Baidu Baike, an online encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia, said on Monday it will allow only verified experts to modify 40,000 common medical terms, after a gynecologist complained that many of the entries on the platform are full of errors and can be easily modified to support unscrupulous medical institutions that advertise on the site.

Gong Xiaoming, an associate professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, wrote on his Sina Weibo last week that the medical term for a cervical condition is wrongly translated and misleading. An advertisement for a private hospital specializing in infertility appears at the bottom of the Baike page, said Gong, suggesting that Baike operates more like a platform to sell ad space than it is a source for accurate information provided by professionals.

Gong said he submitted a correction to Baike but was ignored. Using an ID from a private hospital, the change was promptly made a few days later.

"Those private hospitals are managing the medical terms on Baidu Baike while they place advertisements. It has turned into a marketing battleground for private hospitals," Gong told the Global Times.

Responding to the criticism, Baidu Baike said on its official Weibo that the platform is nonprofit and many of the entries were provided by reputable doctors.

As an open platform, however, Baidu Baike contains more than 5.5 million medical terms that have been submitted and edited by 2.8 million users.

Baike said it will launch Project Rainbow, which will lock the definitions of 40,000 common medical terms which only verified professional doctors and experts will be allowed to edit. It also welcomes input from netizens.

"The problem of misleading medical terms has existed for years on Baike. Many patients come to me with wrong concepts after doing a search on Baidu," Gong said.

"Maybe the reason Gong failed to get his update published is because of the verification process was delayed," a Baidu staff told the Beijing News.

Gong said the consequences of the misleading online medical information can be as serious as fake or knockoff medicines, which consumers can report to local authorities.

Kaiser Kuo, director of international communication of Baidu, denied there is connection between Gong's complaint and Project Rainbow.

"We realize the importance of how often people rely on Baike. And the terms that only limited to professionals' edit will be developed," Kuo told the Global Times