YOU CAN GET SICK READING MEDICAL WEB PAGES

Gupta, Sanja (2004) “Click to get sick?” TIME, 11/1, P.102.

Those who go to medical websites are more likely to become ill.

There is reverse placebo effect. They become psychosomatically ill with symptoms similar to the problem that they read about on the web.

They also believe that they have enough information to make their own treatment decisions and get worse from the over the counter medications.

They may go to a site that has recommendations that are not valid.

They may read the statistics on an illness and see that the statistics for the general population are low and therefore believe that they are in that population. Therefore, they stop their meds when they are in a high risk group and thus get very ill and or die.

A little knowledge can in some instances be a very bad thing.