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”

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Here is a list of bloggers who are posting about Wellsphere … please take a look:

Getting Better with Dr. Val

In Sickness and in Health

Musings of a Distractible Mind

Rural Doctoring

Symtym

Doctor Anonymous

Kevin MD

Chronic Babe

Science Based Medicine

Six Until Me

Medi Medi Mary

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)

You know, I can’t help but wonder what “they” think they can do to our Dr. Flea.

1. He always said what he thought …
2. I’ve never seen him be “arbitrary.” He always had a reason for what he believed.
3. He based his beliefs on what he felt was best for his patients
4. He was always careful to not stomp on anyone else’s rights.
5. He blogged anonymously, for heaven’s sake! Anonymously!!!
6. He never named his patients … or posted anything we could identify them through.

When I stop to think of all of that, I can’t help but feel a little scared. If they can make Flea take down his blog, or make him feel as if he has to take down his blog, then I don’t think that any of us are safe.

I’m not anonymous … anyone who really wants to can find my name, place of birth, and the name of the town I live in, all buried in my blog. I’ve been as outspoken as our dear Flea, where my own areas of interest are concerned … …

Wait! What’s what you’re saying? You’re saying: “But MOOF! You’re NOT A DOCTOR!”

Ohhh yeah! That’s right! I’m not a doctor. I shouldn’t have to worry then, right? Give that some thought, people, because that’s even scarier …

If you and I can say what we want – unmolested – certain of our right to express ourselves, certain that what we say is not going to be used against us as long as we don’t harass or abuse other people, then why would belonging to medicine change the rules? Aren’t doctors allowed to have their say? How about anonymously???

If it doesn’t bother you, disturb you deeply, even frighten you, that in the US today, our physicians can’t even blog anonymously without facing some sort of legal retribution or inquiry, then you just don’t understand the implications of what’s happening.

This is not justice, friends. Since when does an entire class of people have to live in fear of expressing themselves openly in this country???

I’m going to research, and begin to keep a list of all of the physician bloggers (and nurses?) who’ve been forced to either quit blogging, or go private. I would like to know just how extensive this problem is. I would like to know how extensive OUR problem is – because when an entire class of people are oppressed, with their basic rights abridged, it’s our collective problem!

I’m going to become Detective Moof … (Hey! I like the sound of that! :o) … and I’ll report back with what I find. It may be time to start exposing those who would fatten themselves by feeding on people who spend their lives in service to others. Yes, mistakes happen, and sometimes – those mistakes can be tragic. Wherever there are human beings, there will be mistakes. I once had one doc tell me that he was convinced that my three other docs were “trying to do away with” me … imagine what a mean spirited person could have done with that! Wow! I’d be debt free, if I didn’t have a conscience … and some lawyer someplace would probably have a new boat.

Anyway, leave me comments on anyone you know who isn’t blogging anymore, or has gone private, and who is part of the medical profession. Let’s see what we discover …

In the last few months, we’ve been battling the internet’s bad guys like never before. My email spam has risen from one or two pieces a week less than a decade ago, to between 900 and 1200 daily today. I’ve been keeping a daily log since early this summer.

It hasn’t just been the email spammers. My comment spam went from an occasional annoyance several months ago, to being a very serious problem today. A few days ago, I got 141 in a 24 hour period on this blog alone. I’ve got a plugin that works amazingly well for that … I’ll give you an update on that in another post.

As if the reams of spam leaking in through every orifice and stealing our bandwidth isn’t bad enough, I’ve had big fancy-schmancy web sites (more than one!) in China direct linking to my music. They come off as the “good guys” over there – if someone wants to hear a song, they just do a search on their search engine, and lo and behold, there’s the song they want! They can hear it for free! They’re so happy that they pay for the service through donations and/or fees. Meanwhile, the web sites offering the music aren’t expending any bandwidth … they’re linking to the songs in other people’s blogs and web sites! My bandwidth counter for the directory the songs are in went from about 350 megs to 3.5 GIGS between August and September.

And then … of course, there are the folks over at MySpace nickel and diming me into next week by linking to graphics they found on my blog …

Thanks to TJ, I came up with a way to squelch that … which I hope to have time to share with you later today.

This post, however, is about the most egregious thief of all: Bitacle.org

This morning, when I got up, I had an email from Sarah waiting for me. This is what she said:

Something bad is going on with the blogging community. Some website is stealing blogs!

[...]

This is the article they pointed to, to read more about it:
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/09/27/the-bitacle-battle-of-blogs/

I’m still not sure what’s going on. How do I find out if these people are stealing my posts too? They are just scraping stuff right off the RSS feeds apparently.

I *THINK* this is the site that is doing it: http://en.bitacle.org/

And then, another email from her … letting me know that they had, indeed, “stolen” my blog. They apparently have 204 of my posts on there! Since I only have about 221 of them – not counting this one – then it appears that they have my entire blog, including pictures, etc., minus my private posts, on their server!

The blogger at Lorelle on WordPress explained what these guys are up to better than I could have:

Bitacle has become Public Enemy #1 this weekend in some parts of the blogosphere (Search Bitacle on Technorati for more details). As I reported earlier, the Spain-based splogger scrapes your content (your Creative Commons deed be damned), monetizes it, keeps the cash — and refuses to answer email complaints. I called them “thieves” in my first post, and I am repeating the charge here. Bitacle’s boss, the magnificently misnamed Jesus Angelo “But call me Ladrón, honey” Glez, is a thief.

…Bitacle, while not replying to anyone’s mails, as far as I can see, seems to be aware they are under attack. They’ve been down much of the weekend, and they have (today) started including the URL to the content they steal. Nevertheless, they are still ripping off and re-purposing content, without permission, for their own financial gain. Worse, they still encourage comments to the stolen blog posts on their site in an attempt to dupe readers into believing they are seeing a “real” blog.

So – Bitacle steals your content, drops ads into it, and makes a killing on your work. Every word and graphic you’ve ever publicly posted. How many of you are on there? I don’t know … however, my blog is only a “Slithering Reptile in the TTLB Ecosystem” … so, chances are good that they’re got you in there too. Go take a look: Bitacle.org … I went, selected “Blogs,” and typed in “Funeral Hymns Tag” and came up with Shelly’s blog, Sarah-Jean’s blog, Ipanema’s blog, and many others I didn’t recognize.

You should see all of the familiar blogs I found when I put in “P4P”!!! – Dr. Dino, Kevin MD, MedMusings … Healthvoices … and I don’t need to tell you what typing in “Grand Rounds” brought up! To name just a few: Dr. Anonymous … Borneo Breezes … Cut to Cure … Emergiblog … Grunt Doc … I could go on and on and turn this into a real link fest! If you see your blog on here, and even if you don’t. they have probably stolen all of your posts.

There’s a blog helping out with the plagiarism problem … it’s called Stop Bitacle. They have quite a bit of information there, and are offering free buttons to include in your posts. When Bitacle steals your posts, and each one has a STOP BITACLE button on it, it might begin to make an impact.

If we don’t act … fight back … then you can scrap any idea of turning a profit from blog ads. There will be plagiarizers up the wazoo snagging your readers, using your own work as bait. Those who like what you’ve written will bookmark Bitacle to return to your work. I wasn’t able to the find the places to leave comments, so I guess they’ve removed them … but apparently, they even had open comments on your posts … where people would think they were commenting to the post’s author.

I’m going to include the buttons from Stop Bitacle at the bottom of my posts for the time being. I recommend that you at least get over there and read their information. I have a feeling that, like the spam buildup of the last number of years, this sort of thing is going to worsen too. We need to find a way to defend ourselves … and I, for one, am not going to stop blogging … !

Defend your blog from theft!

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.

What I’ve read about him has made me realize that he’s quite a character … really sensitive people should stay away! >;o)

For those who don’t know the story, Dr. Bennett has a habit of being blunt. Very blunt. During a consult with an obese patient, he made a comment which could be loosely paraphrased as: if you don’t lose your weight, and your husband dies, only [a certain race I won't mention] men will want anything to do with you.

Yes, he could certainly have been more circumspect, but he’s known for not being too terribly polite, and I would imagine that his patients would know that better than anyone. His intent was to rattle his patient enough to shock her into behavior that would probably save her life. The lady went ballistic, and reported him. The board was embarrassed, but pursued the matter all the same. They wanted him to apologize to her … he wouldn’t.

Here are a few more articles besides the one I’ve provided:

Doctor Alleged Mocked Obese Woman
Judge strikes down rules requiring doctors to be respectful
Court says stop case against rude doctor *** good article – even has a picture

And here’s a few pieces from last year, when the hubbub first began:

Rochester Doctor’s Advice to Patient on Obesity Lands Him in Hot Water
Why is Terry Bennett Being Persecuted – Must read!

(Two articles directly above are from one of his patients, I believe. He made this website for him: Have Nots for Dr. Bennett … very interesting!)

And now, the article that appeared in our local paper this morning:

Court orders state to stop disciplinary case against Rochester doctor (Registration required)

By DAVID TIRRELL-WYSOCKI Associated Press Writer

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A judge has ordered the state Board of Medicine to stop disciplinary proceedings against a Rochester doctor accused by several patients of making offensive remarks.

Judge Edward Fitzgerald made it clear he did not condone remarks attributed to Dr. Terry Bennett, and found them unnecessary, but ruled Bennett had a right to speak bluntly.

“It is nonetheless important, as a general matter, to ensure that physicians and patients are free to discuss matters relating to health without fear of government reprisal, even if such discussions may sometimes be harsh, rude or offensive to the listener,” he concluded in a 17-page ruling released Thursday.

Fitzgerald also ruled the regulations under which the state investigated Bennett were so vague they violated his constitutional rights and that Bennett probably would have won his challenges before the board.

The complaints against Bennett included charges that he told a woman she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men, that he suggested that a woman recovering from brain surgery could shoot herself to end her suffering, and that he spoke harshly to a woman about how her son might have contracted hepatitis.

Bennett claimed victory.

“It’s pretty clear,” he said in a telephone interview. “The question now is: Will the board waste more of your and my tax dollars and appeal this, or accept done as done?”

Either way, he said the case is not over for him. If the board does not appeal, he said he plans to sue everyone involved for “malicious prosecution.”

If it does appeal, he said he will wait until the final outcome before acting.

“I am not inclined to be forgiving about it,” he said. “It’s been devastating and infuriating.”

Assistant Attorney General Elyse Alkalay, who represented the board in the court case, said she was reviewing the ruling and expected it would take several days to decide whether to appeal.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work on this web site is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. [Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml]

Well, Dr. Bob has posted his promised proposals for fixing health care: “The Maze – Part 8, Is There an Exit? – Part II.”

He suggests:

♦ Pay physicians by time
♦ Dismantle the dysfunctional relationship between health-care payors and health-care providers
♦ Provide tax credits for physicians to see the poor

He fills out each proposal in detail. If you’re interested in health care, the entire series is a must read. It plays right into the “Health Services and Information Systems I’ll be taking beginning on Sunday, and I have a feeling that I’m going to get the opportunity to refer back to it during my course.

Dr. Bob says:

[...] for those of us on the front lines–physicians, other health-care providers, and patients–drastic changes must begin, lest our system implode under its own weight.

This concerns us all, and if we don’t begin to effect some changes, some of us may not have the chance to live to regret it …

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Here are links to the earlier posts in the series:

The Maze – Part 1

The Maze – Part 2

The Maze – Part 3

The Maze – Part 4

The Maze – Part 5

The Maze – Part 6

The Maze – Part 7, Is There an Exit? – Part I