So far, I think ProMED's network, along with other Internet sites and newsgroups, have made a difference in how public health or medical science approach potential outbreaks to the extent that these groups are now in accord that a structured approach is needed. But they did go a long way in demonstrating the global reach of electronic communications and the painful lack of such in countries such as Zaire. Also, these networks did a very creditable job in keeping the general public and colleagues informed. Their potentiality is a more exciting story. Just as Cable News Network revolutionized not only the broadcast news industry but also the conduct of civil and foreign policy by many nations, the monitoring and reporting on disease outbreaks by a global system, of which ProMED is an experimental prototype, could at least modify, if not change, how health agencies, wherever located, handle potential and actual outbreaks of disease.
Exposure is the obvious key.
How full that exposure should be is a question currently debated. One side of the debate holds that information on disease outbreaks should be made public only by national governmental agencies. To achieve national control over the flow of information, reports of actual or possible disease outbreaks would be strictly and confidentially channeled. The Internet and a network like ProMED would be irrelevant. In this scripting, information would flow in rigid lines from local to state to national agencies, the level of security imposed determined by the situation.