Health on the Net FoundationThe Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode) for medical and health websites addresses one of the main issue of the Internet: the reliability and credibility of medical and health information. The Internet has become one of the most widely used communication media. With the availability of web server software, it is simple to set up a website and publish any kind of data which is then accessible to the Internet world. The problem is therefore no longer to find the information but to assess the credibility of the publisher, as well as the relevance and accuracy of a document retrieved from the Net. In many cases, the website provides no appropriate documentation regarding the scientific design of a medical study, nor are studies made available that support given claims. The Code of Conduct for medical and health websites (HONcode) has been elaborated by the Health On the Net Foundation to help unify and standardise the reliability of medical and health information available on the worldwide web. The HONcode does not intend to rate the quality or the information provided by a website. It only defines a set of rules designed to make sure the reader always knows the source and the purpose of the data he or she is reading. The first version of the Code of Conduct (HONcode) was published on the web in July 1996 in response to concerns expressed by members of the Net community, individuals, medical and health professionals, regarding the difficulty to determine the reliability of data on the web. Specific concern was the validity of research data, the quality of medical advice provided on certain web sites, as well as the lack of scientific references associated to claims related to treatments available commercially. Webmasters and/or information providers do not always include all necessary and useful information (source of document, contact information, date of the last update, funding details, type of the organisation, ...). These omissions are in most cases free of malicious intent and often due to misinformation. All this information is necessary to define the context and gives the user an idea of the information available on the site. Discussion with these webmasters and/or information providers showed that they were seeking guidelines for content presentation, and were willing to improve their site by following some basic rules. The Health On the Net Foundation initiated the Code of Conduct (HONcode) for the medical and health domains. The HONcode provides guidelines to information providers, with the aim, of raising the quality of data available on the Net and, of helping to identify Internet sites that are maintained by qualified people and contain reliable data. The HONcode includes eight principles that comprise the following ethical aspects:
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