Journal of Health Services Research & Policy >
Volume 13, Number 4 >
Pp. 255-256
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What's on the web? |
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination University of York York YO10 5DD, UK
People are bombarded with advertisements and newspaper stories that claim their assertions are backed by scientific study. Separating truth from fiction in these circumstances can be tricky. There are many websites that offer to debunk these myths but sorting the reliable from the unreliable sites can be as hard as assessing the original stories. This column reviews a selection of the sites available.
If you would like to alert readers to useful web pages or suggest topics for this column, please send details to:
Kate Light
Information Officer
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
University of York, York YO10 5DD UK
(Email: KL9{at}york.ac.uk)
 | Sense About Science |
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 Top Sense About Science American Council on Science...Bad ScienceSelected additional websites |
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This is a UK charitable organization which aims to provide and promote reliable and up-to-date information about science topics of interest to the general public.
Many of the topics covered are related to health, such as alternative medicine, health testing and the MMR vaccine. For each topic, they work with scientists and other experts in the field to produce information on, and links to, reliable evidence in the given area.
Selected science stories covered by the media are included in the ‘For the Record’ section of the website, and highlighted on the home page in the ‘News’ column. For each topic, scientists are invited to provide comments in order to ‘set the record straight’ for the interested public. This section is not extensive however – only 10 news stories have been covered in the period July 2006– April 2008.
Sense About Science has produced seven publications on general and specific aspects of science, ranging from ‘Making Sense of Testing’ on the topic of health tests, to ‘I Don't Know What to Believe’ – a guide to peer review. All publications are available to order free of charge (UK only) or download online.
Overall, while not covering a large number of science stories in the news, the site is a useful and concise guide to selected topics. It is easy to navigate, well presented and encourages feedback from scientists, journalists, members of the public and other users of the site.
| American Council on Science and Health |
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TopSense About ScienceAmerican Council on Science...Bad ScienceSelected additional websites |
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This is a consumer education consortium which aims to assess the research evidence in areas of public health such as diseases, food safety, nutrition and pharmaceuticals. ACSH was founded in 1978, and includes a board of 350 physicians, scientists and policy advisors.
The main function is to present stories that appear in the US media on health issues and examine the research behind them. The topic coverage is broad, ranging from areas such as the potential health hazards of plastic bottles to flu vaccines. The format of the response to topics varies including letters published in newspapers where health stories have appeared, and press releases and editorials on this website.
Also included are ACSH publications available to download, ‘FactsAndFears’ – a comments section on current news stories, and Riskometer.org which depicts the leading causes of deaths for Americans in the format of an interactive bar chart.
The site is browsable by health topic and contains basic and advanced search facilities. These options aid navigation around a large site which contains a lot of information. Not all the topics are covered in great detail. Some of the reviews appear to be based more on opinion than facts but, given the credentials of the contributors, the user can assume them to be reliable.
| Bad Science |
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TopSense About ScienceAmerican Council on Science...Bad ScienceSelected additional websites |
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This site focuses on controversial topics in medicine such as the MMR vaccine, homeopathy, nutrition and food supplements. It is maintained by Ben Goldacre, a doctor, who also contributes to TV and radio programmes and writes a health column for The Guardian newspaper in the UK.
Its format is a typical blog (web log) with regular entries, commentaries on news items and links to other blogs and web pages. Once readers have registered they are able to give their own opinions and comment on the website content. The nature of the comments varies widely; not all are relevant to the discussion, some are given using a username, and it can be difficult to judge whether the comments are based on fact.
Some stories provide a large amount of background information and references to research illustrating the news item under discussion so the reader can make their own judgment about the accuracy of the reporting. For example, in the entry for 26 April 2008 about whether antioxidant supplements can prevent death, there are links to the original research, papers published in the BMJ and JAMA, and to press comments. Other entries are briefer and do not include links to the original research; in these cases it is harder to judge the accuracy of the research.
A number of tools can be used to navigate around the site: a search facility, the archival list (from 2003 onwards) or the topic index. These need to be used with some care as it is easy to fail to identify relevant information. For example, searching the site for ‘MMR’ doesn't retrieve the postings that are identified by the MMR topic header, while the stories about the use of anti-retroviral drugs in Africa are listed under Africa rather than under AIDS or HIV.
Overall, the site provides interesting and up-to-date coverage of health stories in the news.
| Selected additional websites |
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TopSense About ScienceAmerican Council on Science...Bad ScienceSelected additional websites |
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