Wikipedia Often Omits Important Drug Information

NEW YORK (ReutersHealth) – Consumers who rely on the user-edited Web resource Wikipediafor information on medications are putting themselves at risk ofpotentially harmful drug interactions and adverse effects, new researchshows.

Dr. Kevin A. Clauson of Nova Southeastern University in Palm BeachGardens, Florida and his colleagues found few factual errors in theirevaluation of Wikipedia entries on 80 drugs. But these entries wereoften missing important information, for example the fact that theanti-inflammatory drug Arthrotec (diclofenac and misoprostol) can causepregnant women to miscarry, or that St. John’s wort can interfere withthe action of the HIV drug Prezista (darunavir).

"If people went and used this as a sole or authoritative sourcewithout contacting a health professional…those are the types ofnegative impacts that can occur," Clauson told Reuters Health.

Wikipedia is an online, free encyclopedia covering millions oftopics in more than 250 languages. Users add and edit contentthemselves. Clauson and his colleagues decided to investigate theaccuracy and completeness of drug information on Wikipedia given thatone third of people doing health-related Internet searches are lookingfor information on over-the-counter or prescription drugs, and that aWikipedia entry is often the first to pop up with a Google search.

The researchers compared Wikipedia to Medscape Drug Reference (MDR),a peer-reviewed, free site, by looking for answers to 80 differentquestions covering eight categories of drug information, for exampleadverse drug events, dosages, and mechanism of action.

While MDR provided answers to 82.5 percent of the questions,Wikipedia could only answer 40 percent. Answers were less likely to becomplete for Wikipedia, as well. Of the answers the researchers foundon Wikipedia, none were factually inaccurate, while there were fourinaccurate answers in MDR. But the researchers spotted 48 errors ofomission in the Wikipedia entries, compared to 14 for MDR.

"I think that these errors of omission can be just as dangerous" asinaccuracies, Clauson told Reuters Health. He pointed out that drugcompany representatives have been caught deleting information fromWikipedia entries that make their drugs look unsafe.

The researchers did find that after 90 days, the Wikipedia entries showed a "marked improvement" in scope.

Wikipedia can be a good jumping-off point for Internet research,Clauson said, but shouldn’t be seen as the last word on any topic-andshould certainly not be used as a resource by medical professionals."You still probably want to go to medlineplus.gov or medscape.com forgood quality information that you can feel confident in," he said.

SOURCE: The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, December 2008.