Don't Believe Everything You Read On The Web - Page 3

One way to check medical sites is to use HONcode, a UN and World Health Organization sponsored site that keeps tabs on immense numbers of medical websites world-wide. The Geneva-based organization was founded after a conference in 1995 to "promote the effective and reliable use of the new technologies for telemedicine in healthcare around the world."

Some seemingly odd and useless treatments are matters of controversy for some people. I consider "chelation therapy", a long series of IV drips to leech "heavy metals" (not the musical variety) from the blood, a piece of expensive, unpleasant and probably useless quackery and left an M.D. who pushed too hard for this (12 years ago) $5000 non-reimbursable series of long treatment. When I wrote this in a BC article, "Health News: The Chelation Therapy Controversy", I heard from people with stories of how much it had helped and how wrong I was. I have read a few books and many web sites on it and continue to survive heart failure without it, but there is, obviously, a difference of opinion. Today, checking the HON website in Geneva, there are articles on the current, major study of whether or not the therapy is valid.

The fact of the matter is that, in much the same way as those nice Nigerian bank people who are kind enough to offer you millions of dollars in a badly spelled email, you should think about what you received, who wrote it and why, who backs them and how to check their veracity. Go to primary sources of original materials from established sources. The Net has made this easier than ever before. Look for corroboration or other opinions and check that often instructive button marked "about". It is surprising how many medical sites are backed by corporate sponsors. However, their involvement does not necessarily mean the advice or resources are not valid. Like everything else: check it out.

Wanjek also complained about many articles that appeared last year after a study about the health benefits of chocolate. He was not very positive about
Countless vapid news articles last year relayed the news about the chocolate-anticancer link. Readers were left with the impression that candy is good for you; it was the kind of ironic story the press loves to report. Yet a simple jump to the source of that report---to Georgetown University and a press release from its Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center---would have revealed that it's not chocolate candy per say that has anticancer properties: It's an ingredient in cocoa, from which chocolate is made, called pentameric procyanidin.

Article Author: Howard Dratch

Howard writes on science, books, movies and news for Blogcritics and on his own blogs from the border of North and Central America.

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