Where to click when you're sick

Internet users who follow a few simple rules can usually identify quality health care information. When using the World-Wide Web, start by sticking to clearly identified sites sponsored by well-known organizations. Check the sources. Can claims be linked to reliable research? Are the authors affiliated with an established medical school or hospital?

Be wary of commercial sites posted by companies and individuals with something to sell. Often, such sites are just ads with links.

Home pages posted by individuals may contain valuable information, but play it safe and double-check data with another source. The same applies to the e-mail bulletin boards called newsgroups and mailing lists, which send mail to directly to members.

When in doubt, ask a doctor, nurse, or physician's assistant. Don't be dazzled by a slick-looking site or an important-sounding title. And finally, use common sense.

Here is a short list of Web sites to start with.

General health sites

Health Explorer (http://www.healthexplorer.com) -- A sweeping site with lots of links.

Health Finder (http://www.healthfinder.gov) -- The federal government's link to agencies, state health departments, and professional organizations.

Healthweb (http://www.healthweb.org) -- Links to the best of the health sites, as chosen by a group of librarians from Midwestern medical schools.

Physicians' Choice (http://www.mdchoice.com) -- Doctor-reviewed and -oriented, but patient-friendly, too. Online support and discussion groups.

Health on the Net (http://www.hon.ch/Patients/review.html) -- An interesting organization with a nice list of newsgroups and electronic mailing lists.

US Government

National Institutes of Health (http://www.nih.gov) -- The federal government's massive medical research arm. Browse under the "institutes" link to find agencies like the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which handles AIDS and HIV research.

The Food and Drug Administration (http://www.fda.gov) -- Information on the safety of drugs and medical devices.

Public Citizen Health Research Group (www.citizen.org/hrg) -- Don't think the above are doing their job? Call this D.C.-based watchdog group, which keeps an eye on the agencies charged with regulating drugs, medical devices, doctors and hospitals, and occupational health.

Journal articles.

Internet Grateful Med (http://igm.nlm.nih.gov) -- This is a search engine for the National Library of Medicine, which includes Medline, a database of more than 8.8 million references to articles published in 3800 biomedical journals.

Multimedia Medical Reference Library (http://www.mmrl.com/medlibrary) -- Set up by a PhD/MD candidate at Tufts University, this site links to Medline and directly to 277 journals.

Information on doctors

American Medical Association (http://www.ama-assn.org) -- Powerful national doctors' organization.

Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org) -- Small but vocal doctors' organization with an agenda quite the opposite of the AMA's.

Pharmaceuticals

Rxlist (http://www.rxlist.com) -- A comprehensive collection of information about prescription drugs, posted by a San Francisco hospital pharmacy director.

Center Watch (http://www.centerwatch.com) -- Want to help test an experimental drug? This site, from a Boston-based trade publisher, lists more than 5000 studies that need volunteers.

Alternative medicine

Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (http://altmed.od.nih.gov/oam) -- Alternative medicine on the Internet can get pretty dodgy. Play it safe on this site.

American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (http://www.naturopathic.org) -- Naturopathic healers don't attend traditional medical schools, but they are licensed in 11 states. Naturopathy emphasizes clinical nutrition, acupuncture, homeopathic medicine, botanical medicine, psychology, and counseling.

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