Medical Review Process

The two paths

Every article in the STDs, Symptoms, Testing, and Treatment hubs requires qualified clinical review before publication unless it is classified general-risk and completes the editorial-verification path: documented fact-checking against CDC, NIH, FDA, and MedlinePlus sources, safety assessment, and explicit owner approval. Published with an honest "editorially verified, not clinically reviewed" label and never a "medically reviewed" claim.

What clinical review requires

Review is performed by a qualified independent clinician, never the article's author, who checks medical accuracy, verifies that recommendations match current US guidance, and confirms that uncertainties and limits are stated. The reviewer's name and the review date are recorded with the article and shown to readers.

[Reviewer placeholder. No medical reviewer has been appointed yet. No content is labelled "medically reviewed" until real review occurs.]

Staying current

Time-sensitive recommendations are re-checked against current CDC guidance before approval; the 2021 STI Treatment Guidelines are a core resource but later updates always take precedence. Articles carry review-due dates so aging content is re-examined on schedule rather than left to drift.

Labels you will see

Each article's byline states exactly which path it took. "Medically reviewed" appears only with a named reviewer and date; everything else in the general-risk library is labelled "editorially verified." The two labels are never mixed, and the full rules live in our editorial policy.