(Press-News.org) Americans and Canadians are getting vastly different search results when they look up prescription drug information online, says a study by researchers at the University of British Columbia.
Residents of the United States searching on Google for both brand and generic drug names get directed to the government-run National Library of Medicine. However, Canadians performing the same searches end up getting Wikipedia for generic drug searches, and drug company sites for brand searches, according to the study, published online yesterday by the Annals of Pharmacotherapy.
"The study also revealed that the most viewed drug pages on the Internet are those with the potential for addiction, like Oxycodone, and drugs for stigmatized conditions, such as antidepressants," says Michael Law, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research (CHSPR) at UBC. "It's important for the medical community to understand where patients are going for their drug information."
Previous research has found significant problems with both the information on Wikipedia, and in the drug information produced and distributed by pharmaceutical companies.
"These are not likely the most reliable and unbiased sources," says Law, also an assistant professor in the School of Population and Public Health (SPPH) at UBC. "Patients should be sure to verify the information they find online before making treatment decisions."
One of the reasons for this discrepancy in search results is a 2010 partnership between Google and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which returns NIH-sponsored drug information pages more prominently for searches by U.S. audiences. The UBC study shows that U.S. patients using Google.com would most often have the NIH-sponsored drug webpages, hosted by the National Library of Medicine, returned as the top result.
Meanwhile, U.S. residents using Bing and Yahoo, or Canadian residents using Google.ca for their searches, were led to Wikipedia pages or industry-sponsored sites most often, the study shows.
"We need to pay attention to the quality of online information and where it's coming from, especially for the types of drugs people have been searching for," says Law.
"Notwithstanding cable access to U.S. TV channels, which allow drug brand advertising, Canadians are at least partially shielded from American drug advertising on TV and in magazines," says Law. "Online, however, it's a bit more of the Wild West in terms of what Canadians will find. National rules and boundaries don't mean as much when you can view sites from around the world."
###
Law co-authored this paper with UBC colleagues Barbara Mintzes, assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Steven Morgan, associate professor at CHSPR. Funding for this study was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Michael Law
Centre for Health Services
and Policy Research
Tel: 604 822-3514
Email: mlaw@chspr.ubc.ca
Heather Amos
UBC Public Affairs
Tel: 604.822.3213
Cell: 604.828.3867
Email: heather.amos@ubc.ca
Americans and Canadians get different drug information online: UBC study
2011-02-24
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Simpler way of making proteins could lead to new nanomedicine agents
2011-02-24
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have developed a simple method of making short protein chains with spiral structures that can also dissolve in water, two desirable traits not often found together. Such structures could have applications as building blocks for self-assembling nanostructures and as agents for drug and gene delivery.
Led by Jianjun Cheng, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, the research team will publish its findings in the Feb. 22 edition of the journal Nature Communications.
Materials scientists have been interested ...
Semporna may have richest marine biodiversity in the world
2011-02-24
The preliminary results of the Semporna Marine Ecological Expedition (December 2010) indicate that Semporna may have the world's highest marine biodiversity. The expedition yielded a record number of 43 species of mushroom corals. Furthermore, some new species were discovered, among which at least two shrimps and possibly a number of gall crabs. The health of the reefs was judged to be relatively poor: 36% of the transects had fair, another 36% had poor live coral cover. Eighteen scientists from Malaysia, the Netherlands and the USA spent three weeks examining the reefs ...
Review highlights need for more education and guidance on CAM use in midwifery
2011-02-24
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasingly popular in maternity care, but healthcare professionals need formal evidence-based education and guidance about its use, according to a review in the March issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.
There is also need for greater respect and cooperation between conventional and alternative practitioners and improved communication with patients about the growing use of CAM.
University-based members of the Network of Researchers in the Public Health of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NORPHCAM) reviewed ...
New vaccine technology protects mice from hepatitis C virus
2011-02-24
Immunology: Three percent of the world's population is currently infected by hepatitis C. The virus hides in the liver and can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer, and it's the most frequent cause of liver transplants in Denmark. Since the virus mutates strongly, we have no traditional vaccine, but researchers at the University of Copenhagen are now the first to succeed in developing a vaccine, which provides future hope for medical protection from this type of hepatitis.
"The hepatitis C virus (HCV) has the same infection pathways as HIV," says Jan Pravsgaard Christensen, ...
The world's first surfboard with integrated technology
2011-02-24
Pukas Surf (the leading manufacturer and distributor of high-performance surfboards in Europe) and Tecnalia Research & Innovation have presented their research work into the mechanical behaviour of surfboards.
Surfing is still a sport governed by feelings. Most innovations in board design and manufacture, as well as analysis of surfing technique, have been the result of "trial and error" procedures and the experiences of shapers, trainers and surfers. The driving forces behind this joint project aim to "turn feelings into facts and figures" and provide as yet unquantified ...
New hypothesis explains why drugs increase risk of heart attacks and strokes
2011-02-24
CLEVELAND – February 21, 2011 – New research shows that medications which have raised safety concerns over heart attack and stroke risks may not have gotten approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) if the cardiovascular effects of fluid retention had been better understood. Fluid retention may explain the increased risk of heart attacks and strokes of medications such as Vioxx®, Bextra®, and Avandia®.
The research published in Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation (IOS Press, ISSN 1386-0291), calculates the effects of fluid retention upon the velocity ...
Prevalence of bunions increases with age; more common in women
2011-02-24
New research determined that an increase in the severity of hallux valgus, or bunion deformity, progressively reduced both general and foot-specific health related quality of life (HRQOL). Bunion deformity was found in 36% of the study population and occurred more frequently in women and older individuals. Pain in other parts of the body beyond the foot was associated with increased bunion severity. Details of this UK population-based study appear in the March issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of ...
Parasitic protozoons survive waste water and drinking water treatment plants in Galicia
2011-02-24
"The presence of two resistent forms of protozoons, the oocysts from the Cryptosporidium genus and cysts of the Giardia genus, is one of the greatest public health problems in water supply, because these parasites can easily survive our water treatment systems", José Antonio Castro Hermida, a scientist at the Galician Institute for Food Quality in the Xunta de Galicia (regional government), tells SINC.
A team led by this researcher took 232 water samples in 55 Galician towns, and confirmed the presence of these infectious life forms in waste water treatment plants, drinking ...
Elderly drivers have higher crash rates in non problematic environments than other drivers
2011-02-24
This release is available in Spanish and French.
Drivers aged over 60 have higher crash rates in non problematic operating environments –as in junctions– than drivers of other age groups. Although elderly drivers present deteriorated driving abilities, they have proved to be more cautious, to compensate such deficiencies. This way, older drivers avoid engaging in risky behaviours like speeding, passing dangerously or driving under the effects of alcohol.
Such were the conclusions drawn of the study conducted by University of Granada researchers and recently published ...
Oldest fossils of large seaweeds, worm-like animals tell story of ancient oxygen
2011-02-24
Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, a small village in south China.
Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free and unbreathable waters.
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Virginia Tech in the United States and Northwest University in Xi'an, China report the discovery of the fossils in the Feb. 17 ...