The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has issued a warning to consumers that cures offered on the Internet that sound to good to be true - probably are. The warning comes after the OFT, the Medicines Control Agency and 56 other enforcement agencies around the world took part in the fourth International Sweep Day - a co-ordinated worldwide search of sites making claims for miracle cures. Over 1,400 'suspicious' sites were identified of which 170 were UK-based.

Of particular concern are sites that promote cures for diseases where no known cure exists. Also of concern are pills and potions that claim to have different time delays until they become effective, often meaning that consumers have to buy a second bottle before realising they are ineffective.

For the full set of international results and analysis, see: http://fastlink.headstar.com/oft

Highwire Press - access to medical journals
http://highwire.stanford.edu

HighWire Press now offers free access to the full text of over 416,000 articles, making it the largest archive of free, life science articles in the world.

Although only a few journals offer free access on publication (such as the BMJ), a growing number make their archive available within a year of publication. Titles that offer this service include the New England Journal of Medicine http://content.nejm.org/, British Journal of Psychiatry http://bjp.rcpsych.org/, PNAS http://www.pnas.org/, Science http://www.sciencemag.org/ and Stroke http://stroke.ahajournals.org/.

A complete list of Highwire titles that off free access can be found at: http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl

Consumers use the Web for medical information
http://www.vividence.com/

A survey of consumer behaviour has found that the Web often acts as a substitute for physicians, with 71% of consumers searching online for information regarding medical conditions before they are formally diagnosed. Moreover, consumers report being just as likely to go to the Internet to get information when they first start experiencing symptoms (75%), as they are to go to a physician (77%).

Consumers also turn to the web to get detailed information about a drug, such as a complete list of side effects for a medication and that exposure to effective pharmaceutical websites increases consumers' likelihood to request specific prescription drugs from their doctors by 89%.

Further information is available at: http://www.vividence.com/public/news+and+events/press+releases/2002-03-25+pharmaceutical+study.htm

Medicine and advertising
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/mma/

The Medicine and Madison Avenue (MMA) Project presents images and database information for approximately 600 health-related advertisements printed in newspapers and magazines. These advertisements illustrate the variety and evolution of marketing images from the 1910s through the 1950s. The collection represents a wide range of products such as cough and cold remedies, laxatives and indigestion aids, and vitamins and tonics, among others.

Anyone interested in how medicine was marketed in the first half of the 20th century will find this site worth exploring.

Robert Kiley - 22 April 2002