HONcode

This is a great site that everyone should be aware of. It can greatly help you sift through poor health websites with good ones. If you go to www.quackwatch.com and scroll down to the bottom, on the left hand side you will the the HONcode symbol which you can click on to verify it follows the Health On the Net Foundation
These codes are:

1. Authoritative Indicate the qualifications of the authors Any medical or health advice provided and hosted on this site will only be given by medically trained and qualified professionals unless a clear statement is made that a piece of advice offered is from a non-medically qualified individual or organisation.

2. Complementarity Information should support, not replace, the doctor-patient relationship. The information provided on this site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her existing physician.

3. Privacy Respect the privacy and confidentiality of personal data submitted to the site by the visitor. Confidentiality of data relating to individual patients and visitors to a medical/health Web site, including their identity, is respected by this Web site. The Web site owners undertake to honour or exceed the legal requirements of medical/health information privacy that apply in the country and state where the Web site and mirror sites are located.

4. Attribution Cite the source(s) of published information, date and medical and health pages. Where appropriate, information contained on this site will be supported by clear references to source data and, where possible, have specific HTML links to that data. The date when a clinical page was last modified will be clearly displayed (e.g. at the bottom of the page).

5. Justifiability Site must back up claims relating to benefits and performance. Any claims relating to the benefits/performance of a specific treatment, commercial product or service will be supported by appropriate, balanced evidence in the manner outlined above in Principle 4.

6. Transparency Accessible presentation, accurate email contact. The designers of this Web site will seek to provide information in the clearest possible manner and provide contact addresses for visitors that seek further information or support. The Webmaster will display his/her E-mail address clearly throughout the Web site.

7. Financial disclosure Identify funding sources. Support for this Web site will be clearly identified, including the identities of commercial and non-commercial organisations that have contributed funding, services or material for the site.

8. Advertising policy Clearly distinguish advertising from editorial content.


There is a nice search function that you can use when searching for Health information. Although the foundations clearly states that it cannot certify the quality of the information, I feel it is one of the best starting points for sifting through the BS found on the net

http://www.hon.ch/