WASHINGTON (Reuters - August 10, 2000) - Ninety-eight million Americans are now using the Internet to find health care information, nearly twice as many as just two years ago, according to a poll.

      Harris Interactive said a poll of 1,001 adults surveyed between May 26 and June 10 showed that 56 percent of U.S. adults -- about 114 million people -- were accessing the Internet from homes, offices, colleges and other places.

      Of that total, 86 percent use the World Wide Web to look up information on health care or specific diseases, the poll found. That was up from 71 percent in 1998.

      Thirteen percent of the people surveyed said they looked up health information for themselves and family members ``often,'' while 40 percent said they looked ``sometimes,'' and 33 percent had ``very occasionally'' looked up such data.