PlainMeds publishes a plain-English page for hundreds of FDA-approved medications — uses, side effects, interactions, prices, recalls, and shortage status — built entirely from official U.S. government data. This page explains how those pages are produced, what standards they are held to, and how to report a figure that looks wrong so we can fix it at the source.

How these pages are produced

Every fact on a PlainMeds drug page originates in an official dataset: the drug label comes from the FDA's Structured Product Labeling (SPL) via DailyMed, adverse-event counts from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), prices from the CMS National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) survey, and recall and shortage status from the FDA's enforcement and drug-shortage databases. We load those published files through a documented, version-controlled data pipeline and render them into drug, category, comparison, and ranking pages using shared templates. No drug page is hand-written, and no count, price, or rate is typed in by an editor — each figure you see is read directly from the official source record at build time.

Our editorial team is responsible for the parts a pipeline cannot decide on its own: which datasets to use, how each metric is defined and labeled, what the methodology says, how derived measures (such as a generic-versus-brand savings percentage or a national reporting percentile) are computed, which guides and explainers we write, and what we will not publish. The pipeline then applies those decisions uniformly across every drug, so the rule that governs one page governs all of them.

Sourcing standards

We publish only data that comes from official U.S. government sources, and we name the source on every page:

• FDA drug labeling (SPL / DailyMed): the official prescribing information — uses, dosing, warnings, and documented interactions — for FDA-approved medications.
• FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS): voluntary post-market safety reports, aggregated per drug. A report documents a temporal association, never proof that a drug caused an outcome.
• CMS National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC): the average price pharmacies pay to acquire a drug, surveyed by CMS. It excludes rebates and is not the price a patient pays at the counter.
• FDA enforcement & drug-shortage databases: the source for recall classifications and current shortage status.

We do not scrape third-party sites, we do not republish unofficial estimates as our own, and we do not assign our own safety, efficacy, or risk scores. Where a figure is derived from the official data (for example, a generic-savings percentage or a reporting percentile), the page links to our methodology, which sets out exactly how it is calculated.

Accuracy and validation

Because the numbers are read straight from official files, the most common limitation is the underlying data itself rather than a transcription error. FAERS report volume tracks how widely a drug is used and scrutinized — not how dangerous it is — so raw totals must be read alongside exposure. NADAC prices are per-unit acquisition costs, not out-of-pocket costs. Our pipeline applies systematic checks before a value is published: it presents counts and prices as the source published them, shows a value as unavailable when the source omits it (never treating a missing value as a zero), and reconciles drug, category, and ranking rollups so the same figure is consistent wherever it appears.

When we find that a displayed number is wrong, we fix the cause, not the symptom. We trace the value back to the data layer, correct the derivation or labeling rule there, and regenerate the affected pages, so the same class of error is resolved everywhere at once rather than patched on a single page.

Editorial independence

PlainMeds does not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any pharmaceutical company or other organization in exchange for how data is presented. We do not assign our own ratings or endorsements. Our only revenue sources are contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense and clearly-labeled affiliate links to pharmacy-discount services. Neither has any influence over which drugs we cover, how a medication is reported, or how any page ranks.

Corrections process

If a figure looks wrong, please tell us. We treat data-error reports as a priority and follow the same process every time:

1. Report. Email hello@plainmeds.com with the page URL and the figure you are questioning.
2. Verify. We check the value against the official FDA or CMS source record for that drug.
3. Fix at the source. If the figure is wrong on our side, we correct the underlying data or derivation rule and regenerate every page it affects.
4. Note it. If the figure is correct but reflects a known limitation — a NADAC rounding artifact, a coarse FAERS rollup, or a label that lags a recent change — we explain the caveat rather than silently changing it.

Some apparent errors trace back to the official record itself. When that is the case, we will tell you so and point you to the source — for example DailyMed for labeling or the FAERS public dashboard for adverse events — so you can verify it directly.

Contact

Questions about our standards, methodology, or a specific figure are welcome at hello@plainmeds.com. For more on what the data covers and how it is processed, see our About page and methodology. For how to use drug information responsibly, see our disclaimer.