OK people, I'm going to tread carefully here.... but I thought I
would share with you some suspicions I have about this message, in
the hope that it will help people make their own minds up about
what's trustworthy and what isn't.

Based on my observations, I believe there is a chance that the person
who posted this message joined this list under an assumed name to
promote his site, http://www.GH2000.com/, a commercial enterprise.

Why do I have a problem with that? No problem people creating web
sites to make money. No problem if someone joins a list, contributes,
is honest about who they are, and if they mention their site they do
so in a relevant context.

Joining a list under an assumed name, and whenever someone mentions
web sites posting a generic ad for your site.... I don't think that's
cricket. For two reasons:
        - honesty and transparency are important, especially on a medical list
        - if incidents like this become more prevalent, PARKINSN will become
          a serious of people asking reasonable questions and getting back
          adverts in response

OK, so why am I suspicious of this particular post?
        - its in response to a question, doesn't really answer it
        - the poster is using a free email account (in this case, from Excite)
        - there's no user profile setup on Excite
        - Searching the archives, the only other post this person has made to
          the list was also to promote this site, on 9th Oct. 1999
        - The 9th Oct. posting was signed "Milton Hass , M.D., Chief of
          Surgery, Princess Grace Hospital". I remember thinking at the time
          why on earth would a "Chief of Surgery" post to PARKINSN, and if he
          did, why *only* about a rather second rate web site, rather than
          something to do with Parkinson's? Surely someone with that amount
          of expertise would have something interesting to say and be happy
          to share it with us? Or if they want to keep a low profile, why
          boast about their medical title & position?
        - searching various sites, I couldn't find any other  mention of
          "Milton Hass" or [log in to unmask] anywhere else on the Internet
        - the textual formatting is terrible (a common feature of most spam,
          don't know why)
        - the URL that's given is "http:www.GH2000.com" which isn't something
          that would copy from a web browser - it would start "http://". So
          it was typed in manually. If he was recommending a site he'd used,
           wouldn't he cut & paste?
        - the actual site smacks of marketing more than substance.

The frustrating thing is there are many ways that this enterprise
could contribute to the community, and make more money with less
effort. Unfortunately "Internet Marketing" courses and advice have a
lot to answer for.

One of the nice things about The Internet is you get to make your own
mind up. I could well be mistaken In which case Dr Hass, I apologise,
fancy joining in a bit more or recommending some Parkinson's-specific
sites?

Some people may feel I shouldn't say anything. But this guy doesn't
look right to me, and I thought I would share that with you, so you
can make your own minds up.



Simon

>If you are looking for quality medical news , referenced articles for health
>professionals , consumers and patients then
>http:www.GH2000.com
>will be useful.
>It also has the worlds largest literature search databases - Medline
>,Aidsline , Healthstar , Cancerlit with bibliographic citations from 1966 to
>present with access to full text journal articles.
>Good Luck.
>
>
>On      Fri, 15 Oct 1999 12:06:15 EDT, Sharon Y Habing wrote:
>
>>  Hi Bill,
>>  Fact Sheet 152 from the World Health Organization gives a good
>>  description of Parkinson's.  www.who.int/inf-fs/en/fact152.html
>>
>>
>>
>>        On Fri, 15 Oct 1999 10:49:54 -0500 William Harshaw
>>  <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>>  >For a speaker, what are the best web sites which give a good, general
>>  >introduction to PD?
>>  >
>>  >Any suggestions or help appreciated.
>>  >
>>  >Bill
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________
>Get FREE voicemail, fax and email at http://voicemail.excite.com
>Talk online at http://voicechat.excite.com

--------- My opinions are my own, NIP's opinions are theirs ----------
Simon J. Coles                                 Email: [log in to unmask]
New Information Paradigms                  Work Phone: +44 1344 753703
http://www.nipltd.com/                 http://james.parkinsons.org.uk/
=============== Life is too precious to take seriously ===============