How to Choose a Reputable Web site

We were going to advise you which health Websites were the best to use if you had a question. The fact is, for cancer alone, there are over 14.2 million sites on the Worldwide Web and it would be a daunting task for us to look at each. So what we have decided to do is come up with a set of guidelines for you to use when searching for a site.

There’s plenty of good medical information on the Web. Although the best known and most credible sites usually show up first in search engines, be advised that a few links down the page may be sites with medical misinformation.

Please be careful and make sure to:
Click on the About Us icon to get an idea of who is actually sponsoring the site.
Look for sites with a dot-gov, dot-edu or a dot-net address; they are government, non-profit and university sites and usually free of commercial sponsorship.

Ask yourself:
✓ Is this site sponsored by a company?
✓ Are they trying to sell me something?
✓ Are there any conflicts of interest?
✓ Is the information written by an author qualified to write on the subject?
✓ Is the information current, factual and referenced?

Source: Wall St. Journal

Warning:
If you’re not feeling well, you can end up even sicker. Don’t self-diagnose yourself after getting information on the Web. There is a difference between having well-developed knowledge about a medical issue and just having loads of information, especially if much of that information may be wrong.

Source–Time magazine, Paging Dr. Gupta, November, 2004