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Caveant Lector et Viewor—Let the Reader and Viewer Beware

William M. Silberg; George D. Lundberg, MD; Robert A. Musacchio, PhD

JAMA. 1997;277(15):1244-1245.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Health care professionals and patients alike should view with equal parts delight and concern the exponential growth of the Internet (the Net), and especially its graphical, user-friendly subset, the World Wide Web (the Web), as a medical information delivery tool.^1,2 Delight because the Internet hosts a large number of high-quality medical resources and poses seemingly endless opportunities to inform, teach, and connect professionals and patients alike. Concern because the fulfillment of that promise remains discouragingly distant. Technical glitches aside, when it comes to medical information, the Internet too often resembles a cocktail conversation rather than a tool for effective health care communication and decision making.

See also p 1258.

The problem is not too little information but too much, vast chunks of it incomplete, misleading, or inaccurate, and not only in the medical arena.^3,4 The Net—and especially the Web—has the potential to become the world's largest vanity press. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Mr Silberg is Editorial Director, New Media Office, Scientific Information and Multimedia Group (e-mail: Bill_Silberg@ama-assn.org); Dr Lundberg is Editor, JAMA (e-mail: George_Lundberg@ama-assn.org); and Dr Musacchio is Vice President of Information Resources and Chief Information Officer (e-mail: Robert_Musacchio @ama-assn.org), American Medical Association, Chicago, III.

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