Transparency & Trust
How ASH operates \u2014 governance, editorial integrity, and the receipt-trail behind every claim.
Hirudotherapy occupies a regulatory edge case in U.S. medicine: an FDA-cleared medical device that's also been the subject of fringe claims. Patients and clinicians need to know: can I trust this site?
This page lays out the structural answer. Not promises \u2014 receipts.
Five pillars of trust
1. Legal & tax status
ASH is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 92-2997844). Tax-exempt status anchors fiduciary responsibility and prevents revenue-driven editorial bias.
- Registered in California, USA
- EIN 92-2997844 publicly verifiable via IRS Tax-Exempt Organization Search
- Annual reports publicly available
2. Editorial independence
Editorial decisions are decoupled from supplier relationships, donor influence, and commercial interest. No paid product placements. No paid testimonials. No affiliate revenue on the site.
- Editorial board with documented credentials
- Conflict-of-interest disclosures per contributor
- No advertising on the site
3. Source verification
Every PMID cited is verified against PubMed. Three fabricated PMIDs were caught and corrected in May 2026 \u2014 logged publicly, not silently revised.
- PMID = link to NCBI National Library of Medicine record
- DOI fallback when PMID unavailable
- FDA 510(k) summary linked for Tier A claims
- Three-tier evidence framework on every clinical page
4. Public corrections
When errors are found, they are corrected publicly with a changelog entry \u2014 not silently revised. Every commit is on public GitHub.
- Public changelog with PR-level granularity
- Errata page for substantive content corrections
- Full git history on GitHub
5. Open infrastructure
The entire content layer is open. The structured registries (conditions, compounds, RCTs, biographies, jurisdictions) and the source code that renders the site are public. Researchers can fork, propose changes, and audit the data layer directly.
- Source code on GitHub (RondvS/ash-website)
- Registry data in lib/*-registry.ts \u2014 readable, queryable, exportable
- Public PR queue with peer review on every substantive change
- Long-term: machine-readable API for researchers (Phase 4)
What you can verify yourself
You don't need to trust us \u2014 you can audit us.
- Confirm our 501(c)(3) status: Search EIN 92-2997844 on IRS Tax-Exempt Organization Search.
- Confirm FDA clearance K040187: Search the device on FDA 510(k) Database.
- Verify any PMID: Click through to NCBI PubMed and confirm the article title matches the claim.
- Audit our source code: The structured registries are at
lib/*-registry.tson GitHub. Every condition, compound, trial, and biography is plain-text auditable. - Review our changelog: Every significant content change is logged with PR reference on the public changelog page.
When ASH won't claim authority
ASH publishes institutional reference content. We are explicitly NOT:
- A medical board (we don't license clinicians)
- A certification body (we don't certify hirudotherapists)
- A treatment recommendation source (we don't tell you to undergo therapy)
- A drug or device manufacturer (we have no commercial product)
- A regulatory authority (FDA, EMA, MHRA, etc. remain the legal channels)
We are an open-knowledge organization that catalogs and verifies clinical and scientific information. Clinical decisions belong to you and your clinician.
Report an issue
If you spot an error \u2014 factual, medical, regulatory, or otherwise \u2014 we want to know. Errors will be corrected publicly with a changelog entry.