LactMed
US governmentNational Library of Medicine (NLM), within the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) · United States
Visit the source site · Audited 2026-10-14
Who pays for it
LactMed is free to access, and its process page identifies NICHD development and NLM support; a LactMed-specific budget or industry funding was not identified, so amounts are unverified.
Status: Supporting
LactMed has a named literature compiler and a peer-review panel, but its source-specific budget and author or record-level financial disclosures were not found. Important claims are paired with evidence from a source with a different owner and funding.
How SafeMomma uses it
Cited as a literature-based lactation summary, with the record date checked and important claims compared with another source.
The audit
- Who controls it
- Philip O. Anderson compiles and summarizes the literature and writes the use summaries. NLM provides editorial and technical support, and a peer panel reviews each drug record.
- Money
- LactMed is free to access, and the process page identifies NICHD development and NLM support. A LactMed-specific operating budget, industry funding, sponsorship, or product revenue was not identified; amounts are unverified.
- Conflict rules
- The process page lists reviewers and professional roles but does not show author- or record-level financial disclosures. It notes a supplement reviewer's consulting and speaking roles, but gives no clients, payments, or entry-level disclosure; this is a transparency gap, not evidence of influence.
- Method
- LactMed organizes referenced studies by substance and reports milk and infant levels, possible effects, and alternatives where appropriate. A review panel checks each record, but the pages examined did not show a formal evidence-certainty rating.
- Dates on its pages
- Individual drug records show revision dates; the liraglutide record was revised August 15, 2026, and no database-wide median age was verified.
- Political exposure
- NIH's unified strategy, announced August 15, 2025 and updated July 2, 2026, says funding decisions reflect agency priorities as well as scientific merit. As of April 10, 2026, CRS reported 1,392 NIH awards totaling $539 million in unliquidated obligations had been terminated, many later reinstated; no source-specific politically ordered removal or rewrite of LactMed was identified.
- Money exposure
- No direct industry sponsorship or product-linked revenue was identified. A supplement reviewer has consulting and speaking roles, but no financial link to a particular LactMed entry was established; source-level funding details remain unverified.
- Track record
- The valproate backtest did not use LactMed for pregnancy-risk claims because its monograph is lactation-focused. In the codeine backtest, the current entry's description of the case as discredited was more categorical than the evidence status supported: the 2006 Lancet paper has an Expression of Concern, not a retraction, while two related Canadian columns were retracted.
Where this comes from
Incentive exposure describes pressure from money or politics, not whether the source is right. Funding alone does not show influence.