EXERCISE CLASS

Monday, Wednesday and Friday @ 9:00 AM in the Fellowship Center. Please join us for low impact exercise, friendship and laughter. Everyone is welcome!

Is cyberspace a place for accurate medical information?

Every day, more than six million Americans turn to the Internet for medical answers-and

most of them aren’t nearly skeptical enough of what the find. According to Brown

Medical School study in April 2005, only one in ten are free from bias or a motivation for

commercial gain. The problem is most people don’t know the safe way to surf the Web,

says Sarah Bauerle, PhD, principle investigator for a study funded by the National Cancer

Institute and focusing on Internet use by newly diagnosed cancer patients. Literally

anybody can put up a site that looks authoritative, so it is hard to know if what you’re

reading is legitimate or not.

Suggestions-look for medical websites that:

• list the sources of the information and don’t have ads or testimonials,
• end in “.gov”(government sites.). “.edu”(schools). or “.org”(primarily

noncommercial organizations):

• are sponsored by organizations you’ve heard of, such as the Mayo Clinic, rather

than “Sarah’s website for cancer survivors.”

Try these sites

• healthfinder.gov: resources form government agencies and reputable

organizations.

• medlineplus.gov: for news, studies and overviews of diseases and conditions;
• familydoctor.org (operated by the American Academy of Family Physicians); for

specific symptoms.

• nlm.nih.gov: the National Library of Medicine; the information originates from

the National Institutes of Health/Department of Health and Human Services.