Data sources

Everything published on this site comes from the sources below. Each one sets its own terms for reuse, and each section says what those terms are and how we meet them. If you think we have got one wrong, please tell us.

Many of these sources are known by their initials. The glossary explains the abbreviations used on this site.

Two things this site does not show

No PBS data is displayed. We do not publish Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme listings, prices, restriction text or subsidy status for any medicine. Where a page explains how the PBS works, it is written in our own words. For what is subsidised and on what terms, use pbs.gov.au, which is the authoritative source.

No AI-written text is displayed. Nothing a reader sees on this site is written by an AI model. Source text is shown as the source published it, with credit. Our editorial policy sets this out.

ClinicalTrials.gov

Operated by the US National Library of Medicine. It is the registry most Australian trials are also registered with, and it is where our trial records come from. Trial data is read through the ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API.

ClinicalTrials.gov makes its data available at no charge and sets four conditions on anyone who publishes it. In its own words, you should attribute the source of the data as ClinicalTrials.gov, update the data so that it is current at all times, clearly display the date the data were processed by ClinicalTrials.gov, and state any modifications made to the content of the data along with a complete description of the modifications. How we meet each one:

• Attribution. Every trial page names ClinicalTrials.gov as the source and links to the original record.
• Keeping it current. Trial records are refreshed from the registry by a nightly job. That is a fact about the job, not about every record, so the qualification travels with it: Individual trial records are refreshed on a rolling basis rather than all at once, so a record may be up to several weeks old. Each trial page and trial card shows the date its own record was last synced. Where a record has lagged, its status, sites and enrolment can differ from the current registry state in either direction, so check the registry link on the trial page before acting on them.
• Processing date. Where ClinicalTrials.gov publishes the date it last processed a record, that date is shown on the trial page under "Sources and dates". About one record in five carries no such date at the registry; those pages omit the line rather than showing a date of ours in its place, and the registry record is linked from every page.
• Modifications. We reformat records. We do not rewrite them. A trial page reorders the registry's own fields, sets them in plain headings, converts the registry's Markdown to HTML, and shows Australian sites first. The wording of each field is the registry's own. No field is summarised, shortened or paraphrased, and no field is merged with another. We add nothing to a record that the registry did not publish.

ClinicalTrials.gov also states that the data carry an international copyright outside the United States, that no user may assert proprietary rights over any part of the database, and that email addresses taken from it must not be used for marketing. We assert no rights over the records, and we do not extract addresses from them for any purpose.

ISRCTN registry

A UK based international trial registry. It is not a government registry: it is operated by BioMed Central Limited on behalf of ISRCTN. Some trials that run in Australia are registered here.

The ISRCTN terms changed on 1 January 2019, and the change matters. For contributions submitted on or after that date, ISRCTN states that the metadata can be reused without restriction on a CC0 basis. Separately, and not limited by date, a named set of narrative fields is covered by the CC BY licence: the plain English summary, results in plain English, study objectives, intervention, primary and secondary outcome measures, the publication and dissemination plan, the IPD sharing plan statement, basic scientific results, and additional files.

So we treat the two halves differently. Metadata from a trial registered on or after 1 January 2019 is CC0. The narrative fields are CC BY and are credited to ISRCTN wherever they appear, with a link to the original record. ISRCTN has also confirmed to us in writing that commercial use with attribution is permitted.

TGA Medicine Shortage Reports Database

The Therapeutic Goods Administration publishes a register of medicine shortages and discontinuations reported to it. This material is © Commonwealth of Australia and is reproduced here with the TGA's written permission, granted on 13 August 2026.

That permission carries conditions, and they are ongoing rather than one off:

• The information must be reproduced accurately. We never summarise it, reword it or correct it, even where the TGA's own text contains an error.
• The TGA must be credited and linked, which every page showing shortage information does.
• There must be no suggestion of endorsement. The TGA does not endorse Voxsanity or this use of its information.
• The information must remain free to everyone. There is no login, no payment and no limit on any page that shows it.

To check one medicine directly, use the TGA's own Medicine Shortage Reports Database.

MedlinePlus

MedlinePlus is published by the US National Library of Medicine, and its health topic summaries are where our plain language descriptions of conditions come from. Works produced by the US federal government are not copyrighted under US law, and the National Library of Medicine asks that the source be credited.

We credit it as "Source: MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine" wherever the text appears. We do not use the MedlinePlus logo, and nothing here implies that MedlinePlus endorses this site. Those are the National Library of Medicine's own conditions on using its web service.

Two parts of MedlinePlus are not reusable and we do not use them: the A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia, and the images on its pages, which are licensed to MedlinePlus rather than free of copyright. Nor do we use the MedlinePlus RSS feeds, which the National Library of Medicine states are for personal use only.

MedlinePlus summaries describe conditions in general and are written for a United States audience. They are not about your own situation, and they are not medical advice.

Orphadata

Orphanet is the rare disease reference maintained by INSERM in Paris, and Orphadata is where its datasets are published. Only some of those datasets are openly licensed, and that is the part most often got wrong.

INSERM holds the rights in the Orphanet database, and its legal notice states that no part of the Orphadata website may be copied, reproduced or redistributed without prior written consent. The exception is the Orphadata Science datasets, and INSERM states that where the CC BY 4.0 licence applies it is stated clearly on the page giving access to the dataset and in the dataset itself. We use only datasets that carry the CC BY 4.0 licence.

INSERM names two places the licence is stated: the page giving access to the dataset, and the dataset itself. These are the five we use, and one of them is confirmed in only one of those two places:

• Phenotypes Associated with Rare Disorders, CC BY 4.0 on its access page and in the file.
• Genes Associated with Rare Diseases, CC BY 4.0 on its access page and in the file.
• Epidemiology of Rare Diseases, CC BY 4.0 on its access page and in the file.
• Natural History of Rare Diseases, CC BY 4.0 on its access page and in the file.
• Rare disease definitions and cross-references, which carries the CC BY 4.0 declaration in the file. We could not find a page on orphadata.com giving access to this particular dataset, so we cannot point you at one. The licence statement inside the file is what we are relying on.

INSERM prescribes the exact wording of the citation, so we use it rather than a credit of our own, and the address in it is the access page of the dataset the fact actually came from rather than one address for all five:

Orphadata Science: Free access data from Orphanet. © INSERM 1999. Available on https://www.orphadata.com.

INSERM also states that links to Orphanet or Orphadata pages must not be used for commercial or advertising purposes, and that direct links to a file rather than to a web page are not permitted. We link to the page, never to the file, and there is no advertising on this site.

The Special Access Scheme Category C list

The Category C list names the unapproved medicines that certain health practitioners may supply without applying first. It is not a TGA publication in the copyright sense: it is made as a legislative instrument, the Therapeutic Goods (Medicines and OTG—Authorised Supply) Rules 2022, and is published on the Federal Register of Legislation at legislation.gov.au. Where this site refers to that list, legislation.gov.au is the source we credit.

We do not currently reproduce the list. Our Special Access Scheme explainer describes how Category C works in our own words and links out to the instrument and to the TGA's own lists. If the list is ever published here, it will be credited to legislation.gov.au on the page that shows it.

National Cancer Institute

We hold eight cancer definitions taken word for word from the NCI Thesaurus, which is produced by the National Cancer Institute's Enterprise Vocabulary Services. None of them is displayed on this site yet. They sit in our public code repository, each one recorded with the source it came from, and if any of them is ever put on a page it will carry the credit below.

The NCI Thesaurus is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Our credit line is Source: National Cancer Institute.

The NCI states that, unless otherwise indicated, all text within its products is free of copyright and may be reused without permission, and that the National Cancer Institute should be credited as the source. For anything reproduced online it asks that you link to the original NCI product using that product's title. Graphics are a mix of copyrighted and copyright free material, and only graphics explicitly credited to NCI are free of copyright.

NCI Thesaurus is a trademark. We credit it as the source of the definitions we took, and we do not present altered text under that name. We do not shorten, reword or rewrite these definitions at all: they are copied whole or not used.

The same applies to the NCI logo and the PDQ trademark, which may be used only in reproductions of original, wholly unchanged NCI products, so altered text must never be described as PDQ. Nothing on this site is labelled PDQ. Where a publication is changed, the NCI requires that it be described as adapted from the National Cancer Institute, without the NCI logo.

Sources we do not use

Two are worth naming, because people ask.

• The WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) is permanently excluded. This is a deliberate decision, not an oversight.
• The Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) is not used. Its terms prohibit automated collection from its website without its approval, and we have not sought and obtained that approval. This is the most important gap on this site for an Australian reader, and our data coverage page explains what it means for what you can find here.

If a source and this page disagree

The source is right and this page is wrong. Every source above publishes its own terms, and those terms can change without telling us. If you find a difference, please report it and we will correct this page.