Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia, say scientists

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in science on (#3N4)
story imageConcerns over errors in health articles on Wikipedia have caused some scientists to warn against using the free encyclopedia to self diagnose medical conditions.
Most Wikipedia articles representing the 10 most costly medical conditions in the United States contain many errors when checked against standard peer-reviewed sources. Caution should be used when using Wikipedia to answer questions regarding patient care.

An Encyclopedia Is Not A Medical Journal. Film at 11. (Score: 4, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-29 16:26 (#1YP)

I read through most of that. They compare WP summaries with peer reviewed scientific journals, and find discrepancies.

What if they had compared against a print encyclopedia? Against a batch of NY Times articles? Against a stack of Dr. Oz books and videos? How would these other popular layperson resources stand up to this same scrutiny?

This seems like a stretch for attention on someone's part (the study authors or the subsequent publicizers).

Frankly I think Wikipedia does a great job of explaining most things, and completely unlike the other popular resources available to people (including most medical sites) WP cites the heck out of its claims right in the article.
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