Internet's health information can be harmful to your health;
JAMA proposes standards for healthcare sites

Posted 4-18-97

Don't believe everything you read about healthcare on the Internet, warns the editorial in the April 16, 1997 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The proliferation of medical information particularly on the user-friendly World Wide Web has made it difficult for consumers as well as health professionals to distinguish useful from harmful information.

Editorialists William Silberg, George Lundberg, MD, and Robert Musacchio, PhD, write that many publishers of healthcare information on the Internet do not adhere to the same rules as hard-copy publishers, making it difficult "to differentiate author from shill, editorial from advertising, education from promotion, evidence from opinion, science from hype." They propose four minimum standards for Internet sites to help readers sort the "wheat from the chaff." Sites that fail to adhere to these basic principles should be considered suspect, they write.

The standards include:

• identification of the authors and contributors to the site and their respective affiliations
• attribution of sources and references
• disclosure of Web site "ownership"
• inclusion of the date that content was posted and updated

JAMA is not the first to propose a code of conduct for medical Web sites. The Geneva-based Health on the Net Foundation (HON) has established the HONcode, based on discussions with Webmasters and health professionals in several countries. The eight principles underscore the need for maintaining confidentiality of individual patient data, and full disclosure of site ownership and funding sources. Sites that comply with the principles can display the HONcode logo on their site.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also considering possible standards for pharmaceutical Web sites. Last fall, the FDA convened a public forum for input on whether or not to regulate pharmaceutical information on the Internet, but has not yet established any guidelines.

Related Sites
Journal of the American Medical Association
The Health on the Net Foundation
The Food and Drug Administration