Editorial
Our editorial process
How a page on this site actually gets made — from research to publication to correction.
1. Sources we cite
We rank sources roughly in this order of trust:
- Peer-reviewed journals— PubMed-indexed studies on Fel d 1 levels, breed genetics, allergen immunotherapy, and clinical management of cat allergy. When a study contradicts conventional wisdom, we say so explicitly.
- Breed associations— TICA (The International Cat Association), CFA (Cat Fanciers’ Association), and recognised national clubs for breed standards and health-test requirements.
- Government & academic veterinary sources — AAHA, AVMA, university veterinary schools.
- Real owners on public forums— Reddit, breed-specific subreddits, dedicated communities. We quote with attribution and link to the original thread so you can read the full context.
What we don’t cite as primary sources: breeder websites (marketing), commercial pet-food brand blogs (marketing), and other affiliate review sites (circular references).
2. How we tier breeds
“Hypoallergenic” is a spectrum, not a guarantee. We split the breeds on this site into two evidence tiers so you can weigh the science alongside the marketing.
- Tier 1 — Research-backed. At least one peer-reviewed study measures Fel d 1 production in this breed and finds it meaningfully below the domestic-cat average. The science is still small and individual cats vary, but the signal is real. Example: Siberian, Russian Blue, Balinese.
- Tier 2 — Low-shed / Anecdotal. Commonly listed as “hypoallergenic” on the basis of short, curly, or minimal coats that shed less — which means less dander reaches your couch. There is no breed-specific Fel d 1 study to back it up, and many allergic owners still react. We include them because the body of owner reports is large enough to be useful, but we flag them so you don’t treat thin evidence as strong evidence.
What you won’t see on this site: breeds where the evidence is contradictory or the “hypoallergenic” label is mostly cosmetic (for example, hairless breeds whose exposed skin actually disperses more Fel d 1 into the home). We took those out rather than caveat them to death.
3. How we vet products
A product earns a recommendation on this site only after it clears four checks:
- Mechanism plausibility— is there a published reason this product would help an allergic household? (For example, Purina LiveClear has peer-reviewed data on Fel d 1 binding; many “hypoallergenic” wipes do not.)
- Real-world owner reports— a minimum of 20 substantive reviews across at least two independent platforms (not just Amazon).
- Availability & support— the product is reliably in stock, ships to North America, and has a working returns process. We don’t recommend vapourware.
- Editorial fit— it solves a problem we actually discuss on this site. We don’t add products to pad commissions.
The commercial side of how products link out is covered in our affiliate disclosure. Short version: commissions do not change rankings, and we will recommend a better non-affiliate product over a worse commission product every time.
4. How we keep content current
The web rots. Studies get superseded; breeders move; products change formulation; prices drift. Our maintenance policy:
- Every published page carries a visible last updated date.
- We re-check linked studies, breeder resources, and product pages periodically — and immediately when a reader flags something wrong.
- When a finding changes meaningfully (a new study, a recalled product, a closed breeder), we update the page, note the change at the top, and bump the date.
- When a page is too stale to fix in place, we archive it with a clear “outdated” notice rather than silently deleting it.
5. Corrections
We will get things wrong. When we do:
- We fix the error.
- We add a dated correction note on the affected page — we do not silently overwrite.
- We credit the reader who flagged it (if they want credit).
Spot something wrong? Email hello@hypoallergeniccats.org. Include the URL and what you think is incorrect. We aim to respond within a week, sooner for safety-relevant errors.
6. Who writes (and why we’re anonymous)
Articles on this site are written and edited by a small collaborative team. We currently publish without individual bylines for two reasons:
- The site is young. We want the work to stand on its sources and reasoning, not on personal authority we haven’t yet earned.
- Health-adjacent content should be more durable than any one author. A page about cat allergies should remain readable and correctable even if the original writer is no longer involved.
If the site grows enough that named expertise becomes valuable, we’ll add bylines and a contributors page. For now, our credibility lives in our citations — click any of them and you can check our work directly.
7. What we don’t do
- We don’t accept money to alter, hide, or feature content.
- We use AI as a research and drafting tool, like any modern writing team. But every published page is written, edited, and signed off by a human editor — we don’t run an AI content farm, and pages aren’t shipped without a human reading them end-to-end.
- We don’t scrape or republish other publications’ work. Quotes are short, attributed, and linked.
- We don’t make medical claims. If a page sounds like it does, treat that as a bug and email us — we’ll rewrite it.