Flu-related blogs worth taking a look at
There are some really smart and well-educated folks out there blogging about the avian flu! If this is a subject that intrigues you, you can see several arguments to my post from yesterday and the day before both in the comments at my blog and at the following links (all of the comments are different, although there are some folks who are responding at more than one site). I promise you, you’ll learn at least one new thing.
HN51 – News and Resources about Avian Flu
fluwiki
Effect Measure
As I mention in a couple of replies, my background is NOT in medicine, rather my experience is in social marketing. I know how to use the media and other strategies to help a public change behaviour (and sometimes beliefs).
The folks posting replies to my call for level-headed reporting on avian flu seem to have more background in medical areas. I've learned a great deal from them. (However, I’m still not buying the need for avian flu pandemic fear-mongering via the mainstream media.)
Take a look - and join in the conversation! Through discussion we can find areas we all agree on and, the bonus, ways to move forward that serve all of our needs and goals. It's true! The conservative right-wing, anti-gay-marriage, anti-abortion crowd have been successfully using this strategy for two decades. Important change takes time. And lots of talking. C'mon. Join in!
HN51 – News and Resources about Avian Flu
fluwiki
Effect Measure
As I mention in a couple of replies, my background is NOT in medicine, rather my experience is in social marketing. I know how to use the media and other strategies to help a public change behaviour (and sometimes beliefs).
The folks posting replies to my call for level-headed reporting on avian flu seem to have more background in medical areas. I've learned a great deal from them. (However, I’m still not buying the need for avian flu pandemic fear-mongering via the mainstream media.)
Take a look - and join in the conversation! Through discussion we can find areas we all agree on and, the bonus, ways to move forward that serve all of our needs and goals. It's true! The conservative right-wing, anti-gay-marriage, anti-abortion crowd have been successfully using this strategy for two decades. Important change takes time. And lots of talking. C'mon. Join in!
posted by Donna at 7:21 a.m.
5 Comments:
Dear Shattering,
--As I mention in a couple of replies, my background is NOT in medicine, rather my experience is in social marketing. I know how to use the media and other strategies to help a public change behaviour (and sometimes beliefs).
The folks posting replies to my call for level-headed reporting on avian flu seem to have more background in medical areas. I've learned a great deal from them. (However, I’m still not buying the need for avian flu pandemic fear-mongering via the mainstream media.)--
This is exactly why we flu blogger crowd need you.
As medical and epidemiology folk we have the information, but lack the honed skills in use of the media to get that information--about *preparedness* rather than saying 'you're a sitting bar-headed goose unless big brother saves you'--out to the public. This is the cause I'd like to co-opt you to.
We're like a company with no marketing department. We need your skill-set.
You may see the mainstream media as fear-mongering--but as a media expert, what do you think would be the most effective way to get this information disseminated in a way that calls to action rather than to despair?
If you can write an article for the fluwiki on that theme I'm sure it would be well read and referred to often by us medical geeks as we try to get the word out.
Send me an email at adisen@shaw.ca.
Let's talk. (I'm heading out the door right now...back tomorrow.)
Dear Shattering,
I don't own the wiki, I just contribute there. Just show up and post.
Thanks for the nice post. Couldn't agree more. Look for a vaccine-related post tomorrow (Friday) on Effect Measure (not flu, anthrax).
I'm sorry you were irked by my comment. You seem like an intelligent, interesting person, and don't want to insult you!
Let me explain what led to my comment. I recently had a number of otherwise intelligent people insist to me that H5N1 was a "conspiracy" intended to promote vaccination. I tried to explain that there was no avian flu vaccine available, but they simply wouldn't hear of it. Your seemingly dismissive comment about the "dreaded influenza pandemic" reminded me of this exchange, and led me to write what I did.
And my grievances go deeper than that, really. There's an increasing tendency these days to look for hidden narratives behind news stories. Of course, when people want to find these narratives, they generally do!
Obviously, it's good to be skeptical, and to ask questions...but to avoid sliding into epistemological nihilism, one needs to be able to assess one's own areas of ignorance, and to defer to the judgments of credible experts. I think Effect Measure is a rational, cautious, eminently fair site whose editors have a great deal of credibility on matters of public health.
Anyway, I'm sorry that I took my irritation with another conversation out on you. No hard feelings, I hope!
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