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Unethical Website of the Month April 2005
The Pacific Northwest Medical Journal
Does the world really need a fake medical journal website for a fake medical association, complete with a phony voicemail system to really pull the suckers in? Apparently somebody thinks so, because they have gone to considerable trouble to create the "Pacific Northwest Medical Journal" site and festoon it with the trappings of a legitimate web page. On it are actual medical journal articles, too, cribbed from such arcane sources as the Croatian Medical Journal, all put there to fool, well, whom, exactly?
The Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" site stumbled over this web oddity while investigating a story it had been told about entitled "Curing Obesity Through Sterility: California's Controversial Program Under the Microscope." According to the "Pacific Northwest Medical Journal," California was offering state-funded vasectomies to men who have been diagnosed as obese, for the express purpose of eliminating "fat genes" from the population. That sounded like a hoax story if there ever was one, and with the help of the ubiquitous Blog Patrol, the Journal soon was able to confirm that the story, the site and the publication were all frauds. The "Best of the Web" hypothesized that the site is a trap for unwary and lazy journalists, and that makes some sense: as reporters seem to be willing to leap into print and onto the air with scoops fueled by forged documents (as in "Dan Rather's Demise") or unsigned Terri Schiavo memos to senators (as in "ABC News' Assumption"), surely some budding Clark Kent or Kent Brockman would rush before the public with this terrible tale of eugenics against the portly. And when the story was exposed as a fake, that would expose the media once again as untrustworthy and a confederacy of fools.
If that was the grand plan behind the fake site, it has a couple of glaring flaws. First of all, the media needs no assistance in displaying its atrocious judgement regarding story choice and verification. But even more glaring than that is the fact that hoaxing the media inevitably becomes the same as hoaxing the public. We don't need any more bad information, thanks. There's plenty of it coming at us already.
Perhaps the wags who assembled the Pacific Northwest Medical Journal site are simply having fun, and have no more sinister motive in mind than satire. Nevertheless, putting out lies in a form that encourages others, including journalists, to regard them as the truth can spread rumors and ignorance, and cannot be justified by calling it "satire" or a "prank."
What it is, is wrong. Whatever motivation caused a person or person to go through so much trouble to create a fake medical information site, the end result is purely unethical.
UPDATE: After this was written, the Scoreboard's demon webmistress found the culprits responsible for the fake site: Bill Doty and "Joe the Peacock," who boasted about their prank on the humor website they operate. They're mighty proud of themselves:
And so we proved just how quickly something so unbelievable can be not only believed, but shot into the national consciousness with lightning efficiency. And for the record, none of us supports or condones the practice of eugenics, except for local morning news anchors.
It's good to know that, boys. You just support deceiving the public by putting out false stories.
The Ethics Scoreboard doesn't.