| From your friendly neighborhood consumer health librarian |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|12:46 pm] |
I was just replying to a friend's post regarding potentially suspect information she received about the swine flu, and thought, hey, I should post this publicly where anyone can read it.
Here are sources of GOOD (accurate, up-to-date, scientific, unbiased*) information about the flu:
U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) page on swine flu: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/?s_cid=swineFlu_outbreak_001
World Health Organization (part of the United Nations) for international info: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html
U.S. government flu information, gathered in one place: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/ (from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services)
*I realize I have friends who regard everything the government does and says as violently biased. Now is perhaps not the time to argue about this, but my opinion is: One company trying to sell me drugs and nutritional supplements is MORE likely to provide systematically biased information than a large federal government organization made up of thousands of people and reporting to two different bodies of elected officials from all over the country, most of whom can't agree on what kind of sandwich to have for lunch, much less on what ideological slant to take on any given issue.
This is a public post with screened comments. Don't make me leave yours screened. |
|
|
| Comments: |
Ooh! Ooh! Screen me! Screen me!
Oh, wait. That isn't very constructive, is it... :-)
Thanks for pointing out these accurate, up-to-date, scientific, unbiased sources. It is one thing to remember that they exist, and another to have them handed to us so we can use them.
It's what librarians do, right?
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/94176355/6314679) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) splott
2009-04-28 06:56 pm (UTC)
Thank you! | (Link)
|
*hugs* And why we love them! :)
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/44791474/1141482) | From: gflower
2009-04-28 07:53 pm (UTC)
Re: Thank you! | (Link)
|
*hug back*
Awww, thanks!
Yes. But not all librarians take the time and effort to be friendly neighborhood personal health librarians.
Well, I was employed as a consumer health librarian for a few years...and I still kind of miss it. Even though I work in a hospital, my role is more public librarian than consumer health.
I don't know that I'd call myself a personal health librarian though. Is that anything like a personal shopper?
Um, you've failed on the screening. :)
Nope, screening to me just means I look at replies privately first, then unscreen them. Sort of like screening calls, which doesn't mean I am going to let everything go to voicemail, just that I reserve the right to see who it is before I answer.
LJ does have the additional requirement that in order to reply to something, I have to unscreen it. Not just my reply, but the comment to which I'm replying. I have yet to figure out why this is a requirement. Given my druthers, it wouldn't be. But so far no one's written anything I'd be embarrassed to have as an open comment, and I wanted to reply, so I'm unscreening them. | |
