Web Site Offers Alternative to Official Sources on Bird Flu

By Malcolm Ritter

NEW YORK – You can learn a lot about bird flu and the specter of a global human flu epidemic by checking official information from the government or medical groups. But thousands of times a day, people turn to a much different source.

It’s Flu Wiki, a Web site maintained by a 52-year-old writer who specializes in risk communication. It draws in part on contributions from people who don’t reveal their names, much like Wikipedia, an encyclopedic Web site that lets anyone contribute.

Why should anybody trust a source like this?

“I’m working with some of the best scientists in the country on the subject of pandemic influenza,” said Melanie Mattson, who maintains the site. “If I have a question about what’s going on, I ask them.”

And Flu Wiki, the Virginia resident said, is “probably the most complete authority in English on pandemic influenza on the Internet.”

Even for a site with more than 1,200 pages of content, that’s a bold claim. The field includes not only an official U.S. government site, www.pandemicflu.gov, but also others from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. There are also plenty of bloggers who focus on flu.

But Flu Wiki also offers the wisdom of its expert contributors, Mattson said.

She can’t identify them publicly, mostly because they fear losing federal money for giving opinions that clash with the Bush administration, she said. The disagreements aren’t so much on the basic science of bird flu, but rather on what to do about it.

Flu Wiki, which averages up to 5,000 hits a day, impressed some flu experts who examined it recently at the request of The Associated Press.

Dr. Arnold S. Monto of the University of Michigan said he found the site’s information reliable in general. Such sites can provide “a single place for people to go who want to get information which they may have to troll for in some of the official sites,” he said.

Peter Cowen of North Carolina State University, moderator of a disease-monitoring Web site sponsored by the International Society for Infectious Diseases, said he had mixed feelings about Flu Wiki.

“In general they have a lot of good information,” but some of the site’s links lead to places with information of questionable value, Cowen said. Still, on balance, he said, “it looks pretty good.”

The site, launched last June, offers key facts about bird flu, updated news stories, a roundup of official flu plans, tips on preparedness and a discussion forum.

On the Net:

Flu Wiki: www.fluwikie.com

CDC bird flu page: www.cdc. gov/flu/avian/

World Health Organization: www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_ influenza/en/

Disease-monitoring site: www. promedmail.org