What is considered credible information?

So what is a good source of information about medicine?  In medicine the definitive answers come from Randomized Control Trials. These are experiments in which the treatment is compared to a previous treatment or a placebo group. This helps us figure out if it really works better than what we already have or if it works at all. Often when you read news papers they try to summarize experiments and make them exciting to read. More often then not however they mess something up. They report things incorrectly or oversimplify the results. I mean think about it, these are people you spent their careers in journalism, they may not have the expertise to properly explain the results. This means the in the end you have to read the original research. I know that most will not do that so I would like to suggest a few good sources of info.

Health Canada's Website

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/index-eng.php

Journal of the American Medical Association (they often publish articles that are easy to read and summarize the results of previous experiments)

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/journal.aspx

Try using Google Scholar, sometimes reading the abstracts of experiments isn't so bad

http://scholar.google.ca/

Review Articles, this is where a scientist takes all the information previously collected and summorizes what we know. They are much easier to read than the original research.

Wikipedia, I have found that on many issues Wiki provides a very good source of info. Although you need to remember that it can very easily be wrong so take what it says causally.

Now this is not a full list but only some suggestions. Just remember to always consider how reliable your information is. If you want to be an expert on a medical issue you need to read the original research. 

Wes

Introduction

Hello,

My name is Wesley Rose and before I begin my blog I thought it would be appropriate to introduce myself. I am a graduate of University of Guelph and my B.Sc. is in Biomedical science. I am currently perusing a Master’s at Guelph and I love what I do. My area of interest is medicine and that is what I will focus on.

I have become very concerned at the amount of misinformation that exists in regard to medicine. The internet has provided a great way to quickly share information but that has also lead to bad information being spread. 

My goal is to provide an unbiased approach to evaluating medical treatments. Either they work or they don’t, and that’s what I would like to determine.. I am not telling you my opinion of what I think works or doesn't work I am telling you what is true. Science’s goal is to determine what is true, it does not take sides and it does not care what you think. It only cares about what is true and what’s not. I will be as cold as science in that sense, neither your or my beliefs matter on these issues, all that matters is what is true. Everything I say will be backed up with properly conducted experiments that show us what is true. Over thousands of years we have determined as a species that properly conducted experiments show us how the world works meaning that in medicine they are the gold standard in determining if a treatment works.

I have found that there is a disconnect between the scientific community and the general public. I think that somewhere down the line scientists forget how to talk to everyone else. They use big words and confusing terminology that is lost on many people (me included). My hope is that I will be able to communicate to you in a simple manner what the scientific community already knows.

I hope you find my blog informative.

Wes