Template:Unreliable medical source/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Unreliable medical source.
It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

Alternatives:

Be bold! Consider searching for medical references and adding them to the article, instead of using this template.

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.^{[unreliable medical source?]}

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

Place this template inline, {{Unreliable medical source|date=December 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=December 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 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=December 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=December 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=December 2024}}

Template data

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Unreliable medical source in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Unreliable medical source

An inline maintenance tag that generates the text "[unreliable medical source?]"

Template parameters
This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Reason	`reason`	no description	String	suggested
Certain?	`sure` `certain`	no description Example y Auto value `y`	Boolean	optional
Date	`date`	no description Example {{subst:DATE}} Auto value `{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}`	String	required

Redirects

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

{{Medical citation needed}}, for requesting a citation to a medically reliable source instead of or in addition to a non-medical one already present
{{Medical citation needed span}}, same as above, except it highlights the text that needs a medical reference
{{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

{{More medical citations needed}}, a banner template for flagging an entire article or section as relying on poor (or no) medical sources for medical claims
{{Reliable medical sources please}}, a note for user talk pages with links to WP:MEDRS
{{More citations needed}}, a banner template for flagging entire article or section as needing better sourcing generally
{{Reliable sources for medical articles}}, a banner for placing on an article's talk page
Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup/Verifiability and sources
Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles
{{Uw-medrs}}, a user warning for placing on a user's talk page with links to MEDRS

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 (medicine)
- Wikipedia:Biomedical information
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (science)
Wikipedia:Reliable source examples § Physical sciences and medicine
Wikipedia:Current science and technology sources
Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles
Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Resources, external resources useful for writing medicine related content

General