Editorial policy
The standards every page on this site has to meet before it goes live — and the things we will not publish at all.
1. Our editorial principles
- Sourced over asserted. If we cannot point to a credible source for a medical claim, we do not make the claim.
- Plain over impressive. Clinical vocabulary is explained the first time it appears. We would rather be simple than sound authoritative.
- Complete over comfortable. Where the evidence is uncertain or contested, we say so instead of picking the tidier answer.
- Dated over evergreen. Every page shows when a human last checked it.
- Independent. No advertiser, sponsor or manufacturer influences our content.
2. Sources we use
We build pages from primary and institutional sources:
- MedlinePlus and other resources from the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health
- openFDA and DailyMed for approved drug labelling
- RxNorm / RxNav for drug naming and documented interactions
- World Health Organization material, including the ICD-11 classification
- Peer-reviewed literature indexed in PubMed, with a preference for systematic reviews and clinical guidelines over single studies
We prefer the most recent authoritative source. Where a guideline body and a single study disagree, we follow the guideline and note the disagreement.
Attribution and copyright
Information drawn from MedlinePlus and other NLM services is attributed to MedlinePlus.gov on the page where it appears. We do not use the MedlinePlus logo and nothing here implies that the NLM, the NIH or the WHO endorses this site. We summarise and rewrite source material in our own words; we do not republish abstracts or copyrighted text verbatim.
3. How AI is and is not used
We use AI tools for research assistance, drafting and finding relevant literature. We are open about that because the limits matter more than the label:
- No AI-generated page is ever published unreviewed. A registered pharmacist reads every medical page before it goes live and is accountable for it.
- AI is not a source. Any claim a draft makes must be traced back to a named human-authored source, or it is cut.
- We do not publish at volume for its own sake. We would rather have fewer pages that are genuinely useful than a large library of thin ones.
4. What we will not publish
- Individual dosing instructions or treatment recommendations
- Anything that could be read as a diagnosis
- Claims that a product cures, prevents or treats a serious disease without regulatory approval behind it
- Content that discourages someone from seeking professional care
- Links to services selling prescription medicines, or any affiliate arrangement tied to a medicine
- Miracle cures, unproven alternative protocols presented as equivalent to evidence-based care, or scare content
5. Review and updating
Every medical page is reviewed before publication and re-checked on a rolling basis, prioritising pages where the underlying source has changed — for example a label revision or a new guideline. The date shown on a page is the date a human last verified it, not the date the file was last touched.
6. Corrections
We correct errors openly and quickly. If you have found one, please write to corrections@pocketsinfo.com. Our full process is on the corrections page.
7. Independence from advertising
Advertising is sold programmatically and is kept structurally separate from editorial decisions. No advertiser sees content before publication, and no commercial relationship changes what we write. See the advertising disclosure.
8. Who is accountable
Editorial responsibility sits with the site's reviewing pharmacist, whose credentials are published on the medical review board page. Editorial questions: editorial@pocketsinfo.com.