Important drug safety information on the internet: assessing its accuracy and reliability.
BACKGROUND
The Internet is becoming increasingly important as a source of health-related information, but the accuracy and reliability of information presented on the world wide web is debated.


OBJECTIVE
We aimed to assess whether important, recent drug safety information is accurately reflected on Internet sites.


METHODS
We evaluated whether major warnings issued by the US FDA between October 1, 2000 and September 30, 2001 on severe and life-threatening drug toxicity were mentioned 4-16 months later in the top ten web pages identified for these drugs by each of seven different search engines. We examined predictors of precise mention of the FDA warnings using logistic regressions.


RESULTS
Twenty major safety warnings on 21 drugs (including three withdrawals) were eligible for the study. Among 519 different pertinent web pages retrieved (16-32 for each drug), precise mention of the safety issue was made in only 165 (31.8%). Best rates of precise mention were seen in web sites sponsored by attorneys (79.4%), in physician-oriented web pages (65.5%) and for withdrawn drugs (57.9%). In addition to these factors, better coverage of the FDA warnings was independently seen when no other adverse effects from the same organ system was mentioned (p < 0.001), while coverage was worse when there was no date on the site and web page (p = 0.020), and when the site owner could not be classified or was unknown (p = 0.014).


CONCLUSIONS
Important safety warnings are inadequately covered in the majority of web pages. This deficiency creates a source of potentially harmful misinformation for health consumers.
Clinical Trials and Evidence-Based Medicine Unit, Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece.
Athina
A
Tatsioni
Evagelia
E
Gerasi
Eumorfili
E
Charitidou
Nafsika
N
Simou
Venetsanos
V
Mavreas
John P A
JP
Ioannidis
D000075202:Contraindications; D004347:Drug Interactions; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D007255:Information Services / Q000592:standards*; D020407:Internet / Q000592:standards*; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012449:Safety; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States; D014486:United States Food and Drug Administration / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*
D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations