Template:Unreliable medical source

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Usage

This template is intended to be used when a statement about medicine or health (including veterinary, psychiatric, etc.) is sourced but it is questionable whether the source used is medically reliable for supporting the statement. It produces a superscripted notation like the following:

The treatment is definitely effective.

Articles tagged with this template will be categorized into Category:All articles lacking reliable references.

Place this template inline, {{Unreliable medical source|date=November 2024}} following the questionable claim (and any punctuation attached to it). The template should be placed outside the reference (<ref> ... </ref>), within the article's text:

Potentially controversial statement.<ref>some alleged source for this</ref>{{Unreliable medical source|date=November 2024}} Next sentence.

When to use and not use this template

This template should be used to express doubt about the credibility of a source for a medical claim.

This tag should not be used on unreliably sourced contentious statements about living persons; if the source is not reliable, the statement should be removed immediately.

For whole articles or article sections that rely on poor medical sources, considering using the banner template {{medref}} or {{medref|section}}, respectively, rather than individually tagging a large number of statements.

For sources promoting non-medical [[WP:FRINGE|fringe theories and pseudo-science}}, the variant template {{Unreliable fringe source}} can be used.

For sources unreliable for reasons other than promotion of dubious scientific claims, the more general template {{Unreliable source?}} can be used.

This tag should not be used to indicate that the sourced material could not be found within a given source. In that case, {{failed verification}} is a better template. For statements that have failed verification and have a questionable would-be source, consider removal of the source (and possibly the statement) over using both tags.

Parameters

The template has the following optional parameters:

• date: should be set to the month and year when the article was tagged. Example: {{Unreliable medical source|date=November 2024}}
• reason: a note explaining why you think the source is unreliable as per WP:MEDRS. Displays as a tool tip. Keep it short (one sentence) as longer material belongs on the talk page. It is good to reiterate the reason in your edit summary. Example: {{Unreliable medical source|reason=Your WP:MEDRS-based reason here.|date=November 2024}}
• sure or certain: if set to "y" or "yes" will remove the question mark from the template's output to denote a degree of certainty that the source is unreliable. Please use this with a reason parameter, and only after a good faith attempt to verify the reliability of the source in question. Example: {{Unreliable medical source|sure=y|reason=Your WP:RS-based reason here.|date=November 2024}}

Redirects

• {{Medrs}}
• {{Medical source}}
• {{Medref inline}}
• {{MEDRS}}
• {{UMED}}
• {{Umed}}
• {{UNMED}}
• {{Ums}}
• {{UnMED}}
• {{UNRMED}}

See also

Inline templates

• {{Medical citation needed}}, for requesting a citation to a medically reliable source instead of or in addition to a non-medical one already present
• {{Better source}}, an alternative to {{Unreliable source|certain=y}}; especially useful for tagging sources that are low-quality but not necessarily wrong
• {{Obsolete source}}, for when a source has been surpassed by more recent works
• {{Unreliable fringe source}}, for non-medical pseudo-science sourcing
• {{Unreliable source?}}, for unreliable but non-fringe sources
• {{Primary source inline}}, for non-medical misuse of primary source material
• {{Dubious}}, for questionable claims that seem unlikely to be properly sourceable
• {{Disputed inline}}, stronger than dubious, may indicate sources in conflict with each other

More templates

• {{Medref}}, a banner template for flagging an entire article or section as relying on poor (or no) medical sources for medical claims
• {{RSPlease}}, a note for user talk pages with links to WP:MEDRS
• {{Refimprove}}, a banner template for flagging entire article or section as needing better sourcing generally
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup/Verifiability and sources
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles

Policies, guidelines, essays, and wikiprojects

Medicine-specific

• Vickers, Tim and Eubulides (30 June 2008). "Dispatches: Sources in biology and medicine"". The Wikipedia Signpost.
• Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (natural sciences)
• Wikipedia:Reliable source examples § Physical sciences, mathematics and medicine
• Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Resources, external resources useful for writing medicine related content

General

• Wikipedia:Verifiability
• Wikipedia:Citing sources, especially § Unsourced material
• Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources
• Wikipedia:Independent sources
• Wikipedia:Third-party sources
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check