Medical Websites – Mediocre Medicine at Its Best

Most misleading medical websites sell out to chemical/pharmaceutical industry as sleazy puppets for power and above all, profits!

Boca Raton, FL – It is becoming increasingly evident that these so called medical ‘expert’ advice websites, such as WebMD, have sold themselves out to big business in a bid to influence the public from knowing the truth about environmental illness, hazardous products, and potential life threatening disease in their almighty greed.  “This demonstrates how low the medical profession has gone as many sell out their credibility in the name of pure gluttony,” states Dr. Tim Johnson, a family medical physician from Michigan.  Many of these so called experts who provide ‘free advice columns’ on the shameful WebMD have even been nicknamed by their more prestigious peers as the ‘sluts of medicine’.  As a victim of this, I now understand the politics behind these evil deeds.

Even many emergency room physicians who used to rely upon sites such as WebMD for quick answers have begun to shy away for fears of misdiagnosis and malpractice failures.  When pharmaceutical giant, Merck, began losing credibility for their faltering Merck Manual (once a highly guarded source of medical information) which biased their medical ‘treatments’, they quickly found cheaper alternatives in these medical quackery sites.  The public, however, has become increasingly distrusting of the medical profession as society has become more sophisticated and suspicious as many are failing to receive effective treatment for their illnesses and have noticed that too many doctors rely on their physician desk references and prescription pads as a poor excuse for treating symptoms, not illnesses.

Much of the public still has a bitter taste in their mouths as they remember how Donald Rumsfeld abused his political and corporate power to ‘sanction quick approval and endorsement of Aspartame’ and all of their evil entities such as NutraSweet, Splenda, and so-called ‘lite’ products; therefore, they bullied out natural and much healthier sugar substitutes such as Stevia and Xylotil.

There are numerous sites that have succumbed to corporate power, like a growing epidemic of most business in this country.  But I am particularly disappointed in one that I relied upon, such as many others, receiving misinformation. I must admit to being an ignorant reader of WebMD two years ago.  I exhibited a multiplicity of symptoms that suggested I had five diseases including Toxic Shock Syndrome, malaria, depression.  Knowing that my house had suffered flood damage from a recent hurricane, I actually went to this so called ‘expert’ site in the hopes of finding information on the much publicized mycotoxicosis, but WebMD not only failed to mention this national health crisis, but dismissed it as a possible mild ‘allergy’ and that there was no evidence to substantiate this well documented disease.  At the time, I thought that this site was designed to help people ‘diagnose’ themselves so they could seek appropriate medical care.  In essence, I believed their lack of knowledge of this well researched disease as possibly psycho-somatic!  Due to their negligence, my health insurance paid thousands of dollars for unnecessary tests, specialists, and drugs that were totally unrelated to my actual illness, mycotoxicosis, which eventually led to aspergilloma due to my trust in a website that I later found out is run by drug and chemical companies among disinterested others.

My symptoms turned worse, and then, due to my trust, led to autoimmune disease.  This has been directly linked to my mycotoxicosis, which could have been treated if I had read a more reputable site, like this one.  It actually took two years of heavy mycotoxin-producing fungal exposure when a friend told me about the ugly politics behind web quackery and gave me the name of this website, who I honestly believe saved my life.  I, at age 28, among millions of others permanently disabled people who suffered from the effects of this disease, have no viable future with the severe symptoms that we suffer with this debilitating illness.  This doesn’t have to happen!  Innocent people actually believe the misleading information on these biased websites.  Unfortunately there are many quacks in medicine, and apparently some, due to their failures, sell themselves out to big companies.

Alarmingly enough, 64 percent (which ironically makes up about the same percentage of pharmadocs working in the United States) of all U.S. practicing physicians use online technologies ‘sponsored’ therefore heavily influenced by money mongering pharmaceutical-related products and services, according to a study released last month from New York market information firm Manhattan Research. The majority of these physicians — 87 percent — actually believe the Internet is a critical resource on information for prescription drugs and ‘treatment’ options, with three-fourths admitting their behavior is sometimes or often changed as a result of what they found online, according to the study.

In addition, about 72 percent of the U.S. public rely on the Internet for health information.  However, the public is slowly becoming aware of sources and even turned off by websites that are puppeted by industries such pharma and viewing sources that focus more on alternative medicine and environmental issues, which drugs have been proven almost ineffective and unprofitably directed.  While quackery sites such as WebMD are losing loyal viewers, they are making millions annually as paid puppets for major corporations such as Pfizer, Clorox, Merck, and even questionably moral Pharma companies who manufacture hardcore drugs such as such as Ritalin.

Why is WebMD Now a Failure to the Consumer?

WebMD’s largest stockholders are the DuPont Chemicals, the insurance and pharmaceuticals industry.  While making huge profits for its shareholders, it has simply sold itself to the proverbial Devil.  By doing this, they are losing respectable sponsors and customers as their once proactive, honest approach to health has been heavily clouded due to interests that are not necessarily in the best interest to the consumer.  But, in order to gain profits and sustainability, this was inevitable.

WebMD, which generated its first multi-million profits in 2003, is experiencing a resurgence after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, shuttering many medical websites that couldn’t generate enough ad revenue to compete due to their higher standards of succumbing to corporate propaganda, therefore, without funding from the almighty drug and chemical companies, many ‘competitors’ who possibly cared more about their consumers, were unable to gain enough profits to stay in business. Now, with fewer competitors and more partnerships with other websites and companies, the surviving medical dot-coms have found better ways to reliably generate revenue through virulent advertising techniques with the major corporations, nor appearing to care that they compromise their integrity and standards.

The fallout has allowed websites such as pharmaceutically motivated puppets such as WebMD (who publish some non-sensical and otherwise absurd articles aimed at influencing market trends for chemical and pharmaceutical giants) to grab an even larger consumer audience and participate in the now $250 million industry.  “It’s all about the pharmaceutical industry soaking the consumer for more profits,” states Dr. William Deagle, an environmental physician who relies more heavily on cures, not symptom masking chemicals with nutriceuticals rather than a quick profiting fix from the pharmaceutical money mongers.

“When the shakeout came, these large companies started to emerge, get more powerful,” said Mark Bard, president of Manhattan Research. Companies interested in reaching large numbers of consumers now have a profitable option even if their information is biased and sometimes utterly ridiculous.

One of the most visited health websites this was WebMD, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. WebMD provides propaganda such as some superseded information, questionable recommendations, and pharmaceutically slanted health services to obsolete medical practitioners, insurance companies, health plans, and scientifically ignorant people for profit, plain and simple.

WebMd has also not really clarified where ‘their’ articles and those forced upon them to publish very clear, although they make vague attempts with their so-called Hi-Ethics Principles, and claims of divulging third-party influence, yet we found many ‘s ‘published’ studies, for example are funded by major corporations aimed at slanting marketing strategies and they fail to state this by clever publishing methods of this studies conducted by big corporations.  For example, Clorox, who pays for much of the National Jewish Hospital’s influence by ‘funding’ studies, ironically enough on bleach.  WedMD was the only website that was allegedly unscrupulous enough to publish this preposterous study on their website, claiming that bleach actually helps people with mold ‘allergies’.  Any skilled medical practitioner would laugh at this study since the study even used words such as ‘may’ and ‘possibly’, meaning that this wasn’t even a study at all!  But since Clorox, recently under investigation by the EPA for false product claims, such as ‘Tilex kills 99.9% of household mold’, required immediate medical puppetry to help protect them with their fraudulent claims.

I believe this bogus information spewed out by questionably unethical National Jewish Hospital and WebMD due to Mold-Help telling Clorox that they were going to expose them for their false claims that their bleach product, Tilex, ‘kills’ 99.9% of household mold.  Clorox even admitted that they meant ‘bacteria’.  Oddly enough, the only website, publication, or any form of the media to ‘publish’ this highly unethical press release, was none other than WebMD.

What Does One Pay to ‘Influence’ the Public?

The pharmadoc industry is becoming expensive, but more profitable for the pharmadocs than television adverts, where they have to legally disclose their drug interactions and side effects verbally.  WebMD Health has been boasting elevating profits of over $100 million per year.  Shockingly, WebMD also strongly influences the subject matter for the health section for MSN and American Online’s health channel.  This can be a strong ally for the drug industry when they can have their own pharmadocs brainwashing ignorant people.

Who Can You Trust?

Universities, so-called ‘professional’ medical websites that downplay emerging trends such as environmental medicine, and corporations are all influenced by ‘grants’, some worse than others.  Look for publications, websites and articles that are not ‘sponsored, funded, or endorsed’ by any major corporation.  These can be high-priced puppets for a certain agenda that has no interest in your health whatsoever.  Additionally, be careful regarding any data that ends in .gov, however, .mil sites appear to be more upfront regarding urgent health matters.  Some private sites and journals with credible quotes and resources that show no corporate bias can also be very helpful and reliable.  It’s all about common sense and caution.  Don’t believe everything you read or hear for that matter because you don’t always know who is paying for that information to be disseminated to the public.

Perhaps, in the future WedMD may even publish a study that claims sex causes cancer conveniently sponsored by a condom company; but it might have to be for the right price and possibly from a Fortune Five-hundred company.  Who knows?

By Chandra Dalton; Guest Commentary

Disclaimer: This article is solely the opinion of the above credited author, therefore, does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Mold Help; its contributors, writers, advisers, or affiliates.  Mold Help is not liable for the content of this commentary.  Mold Help provides this public service as a right to freedom of speech but by doing such; assumes no responsibility of this submission whatsoever.  Any inquiries to the author can be sent to this site and will be forwarded to the author if deemed appropriate.

Author: Carolyn Willbanks