Friday, November 14, 2008

Front groups

Ever wonder about those so-called public interest groups that are actually backed by the industry they claim to be exposing? There is a group called SourceWatch that keeps track of where information (and misinformation) comes from, and they have a spot on their website that is devoted to just front groups at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Front_groups

Check out the US examples, one of which is the Greening Earth Society. It's funded by an association of coal-burning utility companies.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Google flu

(CNN) -- If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words "flu symptoms" to see whether you've come down with influenza.

Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which U.S. state you're in. Now, it's putting that information together in a tool that Google says could detect flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.

Google's new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring.

"What's exciting about Flu Trends is that it lets anybody -- epidemiologists, health officials, moms with sick children -- learn about the current flu activity level in their own state based on data that's coming in this week," said Jeremy Ginsberg, the lead engineer who developed the site.

The tool, which launched Tuesday, operates on the idea that there's likely to be a flu outbreak in states where flu-related search terms are currently popular.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with Google on the project, helping validate and refine the model, and has provided flu tracking data over a five-year period, said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in the CDC's influenza division.

Although it doesn't replace the need for real viral surveillance data, Flu Trends is a good model, and the CDC looks forward to testing it this flu season, Bresee said.

"We really are excited about the future of using different technologies, including technology like this, in trying to figure out if there's better ways to do surveillance for outbreaks of influenza or any other diseases in the United States," he said. "In theory at least, this idea can be used for any disease and any health problem."

Researchers found a tight correlation between the relative popularity of flu-related search terms and CDC's surveillance data, Ginsberg said.


posted by Tina Lau, North County Librarian