The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7189 p349-354
16 March 2002

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British Medical Journal (www.bmj.com)

Web health information is no worse than print

Attempts to control the quality of health information on the internet are a waste of time and effort, according to the BMJ. In any case, the web is no more unreliable than traditional print media.

A themed issue of the journal (9 March) includes three leading articles, five research papers, five discussion pieces and six news reports on health information and the web.

The overall conclusion, reached in an anonymous comment says: "If I were in the business of trying to regulate the web I would, after reading this issue, give up. It is truly like trying to regulate the west wind or talk. Instead, we should concentrate on doing great things on the internet to transform health care."

One of the leading articles takes the view that the internet should be treated no differently from print media as a source of health information. It warns doctors against advising patients not to use or trust information from the internet because the web as a whole is no more unreliable than randomly chosen textbooks, magazine articles, newspaper stories and patient handouts.

"Would we be justified in concluding that health care information in printed form is so undependable and unreliable that we should warn our patients against it? I think not," Tom Ferguson, senior research fellow, Pew Internet and American Life Project, says.