“When Medical Apps Do More Harm Than Good”

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The industry of mobile apps that diagnose users’ physical and mental ailments “is worth some $4 billion today, and analysts predict that it will reach $26.5 billion by 2017,” reports Mother Jones. The apps’ safety and efficacy also aren’t regulated.

“Most health apps, though, are classified as ‘informational’ or ‘entertainment’ to escape FDA oversight,” reports Mother Jones. “But their marketing talk can send confusing signals. WebMD’s Symptom Checker, for instance, lets you ‘select the part of the body that is troubling you, choose your symptoms, and learn about potential conditions or issues,’ even as the website notes that it ‘does not provide medical advice.'”

When Medical Apps Do More Harm Than Good (Mother Jones, January 5, 2015)

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1 COMMENT

  1. I’d not trust the apps – they are usually based on some risk assessments pulled out of god knows where and if they happen to be sponsored by someone with a stake in selling you drugs and procedures – you’re in a world of trouble. Not to mention that today one can’t trust the privacy of anything that is in the same room as an electronic device, let alone personal health data send to somebody who made some app or some cloud etc.

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