Editorial & Medical Review Policy

How HelloPharmacist creates, sources, and reviews its drug and supplement information — and the standards we hold it to.

Dr. Brian Staiger, PharmD, BCPS
Written & medically reviewed by Licensed pharmacist · Founder of HelloPharmacist

HelloPharmacist exists to give people clear, trustworthy answers about their medications and dietary supplements. Health information is something people rely on to make real decisions, so we hold our content to a high standard for accuracy, sourcing, and independence. This page explains how that content is made and reviewed.

How our content is created and reviewed

Our drug, supplement, and interaction information comes from two places. Some of it is written in-house. A large share is drawn directly from the licensed clinical databases listed below — that material is their content, which we organize and present so it's easier to use. We're transparent about that: we don't claim to author the underlying clinical data.

What's consistent across all of it is the review. , a licensed, U.S.-registered pharmacist, reviews the medical content on HelloPharmacist for clinical accuracy — not just the wording — before it represents the site. Every medical page links back to the reviewer so you always know who stands behind the information.

Independent, ongoing pharmacist review

Review doesn't stop at publication. Clinical guidance and our source databases change over time, so published pages are periodically re-checked by independent, licensed U.S. pharmacists we contract specifically to verify our information. Our standard is for a qualified pharmacist reviewer to re-check each medical page on a recurring basis, at least once a year, and sooner when an underlying clinical source materially changes.

These pharmacists are engaged as independent contractors to verify accuracy, not as in-house content authors, so we don't publish an individual byline or profile link for each reviewer. Editorial accountability for every page instead rests with our named medical reviewer of record, , who is credited and linked on each medical page and stands behind the information. A few things hold true no matter who performs a given review. Every reviewer is a licensed, U.S.-registered pharmacist. The review checks clinical accuracy, not just wording. And each page carries a "reviewed" or "last updated" date so you can see how current it is. We rely on an independent reviewer network for a reason: outside verification, measured against a single credentialed point of accountability, is a stronger safeguard for your health information than a byline alone.

Where our information comes from

We build our content on established, authoritative sources rather than opinion, including:

  • Natural Medicines (Therapeutic Research Center) — our licensed source for herb, supplement, and drug–supplement interaction data, ratings, and references.
  • The NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD) — for supplement product labels and ingredients.
  • FDA-approved labeling via DailyMed and the FDA NDC Directory (U.S. Food & Drug Administration) — for drug monographs, product details, and safety labeling.
  • MedlinePlus and the U.S. National Library of Medicine (including RxNorm) — for drug names, identifiers, and patient education.
  • Peer-reviewed studies indexed in PubMed — cited directly where we reference specific evidence.

Where a claim rests on specific research, we cite it so you can read the source yourself. For the full list of sources — including how current each one is and exactly what it powers — see our Data Sources & Update Cadence page.

Our editorial standards

  • We build on the licensed, authoritative sources above — not unsourced web content.
  • A licensed pharmacist reviews medical content for clinical accuracy and clarity before it represents HelloPharmacist.
  • Published medical content is independently re-reviewed by a licensed U.S. pharmacist on a recurring basis, at least once a year, to keep it accurate over time.
  • We write in plain language and avoid individual dosing or treatment advice, which belongs with your own pharmacist or doctor.
How we use AI

The AI features on HelloPharmacist are not a general-purpose model. They are tuned and grounded to answer only from our own pharmacist-reviewed interaction data — not from the open internet or general medical knowledge.

Every AI-generated response is captured and logged on our side and reviewed for accuracy. That review also shows us where our information can be made more comprehensive and complete, and feeds back into keeping it current.

How the HelloPharmacist Supplement Scorecard is computed

The Scorecard shown on our supplement product pages is four independent checks computed directly from the product label and our licensed clinical databases. It summarizes what is known about a product — it does not declare a product "good", "bad", "safe", or "effective", and we deliberately publish no overall grade or score, because those four things measure different, non-comparable ideas. Every card carries a "Why this rating?" panel listing the exact facts the rating was computed from.

  • Evidence for Intended Use — how well the clinical evidence we license supports the product's own stated purpose (from its name, label claims, and the label's own statement text), rated Strong / Moderate / Limited / Insufficient / Not assessable. Evidence for an unrelated use of one ingredient never counts. AI is used only to read the label's stated purpose into standard condition terms; the rating itself comes solely from the licensed evidence grades. A note on why we say "discern": by FDA rules, dietary supplements cannot claim to treat, cure, or prevent disease, so labels speak in careful structure/function marketing language ("supports memory") rather than medical claims — we read that marketing language, the product name, and the label statements to determine what the product is actually being offered for. When a label states no use at all (a plain ingredient product), the card switches to general-evidence mode: it grades the ingredient's overall clinical evidence instead — its best supportive grade — and lists the best-supported uses, clearly labeled as general evidence rather than a claimed purpose.
  • Ingredient Transparency — whether the manufacturer disclosed an individual amount for each active ingredient: Full / Partial / Low / Unable to assess. Proprietary blends that hide per-component amounts lower this rating. This measures the manufacturer's disclosure only — never how much of the product we ourselves have mapped.
  • Known Interaction Concern — the most serious documented interaction severity for the product's matched ingredients (Major / Moderate / Minor / No known interactions / Not assessable), plus how many ingredients are responsible and whether high-stakes drug classes are involved. Raw medication counts are shown only as secondary detail — a single ingredient mapped to broad drug classes can produce hundreds of rows without meaning the product is dangerous for most people.
  • Safety Information — how much safety data (adverse effects, pregnancy & lactation, general cautions) exists for the matched ingredients: Well characterized / Some gaps / Limited information / Unable to assess. This measures data availability: little published safety data can never make a product look safer — "limited information" is not the same as "safe".

Each Scorecard also shows an assessment coverage line (how many of the product's active ingredients we could match to full HelloPharmacist monographs) and the source-label date it describes. The Scorecard evaluates available label information, ingredient evidence, and known medication-safety considerations — it does not independently verify product identity, purity, potency, contamination, or manufacturing quality, because dietary supplements are not FDA-approved for safety and effectiveness before marketing.

How we keep it up to date

Medicine changes, so our data does too. Our interaction and supplement datasets are refreshed on a recurring schedule from their source databases, and pages carry a "reviewed" or "last updated" date so you can see how current the information is. When a source updates, our pages update with it.

Open data & published research

Peer-reviewed research. Our founder's first-party research is published in peer-reviewed medical journals and indexed in PubMed:

We also publish parts of our first-party editorial work as open, citable datasets with permanent DOIs on Zenodo (the open research repository operated by CERN), so researchers, educators, and other health resources can verify and reuse it. Each record is openly licensed (CC BY 4.0) and published under our founder's ORCID iD, 0009-0009-1327-0281.

Corrections & feedback

If you believe something is inaccurate or out of date, please tell us — we take corrections seriously and will review and fix verified errors promptly. Email [email protected] or use our contact page.

Editorial independence

HelloPharmacist is free to use and supported by advertising. Our pharmacist-reviewed information is kept separate from advertising, and advertisers do not influence what our content says or which interactions we report. You can read more in our Advertising Policy.

Transparency: the HelloPharmacist name

HelloPharmacist is also a brand name used on a separate line of dietary supplements. The medical content on HelloPharmacist.com is completely independent of that — we do not promote, recommend, or sell supplements on this site.

We hold extensive supplement data for one purpose: to capture it in our database so we can pass clear, neutral information along to consumers and power our drug–supplement interaction checks. Our interaction findings are reported the same way regardless of brand.

Medical disclaimer. The information on HelloPharmacist is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician, pharmacist, or another qualified health provider about your medications and any medical condition.