REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group sci.med.diseases.blood
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
worldwide, unmoderated Usenet newsgroup: sci.med.diseases.blood. This is
not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural
details are below.
Newsgroup line:
sci.med.diseases.blood diseases of the blood.
CHANGES from previous RFD:
Rationale expanded.
RATIONALE: sci.med.diseases.blood
Many different diseases affect blood. In the United States alone
approximately 72,000 people have sickle cell anemia with about 2,000,000
carrying the trait. There are 20,000 hemophilia patients in the U.S. Each
year, nearly 27,000 adults and more than 2,000 children in the United
States learn that they have leukemia (statistics are from NIH and Cancernet
web sites). There is now a listserv named MPD-SUPPORT-L which has 800+
recipients and has a daily traffic of 10 to 20 postings. All postings can
be seen at http://listserv.aol.com/archives/mpd-support-l.html. MPD stands
for Myelo Proliferative Disorders, which are diseases of the blood. The
myeloproliferative disorders include polycythemia vera (PV), chronic
myelogenous leukemia, agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, and essential
thrombocythemia (ET). This newsgroup will include these plus all other
diseases of the blood including sickle cell anemia. The WWW.DEJANEWS.COM
HEALTH and FITNESS discussions have been searched with the keywords of
"blood and diseases" and no alternate newsgroups were found to exist.
Shared information on treatment of blood diseases is important to
participants because in many instances there is a wide variety of
treatments for the same disease. The grave seriousness of most questions
and replies significantly outweigh any fluctuation in daily traffic. Blood
diseases are so complicated that a newly diagnosed patient deserves support
and facts, no matter how rare the disease.
CHARTER: sci.med.diseases.blood
Many people have some form of blood disease, either detected or not. The
purpose of this newsgroup is to establish electronic media for
communication between patients, scientists and any other individuals with
interest in diseases of the blood. Such communications will provide quick
and effective means to exchange information and knowledge, offer
encouragement, and solve problems.
The sci.med.diseases.blood newsgroup will target participants who are
afflicted with any blood disorder. Doctors, researchers, students or anyone
with interest in diseases of the blood will also be welcome.
A FAQ for new users will be posted on a regular basis.
No binary posts will be allowed.
No advertisements will be allowed.
END CHARTER:
PROCEDURE:
This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of
the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup should be
raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of
21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to
news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call for Votes (CFV) may be posted
by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not
attempt to vote until this happens.
All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.
This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to
Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents
(available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the
process.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD will be crossposted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups,bionet.general, sci.med,
sci.med.laboratory, sci.med.pathology, alt.support.hemophilia,
sci.med.diseases.blood
and the following mailing list:
mpd-support-l
Subscribe by:
Email to: LISTSERV at LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject line: Anything you want but not blank.
Body: SUBSCRIBE MPD-SUPPORT-L
Proponent: Robert Tollen <lov2laf at ibm.net>
Mentor: Richard Miller <rick at bcm.tmc.edu>
