Autism and Vaccinations: Does Google side with Science?

Year 2019, Volume: 9 Issue: 3, 295 - 299, 30.09.2019

Semih Erden , Kevser Nalbant , Hurşit Ferahkaya

https://doi.org/10.16899/jcm.607311

Abstract

Abstract

Background/Aims: Genetic and environmental factors are thought to
play a role in the etiology of autism spectrum disorder. Studies on vaccination
from environmental factors strongly suggest that there is no relationship
between vaccine and autism development. However, a part of society still
believes that vaccines lead to autism. In this study, it is aimed to
investigate the distribution and reliability of the articles on the internet
which is the first place that families apply to be informed about this subject.
In this study, we searched "autism vaccine" phrase in Google’s
version for Turkey.

Methods: In this study, we searched "autism
vaccine" phrase in Google’s version for Turkey. The information on each
web site was grouped as true, false and contradictory. We used the JAMA score,
a standard indicator of health information quality, to assess the basic
reliability index of the article. The JAMA score takes into account whether a
website declares an author, the date of writing, financial ownership and
whether the information is supported by references.

Results: A total of 124 websites were listed as a result
of this search. When irrelevant and inaccessible sites were removed, 102 web
pages were evaluated. 76 (74.5%) of the results were correct, 20 (19.6%) were
wrong and 6 (5.9%) were contradictory. No significant difference was found
between the total JAMA scores of the websites with true-false information.
However, the JAMA score of the correct information was higher. No significant
relationship was found between the accuracy of the information and the ranking
of the sites. However, six of the top ten results were true, three were false,
and one contained contradictory information.

Conclusions: These results show that the correct information
is not listed primarily in the top positions and the information about autism
and vaccination is in a similar distribution. It is important that the internet
environment is closely monitored by scientists because of the information
affecting the vaccination.

Keywords

autim, vaccination, public health, internet, google

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