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Web alert

Web alert Editor Lyndon E. Mansfield, MD Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center-El Paso, Director Western Sky Medical Research, 1901 Arizona Avenue, El Paso, TX 79902, USA. E-mail: doctorlem@aol.com We live in an age of information overload that provides new responsibilities and opportunities for clinicians and patients. I address these at the conclusion of this month’s Web Alert, and offer two examples of the problem facing all of us. If our patients go to Google.com or Ask.com to seek information about asthma, they find that Ask.com provides 13,460,000 choices, and Google.com provides 40,200,000 sites. This search takes less than 15 seconds. Then our patients have to depend on the prioritization of the Web browser. I suspect that visits to the 40,000,000th site are rare, even for the most compulsive seeker. Dependence on the Web browser for prioritizing the sites can be a problem. Ask.com http://www.ask.com In searching for information on asthma, several early choices on Ask.com sound generic. These titles include “Asthma Resource Guide,” “Asthma Information,” “Help with Asthma,” “Go Breathe.com,” and so on. These sites are all sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and have a bias toward the company’s products, including advertisements and offers for a free http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Current Allergy and Asthma Reports Springer Journals

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Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Subject
Medicine & Public Health; Otorhinolaryngology; Pneumology/Respiratory System; Allergology
ISSN
1529-7322
eISSN
1534-6315
DOI
10.1007/s11882-008-0016-8
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Editor Lyndon E. Mansfield, MD Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center-El Paso, Director Western Sky Medical Research, 1901 Arizona Avenue, El Paso, TX 79902, USA. E-mail: doctorlem@aol.com We live in an age of information overload that provides new responsibilities and opportunities for clinicians and patients. I address these at the conclusion of this month’s Web Alert, and offer two examples of the problem facing all of us. If our patients go to Google.com or Ask.com to seek information about asthma, they find that Ask.com provides 13,460,000 choices, and Google.com provides 40,200,000 sites. This search takes less than 15 seconds. Then our patients have to depend on the prioritization of the Web browser. I suspect that visits to the 40,000,000th site are rare, even for the most compulsive seeker. Dependence on the Web browser for prioritizing the sites can be a problem. Ask.com http://www.ask.com In searching for information on asthma, several early choices on Ask.com sound generic. These titles include “Asthma Resource Guide,” “Asthma Information,” “Help with Asthma,” “Go Breathe.com,” and so on. These sites are all sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and have a bias toward the company’s products, including advertisements and offers for a free

Journal

Current Allergy and Asthma ReportsSpringer Journals

Published: Apr 27, 2008

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