Citation Verification Fund
Restricted support for the program that verifies every identifier in the research library against its canonical PubMed/NCBI record — so funders and scientists can trust what each citation points to.
A restricted fund for citation integrity
Gifts and sponsorships designated to this fund are restricted to the citation-integrity program: verifying identifiers, labeling their status, quarantining bad ones, logging corrections, and maintaining the tooling that does this work. They do not fund — and the program makes — any treatment, clinical-efficacy, or patient-outcome claim. The Society is an education and infrastructure nonprofit; clinical conclusions belong to the trials and clinicians we catalogue, not to us.
What the citation-integrity program does
The research library holds on the order of 10,000 articles. The program's job is narrow and verifiable: confirm that each cited identifier resolves to the record the library says it does.
Resolve every identifier
Each PMID and DOI in the library is resolved against its canonical source — PubMed/NCBI for PMIDs, the DOI registry for DOIs — and the returned metadata is compared field-by-field with what the library records.
Label the verification status
Every source is tagged with its integrity status: verified (matches the canonical record), unverified (not yet checked), or flagged (a discrepancy was detected). The label travels with the citation wherever it appears.
Quarantine what does not resolve
Identifiers that fail to resolve, point to a different record, or cannot be reconciled are quarantined — withheld from display until corrected — rather than shown as if confirmed.
Log and re-check
Corrections are recorded with a date and scope, and the catalogue is re-checked on a schedule so that records which drift, are retracted, or change upstream are caught on a later pass.
Why it matters
A reference library is only as trustworthy as its weakest citation. A single PMID that points to the wrong paper — or a DOI that no longer resolves — quietly undermines confidence in everything around it. Funders, institutional partners, and scientists need to know that when a source is shown as verified, an automated check actually confirmed it against the canonical NCBI or DOI record.
This program turns “we cite carefully” into something auditable: each identifier carries a status, discrepancies are quarantined rather than displayed, and every correction is dated and logged. That is the difference between asserting integrity and being able to demonstrate it.
What your donation funds
Restricted to verification work — tooling, re-checks, corrections, and labeling.
Verification tooling
Building and maintaining the software that resolves identifiers against NCBI/DOI registries and compares metadata at scale.
Scheduled re-checks
Periodic re-verification of the full catalogue so retractions, record changes, and link rot are detected over time.
Corrections workflow
Reviewing flagged discrepancies, reconciling or quarantining them, and recording each outcome in a dated correction log.
Integrity labeling
Maintaining the per-source verification labels and surfacing them consistently across the library.
What this fund explicitly does NOT support
- Any claim of clinical efficacy, treatment outcome, or cure.
- Statements that hirudotherapy treats, prevents, or improves any condition.
- Patient-facing medical advice or recommendations of any kind.
- Marketing of products, procedures, or providers.
What this fund has delivered — live figures
Operational output the program tracks. These are real counts from the registry — not clinical results.
Live figures from the registry (as of 2026-06-04)
The numbers below are real counts computed from the canonical data: PMIDs re-checked against NCBI/PubMed, the labeled article corpus, and the quarantine list. They measure operational output only — never clinical efficacy. Full history is on the live governance dashboard and corrections log.
9,902
live
PMIDs verified against PubMed/NCBI
Identifiers re-checked against the canonical NCBI record
10,051
live
Research articles with labeled citations
Every source carries a citation-integrity label
99.99%
live
Verification coverage
Verified PMIDs as a share of all checked identifiers
1
live
Identifiers quarantined
Mismatched / non-resolving identifiers withheld from display
How we keep this honest
Restricted use
Funds designated here are tracked separately and applied only to verification work. We report on outputs (identifiers checked, labeled, corrected), never on clinical outcomes.
Auditable record
Verification status is attached per source, and corrections are dated and logged so any partner can review what changed and when.
Support the Citation Verification Fund
Designate a restricted gift or sponsorship
To make a restricted donation or discuss sponsorship of the citation-integrity program, start from the Society’s general giving page and designate the Citation Verification Fund, or contact us directly.