Jalees Rehm Inaccurate Medical Information Analysis

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The internet contains inaccurate medical information that can be misleading. Jalees Rehman, author of “Accuracy of Medical Information on the Internet”, analyzes the accuracy of medical information on the internet based on a study from the Journal of Pediatrics. Researchers tested the accuracy of the internet in relation to sleep safety for infants. They found that “Only 43.5% of these 1300 websites contained recommendations that were in line with the AAP recommendations, while 28.1% contained inaccurate information and 28.4% of the websites were not medically relevant”. This erroneous information can cause a person to take actions that might do more harm to themselves or to others. It could also cause a person to dismiss a potentially deadly symptom of a disease. …show more content…

If a person needs to know about certain medical conditions and cannot afford to go to a physician, he or she may go to a governmental website and receive mostly accurate information. In fact, Rehman states that “government websites and websites of national organizations (as identified by URL ending in .org) had the highest level of accuracy (80.9% and 72.5%, respectively)”. Therefore, if internet users rely on government websites there will be a lower chance of getting the wrong facts. This is a great advantage to people who lack health insurance or live in rural areas.
In terms of persona, people upload many things on social media that does not accurately portray them. In the article “ The End of Forgetting”, by Jeffrey Rosen, he discusses the impact social media has on individual’s work life. Rosen gives various examples of people losing their jobs because they are judged by their bosses from a single picture. He shares the story of a 25 year old teacher in training who uploaded a picture with a caption that said “Drunken Pirate” and was denied a teaching