Consciousness of disinformation (e.g.)

[Robert J Tiess]

Cliff Urr wrote:
>      Well, "dangerous" could offer different significances in different

>      contexts.  The Web/Internet can, as an easy and quick medium for 
>      transmitting information on medicine or anything else, provide 
>      opportunities for information providers who can compete with
doctors
>      who provide information on their offices via face-to-face or
phone. 
>      
>      The news article you cite is seasoned with a flavoring of 
>      "danger" that seems misplaced: the real "danger" doctors are
worried
>      about, it seems to me in this article (which I read in full from 
>      the web site), is MDs having to face honest competition from
potentially 
>      innovative information providers in this field. (MD's who make 
>      blanket statements like this also seem to be the same ones who 
>      condemn chiropractice or any other form of medicine that's not 
>      imprimatured by their union or its equivalent in other countries, 
>      the information-monopolistic AMA.) 

Competition is healthy.  Old, poor, or incomplete medical advice, deadly.
As for:

Cliff Urr wrote:     
>      Now that MD's have spoken, we can expect any day another
>      news article - this time quoting lawyers - huffing and puffing 
>      about the "bad legal information" made available on the net, all
the
>      while telling us how "concerned" they are about the harm this will

>      do the public. Then every other profession will have to line up
>      to complain along the same lines, "There's bad engineering
>      information, there's bad gardening information, there's bad 
>      insurance information, there's bad architectural information on
the 
>      web, there's bad,bad,bad,bad..."

If the information is imprecise, legally invalid, or of an expressly,
maliciously misguiding nature, anyone from any field should speak up,
particularly if their are no disclaimers accompanying such information.
That's certainly nothing to deride or address with cynicism.

Cliff Urr wrote:
>      Such complaints seem to come 
>      from those who must feel quite threatened that their high-paying
>      High Priest status as Keepers of the Secrets of (______name a 
>      field) is going to be eroded by the web, which it is, and the
>      rest of us will all be the better for it. 

Who's threatened?  (Secrets?)  If anyone is threatened by blatant
disinformation, it's the receiver of that information.  If disinformation
(e.g. slander) is involved with and applied against professionals , which
I believe is what you mean by "Keepers of the Secrets...," then there is
legal recourse for that too.

This isn't about competition, commercialism, "keeping secrets."  This
is about information and people--patrons, researchers, and
professionals alike--using and relying on such information.

					Robert
					rjtiess at juno.com