On Jul 24, 2009, at 2:46 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
Todays New Scientist (vol 203 no 2718 page 20/21) has an interesting article on the veracity of online medical information; with several somewhat inconsistent references to wikipedia.
Here's the article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327185.500-should-you-trust-health-a...
"More disconcerting is the percentage of doctors who turn to Wikipedia for medical information: 50 per cent..."
"How does Wikipedia fare as a medical reference? Its collaborative, user-generated philosophy generally means that errors are caught and corrected quickly. Several studies, including one examining health information, another probing articles on surgery, and one focusing on drugs, found the online encyclopedia to be almost entirely free of factual errors."
"Better still, the articles improve significantly with time, according to a study Clauson published last December in the The Annals of Pharmacotherapy (vol 42, p 1814). 'Wikipedia's editing policy does work,' he says."
"some drug firms have been caught removing negative information on their drugs from Wikipedia pages."
"The site's other major flaw is its incompleteness. Wikipedia was able to answer only 40 per cent of the drug questions Clauson asked of it. By contrast, the traditionally edited Medscape Drug Reference answered 82 per cent of questions. 'If there is missing safety information about a drug, that can be really detrimental,' Clauson points out."
Ben