Editorial policy · 编辑政策

How this site is written and checked

These are the rules the site is held to. They are written to be checkable, not reassuring — if a page breaks one of them, the page is wrong and we want to hear about it.

1 · Bylines and medical review

Every clinical page carries four lines: who wrote it, who reviewed it, how many citations it rests on, and when it was last checked. The reviewer line must contain a real name and a credential that can be looked up independently.

We do not use an uncredited "practitioner-reviewed" badge. If the review position is unfilled, the line says so and the page is labelled accordingly. An empty line is more useful to a reader than a logo that means nothing.

No page is published under a collective pseudonym that hides who is responsible for it. The editorial team is named on the about page.

2 · Citations

A citation must name the book and the chapter, give the original Chinese, and give our own translation. A book title alone is not a citation — it tells you where to start looking, not whether the claim is supported.

We quote from public-domain editions of the classics and translate them ourselves. We do not reproduce existing English translations, and we do not quote translations of uncertain provenance. Where our reading is contested among commentators, the page says so.

Secondary claims — modern research, prevalence, safety — are cited to the primary source with a link, and are described with the strength of evidence they actually have. Where there is no evidence, the page says "traditionally described" rather than implying proof.

3 · Terminology

Where an official English term exists, we use the WHO International Standard Terminologies for Traditional Chinese Medicine. Each clinical page ends with a table giving four forms: the standard term, pinyin, characters, and the aliases in circulation. The aliases matter because readers search with them, and because competing translations of the same concept are a common source of confusion.

Five elements, not five phases, as the primary term — the WHO 2022 terminology makes elements primary and phases a synonym. Sanjiao, not triple energizer. Where we depart from a widely used alternative, the page says which alternative we are departing from.

4 · Claims and language

We describe what a tradition says; we do not assert that it is true, and we never promise an outcome. Specifically, the site does not:

• claim that a pattern, herb, or point treats, cures, or prevents a named disease;
• recommend stopping or changing prescribed medication;
• give individualised dosages, formulae, or needling instructions;
• present traditional use as clinical evidence.

Where modern evidence exists and is relevant, it is described in plain terms including its limitations. Where the traditional account and the evidence point in different directions, both are given.

5 · Use of AI

AI tools are used for retrieval, structuring, and checking — finding candidate passages, organising a draft, flagging inconsistent terminology. They are not used to produce the things this site is accountable for:

• no citation is generated by a model. Every quotation is checked against the text it claims to come from;
• no clinical statement is published without a human reading it against a source;
• no page carries a byline that implies a human author who did not do the work;
• machine translation is not used as a published translation.

This is stated because a growing share of English-language Chinese medicine content is machine-written and unattributed, and a reader has no way to tell. We would rather be explicit about where the tools are and are not.

6 · Corrections

Errors of fact, mistranslation, and misattribution are corrected at the page, with a dated note. If a correction changes the substance of a claim, the note says what changed. Corrections are not made silently — a silent edit to a health page is indistinguishable from never having been wrong.

Report an error: hello@wuxingwellness.com. We aim to respond within five working days.

7 · Commercial independence

There is no advertising, no sponsored content, and no affiliate links on this site. No clinic, supplier, or practitioner pays for a mention, and none has editorial input.

If that ever changes, it will be stated on the page where it applies, above the fold, before the content — not in a footer disclosure.

8 · Scope

This is a reference for readers, not a training resource for practitioners. It does not teach needling, prescribing, or diagnosis. If you are a practitioner looking for clinical guidance, this site is not written for you and should not be used as if it were.

Last revised: 23 October 2026.