OK, I wasn't actually on vacation. But I took some time away from blogging to get involved in a different kind of project.
About ten days ago a new website went live. It's called Flu Wiki. If you're not familiar with the term wiki, here's a definition from Wikipedia, which is itself probably the highest profile wiki on the internet.
A wiki ... is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. The term Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website (see Wiki software).
Three bloggers, Melanie Mattson, DemFromCt and Revere, had become convinced that there is a very real danger of an influenza pandemic and that at least some government and public health officials aren't giving the possibility the attention it deserves. So they decided to band together and do something about it and the Flu Wiki is the result. They needed a somewhat geekish partner on the project to install and configure software and learn how it worked. That would be me. I've spent the last few weeks trying to learn enough about this wiki engine to stay one step ahead of everyone else (and not always succeeding).
In the official launch message, the project is described as "a new experiment in collaborative problem solving in public health." It is that. While the principals are all bloggers it would be a mistake to think of this as a group blog on steroids. We bloggers are notorious for having opinions and not being shy about sharing them. But while there's a section of the wiki that invites opinion pieces, the emphasis in most of it is on assembling hard information and resources that will be fact-checked, reviewed, revised and polished by an entire community. As one of my colleagues on the project wrote in an email recently, conservatives get the flu, too. The intent is to deal with a potentially serious issue in a non-partisan manner. Having worked closely with the three individuals who comprise the wiki's editorial board I can assure you they're committed to doing just that.
As the graphic in the top left corner of the site -- and the frequent mentions of H5N1 -- will attest there's a lot of focus on avian flu here. But there's a wider range of subjects being addressed. As another of my colleagues wrote recently, if it isn't bird flu it will be something else. SARS should recently have demonstrated to us, and especially those of us in the greater Toronto area, that while advances in science and medicine have made many threats a thing of the past we can still be caught by surprise. The wiki is soliciting content on everything from the science of influenza to how to keep the kids entertained during quarantine.
Even if I wasn't involved in this project I'd be inclined to keep an eye on it. This certainly isn't the first wiki on the internet and ten days after going live it's probably not even the newest. But it's an interesting and somewhat different approach to activism that takes advantage of the internet in a way I haven't seen before. As DemFromCt wrote in a post earlier today, it's an experiment in self-reliance.
It's the first wiki I've been involved with. I have a hunch it won't be the last. (But I do need a chance to catch my breath.)
Cross-posted at the E-Group.
I'm happy for you about the wiki. The Green Party of Canada uses a wiki to develop its platform. This means that people, everybody, can have direct input to GPC thinking.
Of course, there are differing opinions on the reality of viral threats. I discount medico propaganda greatly. And so too does Shattering Rose-Colored Glasses.
Enough chit-chat. I've the following 132 things to ask you about....
Let's hope that the details are all, in the end, unnecessary. But the Flu Wiki will be there if ever needed. And a fascinating thing is how the technology and information mavens have picked up on this. Some of the internet posting about the Flu Wiki isn't about flu at all.. it's about the wiki-blog-Internets interface, etc. And here, for example, is a post from the public law perspective.
Thanks, pogge, for all your invaluable advice and counsel.
BTW, speaking of rose-colored glasses, check out the Forum at Flu Wiki, where the aforementioned post is addressed.
I discount medico propaganda greatly.
If you follow the link DemFromCt left, you'll see that Shattering's debunking of the stats doesn't necessarily stand up to scrutiny.
In any event, the purpose of the wiki isn't to create panic. It's to educate and to provide resources that we all hope won't actually be needed. But what if they are?
"Shattering's debunking of the stats doesn't necessarily stand up to scrutiny"
Aw, pogge, that's not fair. Shattering is the one who had hard facts. Your "scrutiny" was merely medico-directed misdirection. In Canada, death from influenza is ESTIMATED to only be about 500'ish. And that includes sequela from pneumonia in the elderly.
Funny thing about the medicos, they demand rigourous double-blind this'n-that for counter arguement but have no trouble expousing their own dogma, heresay, and common practice. I think you just got caught up in their 85% unproven rhetoric.
But I agree that the wiki is a great thing. It will certainly bring to light that which a monopoly would constrict and suppress.
The old saying is, "You can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts."
* About 10 percent to 20 percent of the U.S. population gets sick with influenza each year.
* Influenza is responsible for an average of 200,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths in the United States each year.
* Together, influenza and pneumonia are ranked as the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and the fifth leading cause in people over 65.
(from the American Lung Association, but there are multiple sources all pointing back to the CDC. That would be the same CDC, of course, that Shattering accepts as an authority in the above blog post. It would be the same CDC that makes the point on its own flu page.
That doesn't make everything the doctors say always right. But dismissing facts because they don't fit your preconceptions is a dangerous game. That's how the US wound up in Iraq, after all.
So glad this conversation is taking place. Thanks Herbinator for kicking it off.
DemFromCT - Re: You can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts...
Isn't that just what the CDC is doing, manufacturing their own facts? The data from their document of reported deaths indicates that 200 people died of confirmed pneumonia, in the US, in 2002. The other oft-repeated "facts" that you listed are actually projections. They are not facts. But they are repeated so often as fact that they have become almost impossible to argue.
Yes, the CDC says 36,000 people a year die from influenza. But their data proves otherwise. The 36,000 is not a fact. It's a guess. An estimate.
My point is simply that the fear mongering about the avian flu is not doing anyone any good. It freaks people out. It increases stress. We know that people who are under stress tend to get sick more than people who are not. We also know that the power of suggestion is very real and that if you tell someone often enough that they will get the flu, they will! (Actually, they probably won't, but they'll exhibit all the symtoms, created by our clever psychosomatic minds.)
I have no issue with the work you're doing here at Flu Wiki - in fact, I love what you've created. My pasion work is around creating an environment where individuals (namely, health care consumers, as we're called once we're sick) are truly able to provide informed consent when faced with a decision to either accept or pass on a medical intervention. (Since there is nothing remotely related to true informed consent when it comes to immunizations, that's where I focus much of my research.) And I think Flu Wiki should fill in the information and fact gap that the mainstream media has created very nicely.
Yes, the CDC says 36,000 people a year die from influenza. But their data proves otherwise. The 36,000 is not a fact. It's a guess. An estimate.
Hullo, Shattering. Ah, nuance! Too rarely seen, IMHO. Where we are disagreeing is this: it is a reasonable estimate using valid epidemiological tools. You have been citing CDC survellance as if it is the absolute valid number. So the 36K is a reasonable estimate. It is not an exact number. In that, you are absolutely correct.
But neither is it made up, bogus, imaginary or any of the other terms you and some others have used to describe it. It might be off by 5,000 one way or another, from year to year. But it is far closer to the moving target of exact actual deaths than the 200 or so reported deaths you hold up as the 'real' number.
Now, the above represents a typical flu season and does not represent what's expected in a potential pandemic, where the number is guesstimated to be 10-20 times greater. We do not wish to find out the exact number. On that we agree.
And hopefully the Flu Wiki will be a way to spec out established (and sourced) information before one needs it. There will be many approaches to what to do before and (should it occur) during. There's no one right way.
And in my view, the media shouldn't have to do the public health community's job. But at the same time, coping stategies are not owned and operated by officals in government. Hopefully the Flu Wiki can help on both counts.
Appreciate the chance to chat!