Sickr.org Launches - Help Save the World

We all know about Swine Flu/H1N1. It's the first pandemic in a generation or so and as I write this it's still running out of control. This will eventually pass and there will be a lot of talk and ideas and analysis.

At times it might feel that there's not much that you, Joe Public, can do. I felt that same way. I sat around spitballing a few ideas until I had a good one - what we need is a large public database of illnesses. Not just the flu, but all illnesses, everywhere. If we had a good collection of this and a simple way to collect future information, it could be an extremely valuable dataset for scientists, statisticians, and others studying diseases.

I'm sure that the WHO and the CDC are building the same thing. They've got money and resources and time, but there's one thing that they're not doing: they're not sharing the data. I know that they're good at what they do, but by keeping this information from the general public they're preventing someone from potentially finding the Next Big Thing. By hiding this information, they're causing rumors and misinformation and distrust.

So here's what we do. We create our own database. We make it easy and fast for anyone to submit to it. And we make the collected data available to anyone, anywhere. That's what I hope Sickr will do.

If you are sick or have been sick in the past, take one minute and head over to Sickr and answer 3-5 questions about it. There's no guesswork, no need to have a diagnosis, and you don't need to leave identifiable information. All we need is your illness. If you do this and your neighbor does this and your neighbor's kids and their friends and... and... and... then we will have a wonderful tool to track and predict future outbreaks and hopefully, probably find a solution.

All you need is one minute.