Friends-- Our Dayton,Ohio newspaper today has a feature article on medical
websites, which may be of interest. As I don't have a scanner, I'll
summarize the main points.
"While the popularity of medsites is growing, so is criticism....they can
be riddled with unethical advertising, conflicts of interest, or bad
advice."
The American Medical Association (AMA) suggests they should be held to
medecine's standards of trustworthiness. "In the online world, all
information glows with the same intensity, whether it's accurate or not.
The industry should establish policies for ensuring accuracy and disclosing
conflicts of interest that come with mixing content and commerce, the
livelihood of most internet businesses."
"Every one of those ventures has a profit motive. so the information is
always going to be suspect to profiteering" said David Morehead, president
of Scott & White Health Plan, part of the Temple health care system that is
paying drkoop.com $40,000. a year for packaged medical content and a
place on its list of preferred hospitals.
Different sites may gove conflicting advice, some sites' advice is just
plain wrong.
Top 10 health sites based on # visitors in August:
1. drkoop.com 3,474,000
2. AOLHealth.aol 1,508,000
3. onhealth.com 1,432,000
4. webmd.com 1,207,000
5. discoveryhealth.com 1,036,000
6. betterhealkth.com 819,000
7. thriveonline.com 813,000
8. mayohealth.org 766,000
9. healthyideas.com 709,000
10intelihealth.com 514,000
Remember that "dot com" stands for a commercial site.....
Most sites are not operated by doctors, but by entrepreneurs , former
health care executives, techies, and journalists...at drkoop.com for
instance, the former US Surgeon General has little to do with the daily
operation of the site, but lends it credibility
Web sites that link information and advertising have potential for
misrepresentation and bias. It is estimated there are 25,000 health sites,
visited by more than 13 million people!
This is not to say that helpful information can't be found on the web, but
rather as a caution to be sure the source is reputable and not out to
"sell" you something.
Camilla Flintermann, CG for Peter 81/70/55
Oxford, Ohio
http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/camilla/one.htm
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