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People nowadays tend to search up online for their health problems instead of visiting doctors. Is it a positive or negative development? Give your own opinion and examples from your experience.

The Internet has become an easily accessible platform for everyone at various ranges of ages and educational backgrounds. However, this advantage has raised a matter about people who rather find out medical information online to prescribe the drugs by themselves than visiting a physician. In my opinion, this trend would cause many negative problems and consequences.

An obvious drawback of online information is that there are very few primary trustworthy sources. One investigation from the MIT university shows that more than 80% of articles published online are secondary sources. It means that this unreliable information, which is made from amateurs and even the journalist with zero medical practice, account for the majority knowledge that we could search up on the online platform. Even though a normal person can access this information, due to the lack of professional training in medicine and biology, they will not be able to make the right judgment on their actual health issues, leading to the risk of wrong medication which will worsen their illnesses. Moreover, in order to diagnose and prescribe medicine, it requires serious medical practice, both in classes and clinical situations in many years.

Another issue is that; nowadays, there is a barrage of fraudulent information on the Internet. In some developing countries, health supplements or functional foods are advertised on the Internet as prescription drugs for treatment, which is terribly wrong because these healthy foods only supply suitable nutrients and support for medical treatment. For example, in Vietnam, some herbal ingredients are widely advertised on online websites to treat cancer. And without proper knowledge, gullible patients can easily deny having the proper treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy just because these methods are more painful than consuming a certain herbal medicine.

In conclusion, the Internet is not a dependable source of information on various medical issues since they are complex and need proper training to understand. People should consult doctors or surgeons whenever they need medical help.