Governance
Authority must come from procedure.
NORM publishes AI-assisted consumer reviews and is building a separate public claim accountability standard for wellness. It is not a government regulator, certification body, medical authority, or court. Its conclusions must be limited by the record, the method, and the review status.
About NORM
NORM examines claims, evidence and sales tactics across the wellness industry, helping people understand what they’re being sold before they buy.
NORM is a BHVD project. BHVD Inc. operates NORM and is accountable for publication.
Current coverage is limited to published reviews. Consumer reviews use the AI-assisted editorial policy below; the separate v1.1 method remains a draft under implementation and validation.
Consumer-review-1.0 · Adopted October 13, 2026
NORM consumer reviews
NORM uses AI-assisted research to explain public product claims, available evidence, prices and commercial relationships. NORM, operated by BHVD Inc., is accountable for the final editorial decision and publication.
This route accepts NORM’s completed AI-assisted review as final. Independent human scientific review is not required before publication. When it has not occurred, the review states that plainly. AI checks are not expert approval, independent corroboration or method validation.
- Every review identifies its product, market, research date, source links, material limitations and review status. Brand-provided evidence and independently located sources remain distinguishable.
- Missing evidence is reported as unknown, not proof that a claim is false. Source limitations, unavailable reports and unresolved product matches remain visible.
- Consumer reviews are a separate editorial record type. They do not count toward v1.1 assessments, validation results or market-wide coverage, and do not issue v1.1 finding states.
- No review supplies a NORM score, ranking, certification, safety approval or personal medical recommendation. NORM does not claim organizational independence or a validated consumer-review method.
- Relevant conflicts and commercial relationships must be disclosed. Payment cannot buy a favorable conclusion, suppression or priority for a substantive correction.
- NORM accepts correction requests without payment. Material changes identify the previous version, what changed, why and when. No fixed response time is promised.
This policy applies prospectively to consumer-review-1.0 releases. It does not convert past agent checks into human review, release legacy test runs, or change the v1.1 publication requirements. Read the AG1 consumer review.
Persuasion-review-1.0 · Adopted October 13, 2026
A required part of every new company consumer review.
Before editorial completion, Norm must account for influencer statements and commercial incentives, website presentation, a bounded advertising sample, and the public buying/renewal/exit journey. Each public finding needs a dated source, product context, observable support, a plain-language consumer implication and its limits.
Observed presentation is kept separate from interpretation. Norm does not infer dishonesty, intent, persuasion effectiveness, payment amounts or legal violations from sponsorship, funding, subscriptions or design alone. Positive disclosures and reasonable alternative explanations must be considered. Persuasion findings do not substitute for or change scientific evidence.
The local completion validator requires all 16 coverage checks and retained source references. Unchecked work blocks completion; documented access gaps remain explicit. Hosted intake enforcement is not yet active. Prior reports are preserved and receive a dated revision only after the additional review is performed. This requirement does not change the disclosed AI-assisted final-review policy or the separate v1.1 gates.
What the v1.1 draft assesses
The primary unit is a captured marketing claim, not a brand personality. Each eligible finding must connect the exact public statement to its source location, capture time, cited evidence, product match, use conditions, outcome match, limitations, and review status.
Capture
What the public statement said, where it appeared, and when it was preserved.
Evidence
What support the brand made visible and what the source actually studied.
Applicability
Whether product, dose, population, condition, duration, and outcome align.
Finding
Aligned, partly aligned, not aligned, or not assessable, with stated limits.
Separation of roles
- For v1.1, automated systems may capture, classify, and organize material. They do not create a publishable human reviewed finding by themselves. The consumer-review route above has a separate, explicitly disclosed review status.
- Reviewers must record method version, evidence used, limitations, and conflicts.
- Commercial access may purchase workflow tools. It cannot purchase a finding, suppression, priority, or a different standard.
- A related party assessment, including a BHVD product, must be disclosed, independently reviewed, and excluded from comparative ranking unless an external governance process approves inclusion.
Correction rights
Any person or organization may challenge a consumer review or future v1.1 record without payment, including its source, context, product match, evidence interpretation, or finding. Material corrections must preserve the prior state, the reason for change, the date, and the responsible review status.
What remains to be earned
- Documented reviewer qualification requirements.
- Blind duplicate coding and adjudication tests.
- Published interrater reliability results.
- External review by evidence methods, legal, regulatory, and domain experts.
- Stable versioned data records and reproducible scoring tests.
- A public record of conflicts, corrections, and material method changes.
NORM will not describe itself as validated, certified, accredited, or independent merely because those words are strategically useful. Each status must be evidenced.