample and then I will stop, because the rest is speculation and the thread is better without mine.
What is documented is narrow. What is inferred from it is broad. The gap between them is where every argument here lives.
Submitting a sample is a good example of a question where the honest answer is boring and the interesting answers are unsupported. I would go with boring.
Post #69 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
What I can speak to on submitting a sample is narrow, so I will keep it narrow rather than generalising from it. Beyond that boundary I do not know.
Repeat testing: if you want to verify the same lot a second time, testing with a different service strengthens the conclusion. Testing with the same service verifies reproducibility but uses the same method.
That is the version I would defend. It is not the version I started with.
The most useful reply I ever got about submitting a sample was a request to state my units. It sounds like pedantry and it has saved me twice.
Confirming post #73 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Since submitting a sample keeps coming up, it should probably be a maintained page rather than a recurring thread. I am happy to draft it if someone with more direct experience will review it.
How to submit a sample: contact the service directly. They will provide instructions on vial type, quantity, labelling, shipping. Following their instructions exactly ensures results are interpretable.
Reporting the observation and leaving the explanation open deliberately.
The record shows what was measured. Everything beyond that is inference and this site tries to keep the line visible.
A qualification I should have led with rather than closed on.
Reading back through, this was answered upthread and I missed it. My fault.
Post #76 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Reporting rather than recommending, on submitting a sample. What happened is above. Whether it should have is a different question and not one I am qualified to answer.
It does not extend to lots nobody has seen, it is not a recommendation, and it says nothing about anything other than what was measured.
I have said this before in a thread nobody could find, so it is worth repeating.
Adding thanks rather than a view. I do not have a view worth the space.
I came in to disagree and I am leaving without a disagreement.
Where I part company with post #79, and it is a narrow parting.
Submitting a sample came up in a thread eighteen months ago and was answered well. I cannot find it, which is itself the problem, so here is the reconstruction.
Worth stating the null on submitting a sample before we explain it: the observation may be nothing. That possibility deserves a sentence and usually does not get one.
On submitting a sample I would separate what is worth knowing from what is worth acting on. The first list is long and the second is short, and conflating them is how threads get heated.
The record shows what was measured. Everything beyond that is inference and this site tries to keep the line visible.
I have no interest in any supplier named above.
The arithmetic in post #86 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
Checked the submitting a sample claim against the primary source this morning. It survives, with a narrower scope than the version quoted here. Posting the narrower scope.
Answering the question post #84 raises rather than the one it answers.
Independent measurement on a lot you bought yourself is the strongest evidence an individual can produce. Everything else is somebody else's sample.
I have three months of notes on submitting a sample and the honest summary is that the trend is real and the week-to-week numbers are noise. I nearly drew the opposite conclusion from the first fortnight.