NYT’s Heffernan contrasts WebMD, MayoClinic.com

Feb. 9th, 2011 by Andrew Van Dam · 4 Comments
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Hot Health Headline, Pharmaceuticals 

New York Times Magazine columnist Virginia Heffernan has posted a take on the quality of online health information, framed as a side-by-side review of WebMD and MayoClinic.com. Her characterization of for-profit WebMD as a “hypochondria time suck” has garnered the most attention so far, but it seems almost tame compared to her attacks on the site’s ties to big pharma and her exhortation that users actively block that particular address from their web browsers.

As an example, after praising the Mayo Clinic’s restrained approach to patients looking to self-diagnose a headache (it waits until page eight to suggest OTC painkillers), Heffernan flips to WebMD and describes the site’s approach:

… if you plug “headache” and “WebMD” into Google, the Web opens to the glamorous, photo-dominated “Migraines and Headaches Health Center,” a sound-and-light show that seems itself like a headache trigger. There’s the requisite picture of a tastefully made-up young woman holding her head in exquisite agony. The headache “news,” flush right on the page, comes with more artful photos of lovely people in pain and includes scare headlines like “Headaches: When Is It an Emergency?” The first page contains no hard facts — you have to click and thereby drive up the site’s lucrative click-throughs — but instead quickly transforms visitors from Web users with headaches to hard-core migraineurs and drug consumers.

For the record, WebMD pulls in almost three times as many monthly page views as its nonprofit rival.

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WebMD, Eli Lilly and a quiz about depression

Mar. 10th, 2010 by Andrew Van Dam · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Health journalism 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the prolific writer of public letters who often assumes the mantle of health consumer advocate, is at it again. This time he’s taking on consumer health information giant WebMD, whose ties with Eli Lilly seem to stretch back for some time. At issue is a WebMD quiz that purported to determine a user’s risk of depression. The fishy part? Until WebMD modified the quiz following Grassley’s letter and other outcry, even users who answered “no” to every question would be given the warning that “You may be at risk for major depression.”

As Daniel Carlat points out on his blog, the following disclaimer appeared at the top of the page: “This content is selected and controlled by WebMD’s editorial staff and is funded by Lilly USA.” As Carlat points out, 9 of the 10 symptoms in the quiz are taken from standard diagnostic criteria, but the one that isn’t (which relates to physical pain) just happens to dovetail perfectly with the pain-relief market Lilly is trying to carve out for Cymbalta.

Because Lilly markets Cymbalta as the “go to” antidepressant for patients who have both depression and physical pain. This is not really a “depression screening test” at all. Instead, it is a “Cymbalta-requester” screening test.

WebMD is telling the public a big lie. The say that “this content is selected and controlled by WebMD’s editorial staff” when in fact the crucial aches and pains questions was selected by Eli Lilly’s marketing team to encourage patients to ask their doctors for Cymbalta.

Grassley’s letter requested that WebMD respond with the details of their relationship to Eil Lilly by March 4. I didn’t find any evidence that such a response has yet been received.

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