The announcement on the opening of the Toronto FreeNet has generated a lot of interesting information in my mail box. Six notices were sent out on Saturday night, one to CANCHID. At this time (Tuesday evening) the mail box has received approximately 750 replies from every corner of the globe and from every sector and strata in society ranging from miners in Australia, university presidents in Belize and Mayors in American cities. On the posting to CANCHID I added that it would be a free and democratic venue for access to health information. On the posting to the distance education network I stressed its use in public and distance education. I have enjoyed reading the responses - many of they quite moving. I also am amused to report that of the 4 quite pointed postings that came to my on mail box, asking where the scam was and who was going to trick who, - as well as one with more polite questions - all were from the health care sector. Wonder if it says something about the health care sector. I have received 50 or so messages to the mail box from health care people using the FreeNets in the rest of Canada and the U.S. and they have great things to say about how access to the FreeNets have made them better professionals, given them access to better information, etc. They could better tell the health sector skeptics what community electronic networks mean for health and wellness. I will respond to two of the pointed questions, in brief form. The real replies will come from watching what the FreeNets achieve. There is a lot of information out there on FreeNets and those lucky enough to have a full internet account and reading this can search the internet using gophers WWW, FTP, etc and learn all they want to know. They are community controlled non-profit operations, each locally incorporated and controlled. They do pay for their supplies (phone lines, etc.) depend on hundreds of hours of free volunteer time (from highly skilled volunteers) but they do not pay anything to a central organization, etc. They have elected boards (once the network is up and running and has "members". They are more community and more free than the public libraries but may end up much like public libraries in terms of their position in society and the community. Most of us believe that they are essential to a free and democratic society. What do they have to do with health? Elsewhere there are extensive health conferences (on-line) and health information resources. Material on Drugs, AIDS, Tobacco, etc. In my capacity I am thinking about placing the entire CancerNet database on line. It is about 8 meg of files for the patient, the patient's family, care givers, doctors, etc. My only hesitation at this point is that the treatment guidelines are those of the U.S. since the CancerNet database is produced by NIC in Washington. I fear a lot of flack from Canadian health care providers who should be more concerned with producing Canadian information sources on-line and free. CancerNet is available from one source in the Canadian west and those of you with an internet account have access to it. I want the world to have access to the database and the CancerNet people are willing (eager) to agree to that. I plan not to just mount it but to raise it as an issue, on the FreeNet it- self and let the users tell me what to do. I hope it will prompt others to feed health information to the Community Network. There are other providers working on information provision schemes. It is clear that within a very few years public electronic networks will be an important source of information for health and wellness. I hope that the readers of CANCHID and health care professionals everywhere look at what it is they can do to put usable health information into the virtual community workspace we call the Free-Nets. - Sam Lanfranco, CANCHID ListManager, A proud member of the Toronto Free-Net [log in to unmask] Board of Directors, and looking forward to the first public Board election in a year where, who knows, I might lose my seat on the board to another citizen.