Major web search engines may be aiding the promotion of false medical claims, doctors claimed today.
Writing on the website of the British Medical Journal, Dr Marco Masoni and colleagues at the University of Florence in Italy, point out that the internet is not well policed and regulated.
They warn that the giant search engine Google obtains its main source of revenue from adverts, some of which link to web pages that contain worrying medical claims.
“How internet search engines present sources of information to users is important,” they write. “It is up to members of the medical community to be vigilant and to suggest improvements.”
They searched Google Italia for the keyword “aloe” and on the first page of results were two sponsored links suggesting aloe can prevent or treat cancer. This is “inappropriate”, they warn.
“Google decides on placement on its pages of search results: which advertisements to show and in what order,” they state, but “we think that Google must improve its filters and algorithms so as to prevent possible harm to its users.
“If improving the filter is too complex, it would be better simply not to display sponsored links in results of searches on medical terms or products.”
Also in the journal, Joanne Shaw, Chair of NHS Direct, writes: “We are experiencing a healthcare reformation” with potentially profound implications.
“The internet has brought the canon of medical knowledge – previously accessible only in expensive textbooks, subscription journals, and libraries – into the hands and homes of ordinary people.
“It does not diminish the role of doctors but casts them as expert advisers rather than authoritarian figures with exclusive guardianship of special knowledge,” she concludes.
Shaw, J. A reformation for our times. The British Medical Journal, 2009;338:b1080.
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