ON-LINE MEDICAL HELP OFTEN NOT UP TO PAR.

• Position: Medical help from the Internet - Brief Article

Medical information proliferates on the World Wide Web, but much of that information may be inaccurate or out of date, warns Hugo Juhling McClung, professor of pediatrics, Ohio State University, Columbus. When he and his colleagues examined a typical illness as a test case to gauge the accuracy of data, they found that just 20% of Web sites sponsored by traditional medical sources used the most recent guidelines when offering advice on how to treat childhood diarrhea.

"The big issue is that major hospitals and medical centers aren't policing what they're putting out there," McClung points out. "There is a lack of oversight of what's put on the Web."

Information errors from traditional medical sources on the Web include misleading statements such as "diarrhea is the body's method to eliminate undesirable elements," "diarrhea is caused by eating greasy junk food," and "restrict oral intake" during diarrhea, all of which contradict American Academy of...