Which drugstore web site has the most reliable information?

Summary

There's a lot of bogus medical advice on the Internet. You already know that. But how reliable is the information that's posted online by the big drugstore chains?

Story Published: Sep 18, 2007 at 6:05 AM PST

Story Updated: Sep 18, 2007 at 6:05 AM PST

Which drugstore web site has the most reliable information?
There's a lot of bogus medical advice on the Internet. You already know that. But how reliable is the information that's posted online by the big drugstore chains?

Experts at HealthRatings.org a joint project of Consumer Reports and the Health Improvement Institute, looked at the three most popular drugstore websites: Walgreens.com, CVS.com, and RiteAid.com.

"We found that by and large the drugstores are good source of good general health information, but just in and of themselves the Web sites are not enough," says Beau Brendler, director of Consumer Reports WebWatch.

Brendler says, "It was difficult in some cases to tell where the health information was coming from and on two particular occasions we saw information on supplements that was just plain inaccurate."

If you go online to learn about vitamins and supplements, he says, "Make sure you look more than one place to get information on how well they work, what they might interact with and whether they're really of use."

The results: Walgreens.com came out on top -- rated very good. RiteAid.com earned a "good" and CVS.com was judged to be just fair, with raters noting some concern about information quality.

For More Information:

HealthRatings.org Rates the Web's Most Popular Pharmacy Sites