The Health On the Net Foundation

The Health On the Net Foundation (HON) is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 and based in Switzerland. The mission of the foundation is to help both laypersons and medical practitioners find useful and reliable medical and health information online. HON has been creating ethical standards for Website developers.

The HON foundation issued a code of conduct[?] (HONcode) for medical and health Web sites to address the crucial issues of the reliability and credibility of medical information on the Internet. It is not designed to rate the quality of the information provided by a Web site. Rather, the code only states that the site holds to the standards, so that readers can know the source and purpose of the medical information presented.

The principles of the HONcode are:

1. Authority - information and advice given only by medical professionals, or a clear statement if this is not the case
2. Complementarity - information and help are to support, not replace, patient-healthcare professional relationships which is the desired means of contact
3. Confidentiality
4. Attribution - references to source of information (URL if available online)
5. Justifiability - any treatment, product or service must be supported by balanced, well-referenced scientific information
6. Transparency of authorship - contact information, preferably including email addresses, of authors should be available
7. Transparency of sponsorship
8. Honesty in advertising and editorial policy

Please note: By the nature of Wikipedia and current Wikipedia policy medical articles on all Wikipedias cannot comply with all HON principles. Please look elsewhere if you are looking for medical information which complies with these principles.