How we choose videos

Who can be in the library

A video is eligible only if its channel is one of five kinds: a university or medical school; a hospital or health system; a medical society, professional association or patient-safety nonprofit; a government agency; or an identifiable medical or pharmacology educator, meaning a named clinician or a long-running teaching channel whose author and credentials are public. Medical journals' official channels count as the first or third kind. Eligibility is about the channel, not the video: a good video on an ineligible channel is not embedded.

What is never embedded

Creator TikToks and short-form clips. Influencer reviews and "my journey" videos, however popular. Manufacturer product videos, including official pen tutorials, because they are marketing even when they are accurate. Telehealth companies, clinics and pharmacies promoting their own services, including any FormBlends channel. Videos that recommend a dose, sell a product in the video, or make claims about compounded products being equivalent to approved ones.

The verification step

Before a video is added, we call YouTube's public oEmbed endpoint for its id and record the title, the channel name and the date. The record is stored with the video and shown on its page, and an automated test runs before every deployment to confirm that every video in the library has one. A video whose oEmbed call fails is not added; a video whose call starts failing later has been removed or made private by its channel, and its page is retired rather than replaced with a copy. We never download, rehost, re-encode or transcribe a video at length, and thumbnails are YouTube's own files. See embedding, not rehosting for the mechanics.

How a fact-check is written

The FormBlends editorial team watches the video and writes four sections: what it covers, what it gets right, what it leaves out or overstates, and where to go next. Every number we state carries its source inline: an FDA label by DailyMed set id, a trial by PubMed id, or an agency page with the date we read it. Where the video quotes a figure we cannot trace, we say so rather than repeat it. Where the video is right for its date and the facts have moved, we say what changed. We name the speaker only when the channel names them; we do not add credentials the channel did not give, and we never describe a video as reviewed or endorsed by anyone.

Playlists

Playlists are our editorial groupings, in a watch order we chose. They are not YouTube playlists and the channels had no part in them. A channel's presence in a playlist is not an endorsement of FormBlends by that channel, and our embedding is not an endorsement of everything the channel publishes.

Disclosure

FormBlends operates a GLP-1 weight-loss program that dispenses compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide through licensed pharmacies. That is a commercial interest in the subject of every video here. Compounded products are not FDA approved and are not interchangeable with brand products; the fact-checks say so wherever a video touches on them, and the disclosure appears on every page that links to a FormBlends product.

Corrections

If a fact-check misstates what a video says, quotes a number you cannot find in its source, or embeds a video that no longer meets the rules above, write to hello@formblends.com with the page URL. Corrections are made on the page with the updated date moved.