Pharmacology on the Internet

Internet is becoming the most frequent mean of information in science, even rising the question of printed versions of scientific journals in future. The free access to MEDLINE database, gives the opportunity especially to the scientists from the less developed countries to reach directly the newest informaton in science. Regarding the pharmacology, beside NLM database and some other valuable databases to which the access has to be paid (ex. Micromedex), more and more free access drug databases are becoming available. Among them are ECDIN, which offers the extent range from toxicological to clinical data of great number of drugs ; Rx List database, on which high quality monographs of more than few hundred drugs marketed in USA can be found. Pages of FDA, as well as pages of some on-line journales (such as Medical Science Bulletin) reveal the top news concerning the drugs. There are also some educational pharmacological databases ajusted to be used by physicians and students, with the possibility to test the knowledge through Internet Self Assessment in Pharmacology. Unfortunately, being wide open to everyone, Internet may also be a mean of spreading the uncorrect information or pharmacological fraud (ex. Urinotheraphy). However, evaluation of such fraud can be check through databases like Quackwatch.