Can you trust Dr. Google?

This morning, I read a heart-wrenching story about a young Flemish woman who put a message on Facebook.

Apparently, she suffers from cancer. She asks everyone who reads her post to share it, because she is looking for a cure outside the hospital. You can derive she has read something on the internet about an alternative cure and she's looking for more info.

So depressing! The doctor who has been treating her states that her form of cancer is in its early stages and can easily be treated by the classical way of removing the (little) tumors and radiation. Afterwards, she'd have a 95% chance of going into remission.

I can understand that hearing such news must be hard. But I wouldn't trust too much on looking up cures on the internet, either. The sad reality is, that people want to earn (lots of) money by selling ' cures' for cancer, whatever, on the internet. They earn fortunes on the misfortune of others.

Young people always turn to the internet when they need to know something. I trust my doctor. He's a person who has studied medicine and I know he will listen to my complaints and give me sound advice.

My own sister also has a tendency to look up information about her complaints on the internet - and then she becomes worried because she reads all kind of stuff! I don't say she doesn't have a real complaint, but most of what she feels is due to the menopause. (Well, I was lucky not to suffer from it - the worst I experienced were red ears every now and then!)