Read the record for its purpose
U.S. rules and medicine status · As of September 2026
- A medical licence
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A state medical board is the state office that licenses doctors. Its public record shows the licence’s status and published action against a doctor for breaking rules.
Even if the record shows no action against the doctor, it does not rate the quality of that doctor’s care.
- An FDA product approval
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Approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) applies to a specific medicine and its named uses.
Ask for the product label and the section that covers the use proposed for you.
- A business registration
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A business that makes or processes medicines can register the place where it works with FDA. Under federal rules, that registration gives no FDA approval to the business or its medicines.
- A drug identification code
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A National Drug Code, or NDC, identifies a medicine in FDA’s directory, a list of medicine records. The business supplies the listing information. FDA says a listing does not mean it has checked the information or approved the medicine.
Ask for the approval record rather than relying on the code.
Read problem reports with their limits
FDA says that a problem reported with a medicine does not prove the medicine caused it.
Those reports cannot tell you how often a problem occurs.
The number of problem reports alone is not enough: you also need to know how many people took the medicine. A report may not have been checked by a health professional. Even with both totals, reports cannot reliably show how often the medicine caused a problem.
Ask what other evidence supports a claim about how often a problem happens.
FDA does not review a compounded medicine’s safety, effectiveness, or quality before it is supplied.
Ask: were the studies done on the exact medicine being offered, or on a different product, such as a ready-made brand medicine? If yours is made to order by a pharmacy, ask what the studies show about that version. Ask the person prescribing it to explain what is known and what is still unknown.
Keep the evidence question small
- What exact product was studied?
- What use was studied?
- How does that match the medicine and goal being proposed?
- What is still unknown?
- When was the approval or rule last checked?
Ask for the label or paper to read later. A plain explanation can still be precise about what a source supports.