May 11, 1999
Web posted at: 10:13 AM EDT (1413 GMT)

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -- Two medical researchers, fed up with a hodgepodge of useless and misleading health information on the Internet, have published what they believe is the first consumer guide to medical sites on the World Wide Web.

The 400-page book, "The Doctor's Always In," features 1,100 medical sites which the authors judge to be the best the Web has to offer on subjects ranging from AIDS and allergies to cancer and sports medicine.

Co-author Jay Schneider, a neurology professor at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said the aim was to provide people with medical knowledge they can use in discussions with their doctors.

"There have been other guidebooks, but they're mainly for medical professionals. This is aimed specifically at the consumer," Schneider said Monday.

He and co-author Theodore Lidsky, a neuroscientist at the Institute for Basic Research on Developmental Disorders in Staten Island, New York, came up with the idea of a guidebook after trying to help Schneider's neighbor find information on his daughter's brain tumor.

A conventional Internet search on the girl's condition quickly produced an information wilderness consisting of tens of thousands of Web sites, many of them useless and some downright misleading.

"Some of the health information on the World Wide Web is posted by electronic-age snake-oil salesmen," Schneider said. "This is really a daunting task for anyone. I'm a trained medical scientist and it's overwhelming for me. You can spend hours wasting your time."

Last month, a U.S. government panel of doctors, health insurers and public health officials and others also warned of questionable medical information posted on the Internet. The group recommended that Internet newcomers begin with the government's own Web site at www.healthfinder.gov.

Schneider and Lidsky, neither of whom is a medical doctor, decided to produce a book rather than an online consumer guide, believing that the computer novices they hope to reach are likely to feel less intimidated by the familiar printed page.

They also have found that books are faster than computers when it comes to locating Web site addresses. "As strange as that sounds, I think it's true," Schneider said.

"The Doctor's Always In" is published by the Cherry Hill, New Jersey-based NeuroInformatics Publishing.

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