May

We would like to clarify an apparent misconception that the Hereditary Cancer Program is no longer operational. We are still accepting referrals for families at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer, hereditary colon cancer, and other cancer syndromes including medullary thyroid cancer, retinoblastoma, Li Fraumeni, and Von Hippel Lindau.

Recently, I found myself mired in a funk of epic proportions. Every day there seemed to be one enormous crisis after another, so by the end of most recent weeks I felt like what I imagine a public relations consultant hired to improve the image of the Taliban in New York City would feel like. First, virtually no one outside of your very small sphere of influence is terribly interested in helping, and second, if you broadcast the elements of your problems too loudly or too frequently, you stimulate total disinterest.

Just how many articles that BC doctors want to read are available in electronic format via the Internet? Are we closer to the dream of a collection entirely online, or is electronic publishing suffering under the same illusions that led to the nightmare of the dot.com meltdown? To answer these questions, I looked online for all of the 44 articles in the February issue of Cites & Bytes, first when the issue came out, then 2 weeks later. Had you tried to find the full text, you would have found:

Introduction

Introduction

In 2001, meningococcal disease re-emerged as one of the most significant public health issues in British Columbia. Highlights included:

• A significant increase in overall provincial meningococcal disease activity.

• An outbreak of serogroup C meningococcus in the Abbotsford area that was successfully controlled using a new conjugate-protein meningococcal C vaccine.

• Introducing important laboratory enhancements for diagnosis and molecular evaluation of meningococcus.