Is the Internet bad for your health?

Source: Mayo Clinic

Do you research medical information on the Internet? Do you use Google as your starting point? Do you read entries on medical conditions at Wikipedia and assume what you read is accurate and complete?
Kevin Pho, primary care physician and author of the popular medical blog KevinMD.com, has a column in USA Today on the use of Wikipedia by patients and doctors:

“I researched my condition on Wikipedia.” That’s what more doctors, myself included, are hearing from patients every day.

One reason online medical research leads to Wikipedia is that two-thirds of health inquiries start with a search engine, such as Google. Wikipedia entries appear near the top of search results. Are patients influenced by what they find? Half of those who did Internet research say it made a difference in how they took care of themselves or someone else.

Pharmaceutical companies caught in the act

Wikipedia is a great resource, and its popularity and success are well-deserved. However, its entries can be manipulated by anyone who values their own profit or reputation more than accuracy.

In medical entries, pharmaceutical companies have been caught removing or modifying information about harmful side effects — information they’d rather you didn’t have.
AstraZeneca, for example, deleted the phrase “more likely to think about harming or killing themselves” from the Wiki entry on its drug, Seroquel. Abbott Laboratories deleted a reference to a Mayo Clinic study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that found its arthritis drug (Humira) tripled the risk of certain cancers. After Abbott’s weight-loss drug, Meridia, was found to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, public interest groups tried to get the drug banned. Abbott removed the Wikipedia articles that described those efforts.
According to Jeffrey Light of the group Patients not Patents:

The argument that drug companies can be trusted to provide adequate safety information on their own products has been used by the pharmaceutical industry to fight against government regulation of consumer advertising. Clearly such trust is misplaced. As Abbott’s actions have demonstrated, drug companies will attempt to hide unfavorable safety information when they think nobody is watching.

Wikipedia is able to document these practices with its tool WikiScanner, which can trace online editing back to an IP address. A recent non-medical case that received considerable publicity: The Church of Scientology was banned from editing any articles on Scientology.

Does your doctor use Wikipedia?

Dr. Kevin Pho is also troubled by the extent to which doctors rely on Wikipedia. In a survey of physicians, nearly half reported using Wiki as a source of medical information. And that number has doubled in the past year.

The threat is obvious. Can you imagine your doctor stepping out from the exam room, tapping away at his or her computer seeking the advice of Wikipedia? Research has documented the danger. A study from The Annals of Pharmacotherapy compared drug information from Wikipedia with the Medscape Drug Reference, a resource whose information is reviewed by pharmacists. Researchers found that Wikipedia omitted important information, including drug side effects. Another entry overlooked a commonly prescribed pain medication’s association with miscarriages.

How to find reliable medical information on the Internet

Websites sponsored by the government, academic medical centers, and professional medical societies tend to be reliable. Their reputation would be damaged by misinformation. (It’s funny how that doesn’t seem to bother drug companies.)
A quick and easy way to being a search for high quality medical information is to use the search tool provided by Health on the Net Foundation (HON). This Swiss non-profit organization certifies websites that contain medical information. Their seal of approval – a small red, white, and blue logo – appears only on sites that adhere to an ethical code.
The HONcode includes assurances that website authors or sponsors have no conflict of interest — you can’t hype the benefits of something you’re selling. “The HONcode is de facto a standard of the reliability of online information. Its purpose is to protect all citizens from incorrect, indeed misleading medical and health information.”
When you initiate a search on HON Medhunt, the default action is to search the entire web. To locate only those sites that meet HONcode standards, select “HONcode sites” before you search.
Happy hunting!