For millions of Americans, Google has replaced the family physician. People trust, and make decisions, based on the information they find online,” said Goldberg, “With few exceptions, the information we found appeared legitimate but had no medical authority whatsoever. In many cases, we found lawyers posing as medical experts.”
The analysis of search results revealed that online real estate was dominated by Web sites paid for and sponsored by either class action law firms or legal marketing sites searching for plaintiff referrals. Other sites were sponsored by groups or individuals selling “alternatives.”
– Sixty-five percent of the first three pages of search results came from sites which were biased or contained unverified information.
– Nearly half of the first three pages of search results belonged to lawyers and attorney referral services seeking plaintiffs for class action law suits.
– No official regulatory pages or professional medical organizations appeared in the inventory of results.
“Patients who use Google to find important health information will be overwhelmed with negative information and will find little, if any, solid medical information to help them weigh the risks versus the benefits of using these medications,” said Peter Pitts, CMPI President and former Associate Commissioner for External Affairs for the FDA.
Which begs the question, what is more important, the information you find or the questions that lead you to the information you find? ASSISTA categorizes information by questions, as at times there are many different sources dealing with the same questions, ASSISTA gives the individual an objective look at information.
(The issue above is also directly related to the U.S Department of Health & Human Services and this campaign I wrote about before.)
0 Responses to “The More Information Online, The More Important The Skills To Sort Through It”