Just Another Blog Scraper …
There’s a wave flowing across the medical blogosphere … and it’s gaining momentum!
Last year, I received some flattering emails from a fellow name Geoff Rutledge. I ignore the first few emails because I simply wasn’t interested, but when one of the emails mentioned getting to answer questions asked by other users, and having opportunities to ask some of our own, I imagined that it would be something like WebMD … and I joined. Dr. Rutledge was very kind and attentive until I actually bit … and then, well …
When I agreed to join, he wanted to put me in the parenting group. Sorry people, but I’m way too old to fit in that group – my kids have kids, I’m a bit old fashioned about raising children, and I simply do not approve of some of the more popular child raising ideas. I told Dr. Rutledge that I would join, but that I didn’t want to be in parenting – I wanted to be in the “Kidney Failure” group. He assured me that I would be.
When I logged on for the first time, I saw that I had, indeed, been placed in the parenting group after all. I wrote to the dear man, and asked him to please move me out of there into something more appropriate. No reply … no action. At the time, I was just coming back to blogging, and had written some pretty gnarly, dark posts. I was humiliated and disturbed when I realized that those posts had ended up in the parenting group’s collection. Dr. Rutledge had told me that each subject would appear in its own group – not so! I wrote to Dr. Rutledge again, this time expressing my desire to be removed from that parenting group a bit more forcefully. Still no reply.
In a fit of pique, I logged in and deleted my connection to the parenting group – wondering what would happen. I found that it just dumped me in the General Medicine Group instead. Poo! Again not my department … but at least better than parenting.
I did my best to answer questions when I felt confident enough with the subject, but that wasn’t very often. In fact, it began to bother me that no one seemed to be moderating the comments or the replies. I’m supposed to be a “Health Maven” in the “General Medicine” group … and I got my qualifications from …. a Cracker Jacks box? Wellsphere made it appear as if I was someone knowledgeable in General Medicine, and no one was checking in to make sure I wasn’t killing someone with bad advice! Dude! In fact, most of the questions which were sent in weren’t being answered at all, or they were being answered by numbos like me. Answers from real medical professionals were meager. Imagine if the readers took Wellsphere seriously, and actually trusted our replies!!!
Anyway, I had gotten pretty irritated with the place, and I began deleting their emails a while back. I had no idea what was going on until I saw Wellsphere come up over and over on Twitter last night, and decided I’d better take a peek. What I found out really put me off …
It seems that HealthCentral Network has acquired Wellsphere! Whoa! Wait a minute! That’s my blog content they’re selling! That’s not much different than what Bitacle was doing back in 2006.
My personal opinion of Wellsphere is not only are they thieves, they’re also dangerous … they let everyone and his brother give medical advice over the internet, with little or no moderation. They also lie about a person’s qualifications to give advice! Health Maven indeed!
“No, I’m not a doctor, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night”
Here is a list of bloggers who are posting about Wellsphere … please take a look:
Getting Better with Dr. Val
Musings of a Distractible Mind
Twitter Comments – through Vijay
And don’t forget the Dr. Anonymous show tonight at 9 PM
(Thursday the 29th of January)
… they’ll be discussing this very subject!
I expect that as soon as this post hits Wellsphere’s site, mine will look a bit like Six Until Me’s account! ;o)

Dr. Terry Bennett is a local physician – he practices less than 20 minutes away in an old house, which has been turned into a clinic. He calls it “The Clinic on the Common.” One of my sons sees him, and although this son finds fault with everyone, he likes Dr. Bennett.





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