A Raspberry to the World Wide Web Health Awards
Several years ago, there were a number of health Web site seal-of-approval efforts underway -- Hi-Ethics, a group of 18 health sites, which was supposed to create a seal with Truste, the privacy organization; the Internet Healthcare Coalition, whose domain address is now for sale; and of course, the HON Code, still around, for better or worse. These days a number of health sites display logos from the "World Wide Web Health Awards," as if they constitute a quality seal -- in fact, on the WWW Health Awards home page, they market themselves as "providing a 'seal of quality' for electronic health information.' " We wanted to know more about these awards, since they give out dozens, twice a year. According to their Web site, they're administered by the Health Information Resource Center, which doesn't turn up much on a Google search.
Looking deeper among the various sites attached to the World Wide Web Health Awards pages we find HealthPrograms.com, most of which is "under construction" or broken links. There are logos appearing on the right hand side of that page for the "Consumer Health Publishers Association" and the "Online Health Association," both of which also appear to be largely under construction. Ultimately, the path leads to the American Custom Publishing Corporation of Libertyville, Illinois. We called the number on their home page and, indeed, the WWW Health Awards are run from there. What does American Custom Publishing do for a living? Well, they print brochures for the pharmaceutical industry and others. Their client list includes Liberty Medical, Pfizer, CVS, General Electric, Humana, "and hundreds more!" according to the site. The WWW Health Awards site is not exactly transparent about all this, but it wasn't all that hard to trace, and the nice person who answered the phone at American Custom Publishing was helpful.
The way the World Wide Web Health Awards appear set up, it's not a bad business -- $52 per entry, though we don't know how much of that goes toward the chicken entree at the awards banquet. Looks like just about anyone can become a volunteer judge, based on the online form. We couldn't find a list of judges anywhere on the site, so it's tough to speculate who's making the awards decisions. There are certainly some well-known names among the current crop of winners, though -- A.D.A.M., a good-quality content provider; our old friends at Johnson & Johnson, uh, Babycenter.com; Rozerem; Blue Cross/Blue Shield. And there are a whole host of non-profits there, too, doing really good things with great programs.
But we ask: How valuable are awards handed out by a company that prints brochures for the pharmaceutical industry? Are consumers fooled by awards logos into thinking that, for instance, a Web site produced by Takeda Pharmaceuticals to sell its Rozerem sleep drug -- a gold medal WWW Health Award winner in the, yes, patient education information category -- is an unbiased source of information? Why give an award to a drug company as a recognition of excellence in patient education? Isn't that like giving some sort of public service award to Sepracor for its pretty-blue-butterfly Lunesta commercials on TV?
Comments
I've done quite a bit of study lately of the drug industry. These people are very good at marketing and maximizing dollar return. They lack a sense of ethics, and would rather make a buck than withhold a useless or bad product.
So it's no surprise to see them involved in the above story. Let the buyer beware!
Posted by: Bob | November 9, 2007 12:15 AM