Naked Medicine

Jeanne Sather is an assertive cancer patient who has a gagging reflex with pink ribbons. I thought I was one of the few XX chromosomal species who can’t stand the color pink, and I’m comforted to know that Jeanne passionately detests pink, especially the shade of pink that Jeanne associates with “girly, sexist expectations.”

Her article, “It’s October–Time to Gag Me With Those Pink Ribbons” makes an important point: gross commercialization of breast cancer may send the wrong message to women and concomitantly desensitize us to the seriousness of breast cancer. Furthermore, the pink ribbon is exclusionary: men get breast cancer too. If a man with breast cancer wears a pink ribbon, I bet 9 times out of 10 he’ll get asked whether his spouse or female relative has breast cancer.

A ribbon used to work when it was a symbol unto itself, attached only to the its original cause. Now I can’t remember if a black ribbon is an activist symbol against torture or melanoma or lung cancer (lung cancer ribbon is sheer with gold, but black could be a logical lung cancer color if you think about the color of a cancerous lung). Read the rest of this entry »

Google has made astronomical profit from its advertisement programs, at least $900 million. Certainly, Google’s Adsense/Adwords services has benefitted both website publishers and businesses alike. Nakedmedicine.com takes advantage of Google’s Adsense service to display contextual (relevant) ads that Google serves up from advertisers, and when visitors click through to products and services that they are interested in, this website benefits by gaining a few cents in the “Website Operations and Maintenance” kitty. Google also serves up text-based, contextual ads next to key word search results.

When you mix free speech, lax advertising content policy enforcement, and opportunistic merchants, you come face to face with asking where the buck stops when consumers are barraged with misleading healthcare ads and false claims for miracle cures. Read the rest of this entry »

A benefit – and side effect – of Internet culture is an embrace toward access and openness. I can access an abundance of free information on the web. I’ve always embraced open source applications, like the one used to create this website, and will continue to do so as long as it’s available.

However, a potential misconception called “Open Medicine” is a side effect of the Internet culture. I do not believe most people who advocate for “Open Medicine” on the web actually understand what “Open Medicine” really means, and all the ramifications and responsibilities that come with the term. When most speak of “Open Medicine” they refer to the idea that medical information should be freely available, transparent, and credible.

I don’t argue with the concept of making healthcare information available, transparent, and credible. After all, I created www.NakedMedicine.com to provide Accessibility, Honesty, and Integrity in healthcare information.

What I oppose is the misconception built around Open Medicine. In my opinion, here is what Open Medicine is NOT:

Open Medicine is not a blogging network, even if the blogging network is composed of a team of doctors, nurses, scientists, other healthcare “experts”, or anyone who has a burning desire to voice an opinion about a particular healthcare trend or drug.

In considering what Open Medicine really is, we only need to look at the basic definition of “Open” as it relates to this Internet phenomenon:

The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing. Source: Open Source Initiative.

In other words, Open Medicine can work only when we are allowing access to what is considered proprietary information or intellectual property, for the expressed purpose to enable collaboration to improve and innovate upon this “open” information. Read the rest of this entry »