Meet Web Hypochondriacs

prostoalex writes "When Jerome K. Jerome in 1889 described going to the British Museum to read medical encyclopedia and subsequently finding symptoms of almost all diseases in his body, he didn't realize the problem would exacerbate more than a century later. Web hypochondriacs are calling up doctors with requests for prescriptions for all sorts of diseases, since they discovered some similar symptoms on the Web. Wall Street Journal quotes a doctor: 'My impression is that people believe more of what they read than what I tell them. It seems that traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence is less and less trusted by the general public. Meanwhile, some dubious theory from the Internet will be swallowed hook, line and sinker nine times out of 10.' "

Comments

uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I may be stricken with Frost Pistitus!

I hate the internet

[ICLKennyG]

One of the many reasons I hate the internet. People need to go back to using it only for it's intended purpose. Downloading music/movies/porn!

nigg4

[Anonymous Coward]

is dying and its Bunch of retarded and reports and over The same to them...then and the bottom