Editorial team — radical honesty.

Who we are

HartaFarmacii is a personal project built by Andrei-Șerban Stoian, founder and editor of the site, a software engineer based in Romania. There is no outsourced newsroom and there are no anonymous authors: patient guides and guide articles carry his full name, while symptom pages, condition pages and the glossary — structured syntheses from official sources — cite their sources; all of them link to the author page.

The byline comes with an honest label for what the content actually is: editorial synthesis from official public sources, not personal medical opinion.

Lack of medical credentials (stated openly)

Andrei-Șerban Stoian is not a doctor, not a pharmacist, and has no formal medical training. This page states this openly so readers can calibrate their trust in the published texts. All medical content on the site is synthesised from:

• ANMDMR (Romania's national agency for medicines and medical devices) — approved patient leaflets, safety communications, summaries of product characteristics;
• EMA (European Medicines Agency) — public scientific assessments, monographs;
• WHO — general public-health recommendations;
• Guidelines published by Romanian and European medical societies (when publicly available).

We do not source from forums, comments, social media, or untraceable secondary articles. Every medical claim attempts to point back to a citable primary source.

Editorial policy — principles

1. Factuality before fluency. If there is a conflict between a stylistically pleasant sentence and a sentence faithful to the source, we choose fidelity.
2. Cited source, not personal opinion. For any medical claim, we try to indicate the source (ANMDMR, EMA, official leaflet). Articles that cannot indicate a source are flagged „general informational".
3. Permanent disclaimer. Every article with medical content carries the disclaimer „does not replace medical consultation" at the end and a recommendation to consult a doctor/pharmacist.
4. Accessible language. We avoid unnecessary medical jargon; when needed, we explain terms.
5. No hype. No „miracle cures", no promises, no off-label procedures rebranded as standard treatment.

How we are funded, and what that means for the content

HartaFarmacii is free and is supported by contextual advertising (Google AdSense on the web, Google AdMob in the mobile apps) and by an optional one-off „Premium Lifetime" purchase in the iOS app that removes the ads. We take no money from pharmacy chains, drug manufacturers or distributors.

• There are no paid listings. Pharmacies are ordered by distance and prices by their value — never by who pays.
• There is no sponsored content. No article, guide or symptom page has been commissioned or paid for by a third party.
• There are no affiliate links. Links to pharmacy websites earn us no commission.
• Ads are visually separated from editorial content and are shown only after explicit consent (Consent Mode v2 / IAB TCF, GDPR-compliant). Details in the privacy policy.
• Ads do not influence what we publish. We have not pulled, and will not pull, an article because it inconveniences an advertiser.

How we decide what to write about

Each article starts from a single criterion: is there real user demand and a gap in publicly available Romanian-language information? In practice:

• We see in analytics what visitors search for (internal-search query strings, Google queries that lead to 404).
• We check whether the answer already exists somewhere in Romanian at a satisfactory standard; if it does, we link out — we don't cannibalise.
• If it doesn't exist or is scattered, we write a consolidated page — always with a link back to the primary source.

We don't write articles for SEO's sake. We don't publish „miracle recipes", „natural remedies", or speculation. We'd rather skip an article than publish something unsubstantiated.

Writing process

1. Research: read the primary sources (leaflets, SmPCs, guidelines).
2. Outline: extract key points with citations in our internal comments.
3. Drafting: write accessibly, while preserving accuracy.
4. AI assistance (optional): a language model may be used for stylistic clean-up, but every medical fact is verified in the source before publication. We do not publish auto-generated content without review.
5. Publication: the article gets a timestamp and goes into the queue for re-review at 6 months.

Periodic review

Medical content ages. A recommendation valid in 2024 may be obsolete in 2026 (drug withdrawn, dosage revised, new contraindication). Our process:

• Every article shows, below the text, the real date of its last update — the same date we declare in the structured data. We do not display „reviewed today" on content that has not changed.
• Data pages (pharmacies, prices, reimbursement) separately show the date of the last automated data check, refreshed daily or weekly depending on the source.
• Articles older than 6 months are flagged internally for re-review.
• Re-review means: re-reading the current primary source + update or label „verified, no changes as of X".
• Articles about specific drugs are checked again whenever ANMDMR/EMA issue safety communications.

Correction process

If a reader or a specialist reports an error:

1. We confirm receipt within 24h at contact@hartafarmacii.ro.
2. We verify the primary source. If the error is confirmed, we correct within 7 days.
3. If the error is contestable (different interpretation of the same source), we publish the version with the most concurring sources, or add an explanatory note.
4. After correction, we update the last-updated date shown on the article and inform the person who reported it, by reply.
5. In rare cases where the correction is rejected (e.g. unsourced request), we explain why.

There is no silent takedown: if an article is withdrawn, a public note remains explaining the withdrawal.

Why we have no pharmacist on the team (and how we compensate)

We have no pharmacist and no doctor on the team. We do not pretend otherwise: there is no „medical reviewer" on this site and no page carries a specialist's signature. This is the project's most important limitation and we state it up front, not in the footer.

In the absence of a specialist, we deliberately narrow our mandate:

• We reproduce, we do not recommend. Medical information on the site comes from the official source (approved leaflet, SmPC, CANAMED catalogue) and is presented as such, not converted into advice of our own.
• We do not formulate dosing or treatment recommendations of our own. Where doses appear, they strictly reproduce the ranges from the official leaflet or public guidelines, with the source cited — they are not individualised and do not replace the advice of a doctor or pharmacist.
• On sensitive topics (drug interactions, pregnancy and breastfeeding, paediatrics) we stick to the official leaflet and official sources. There we point explicitly to a pharmacist or a doctor.
• We systematically refer onwards. Every page with medical content carries a visible disclaimer and a pointer to 112 for emergencies.

Working with a consulting pharmacist to review articles about medicines remains a goal. If and when it happens, we will publish that person's name and role on this page — until then, this section is a statement of absence, not a promise.

Contact for editorial reports

contact@hartafarmacii.ro →

Useful subject: „Editorial correction — [article URL] — [short error summary]". Attached sources (links or documents) speed up the process.

Read on: Author · Methodology · About · Terms · Privacy.
This policy was last updated on 2026-07-25.