PubMed – Bias and Credibility

These sources consist of legitimate science or are evidence-based through the use of credible scientific sourcing.  Legitimate science follows the scientific method, is unbiased, and does not use emotional words.  These sources also respect the consensus of experts in the given scientific field and strive to publish peer-reviewed science. Some sources in this category may have a slight political bias but adhere to scientific principles. See all Pro-Science sources.

• Overall, we rate PubMed a Pro-Science source that searches peer-reviewed science journals.

Detailed Report

Bias Rating: PRO-SCIENCE
Factual Reporting: HIGH
Country: USA
MBFC’s Country Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website/Journal
Traffic/Popularity: High Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY

History

Founded in 1996, PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval. According to their about page, “PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature to improve health–both globally and personally. The PubMed database contains more than 30 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. It does not include full-text journal articles; however, links to the full text are often present when available from other sources, such as the publisher’s website or PubMed Central (PMC).”

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Funded by / Ownership

Pubmed is owned by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a part of the National Institutes of Health. Revenue and funding are primarily derived through congress as well as donations.

Analysis / Bias

In review, PubMed is designed similar to Google with a search bar for seeking medical terms. You type in the medical term, and the search engine produces medical research and studies on that topic. For example, a search for “diabetes” produces research from The Journal of Critical Care Early central diabetes insipidus: An ominous sign in post-cardiac arrest patients. In general, PubMed searches mostly peer-reviewed credible science and therefore is considered a High factual source. Although there are exceptions, see below.

Failed Fact Checks

• In 2020, Pubmed published research that claimed 5G was connected to Covid-19. This was removed but proves that caution must be taken when using this website.

Overall, we rate PubMed a Pro-Science source that searches peer-reviewed science journals.  (D. Van Zandt 8/21/2016) Update (10/07/2022)

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/