Consumer Health - Proceed with Caution!

Finally, MY area!  Here are my thoughts on Health Source - Consumer.  It's a good idea to ask people to take a look at the list of publications because they are ALL OVER THE PLACE.  There are lots of pamphlets with outdated information and the sources are not the best (doitnow.org?).  I would much prefer users (both librarians and patrons) go to MedlinePlus for pamphlet info.  But there are also some great sources:  Harvard Mental Health Letter (and other Harvard pubs), Mayo Clinic consumer pubs, as well as  some EXTREMELY TECHNICAL full-text journals.   I did a subject search for parkinson's disease and the most recent full-text article is from Nutrition Reviews.  It is highly technical; here is a paragraph:

Mechanisms of action. Different mechanisms have been
proposed for the neuroprotective activity of EGCG in PD.
The study conducted by Levites et al. 75 was the first to
demonstrate the neuroprotective activity of both green
tea extract (0.5 and 1 mg/kg) and EGCG (2 and 10 mg/
kg) on MPTP-induced parkinsonism in animal models. It
is possible that the neuroprotective effects are mediated
by iron-chelating activities and free-radical-scavenging
activities possessed by the catechol group. Since green tea
catechins can pass through the blood-brain barrier, they
can act as both ROS scavengers and iron chelators to clear
the redox active ferrous iron deposited in the SN, reducing
the iron-induced oxidative stress that can lead to neuronal
death. Clearly, this is not appropriate for 99% of public library users.  It helps to limit to source type: magazine; then you will not get the scholarly articles.   Thank you so much for sending people to MedlinePlus for the second part of this assignment!  At the EMMC library, this is our top choice for consumer health questions.  This resource started out somewhat skimpy but has developed over the years into a robust source of trusted, authoritative, and understandable information.  It is much better than Health Source: Consumer for answering consumers' requests for information.  As you have pointed out via your questions, it is useful for current topics in the news, detailed information about drugs (side note: please do NOT refer people to the PDR), links to websites (all vetted by the National Library of Medicine) on health topics, diseases and conditions.  And the videos are amazing.  We get lots of questions by telephone, asking if we have a video of x procedure and we refer them to MedlinePlus.  Just make sure most folks know many of these videos are graphic and last for an hour.   FYI - it is also possible to get information about providers from MedlinePlus.  On the botton of the home screen, click on "Directories" and you will get a list of links to the various societies that credential physicians, hospitals, etc.  We also get this question alot at EMMC.