FYI France: Humor -- Bruno Mannoni on "L'Internet ame'ricain"

[Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>]

This month in FYI France:

1) FYI France Online Service news;

2) Bruno Mannoni, President of the French Internet Society, on the perils
faced by a non - American navigating "L'Internet ame'ricain";

And be _sure_ to look at Artech House's handsomely re - designed Web site,
with its very nice front - cover feature of my new book, "Internet Digital
Libraries: The International Dimension": same address as before --
http://www.artech-house.com . 

XXX


1) FYI France Online Service news

In February three files are free: 1.00 Print Libraries in France, 5.00
Book - Dealers in France, and 9.00 Internet Training and Consulting. Since
January 15, 178 entries are new or have been revised. Come take a look at,

		http://www.fyifrance.com

XXX


2) Bruno Mannoni, "Chopped Liver"

[For any of you English - speakers who think that it's fun not knowing how
to speak it:

The posting here is very funny. It is written by the President of the
French Internet Society: an able guy named Bruno Mannoni, whose excellent
work you all can see on the Web site which he built and maintains for the
Ministry of Culture, at  http://www.culture.fr . Here he waxes irreverent
and occasionally hilarious about the adventures of a non - English -
speaking information - seeker on the English - Only "Ouebbe".  There is a
serious point here, but it also can be read just for fun. JK.]


From: Bruno Mannoni <mannoni@culture.fr>
Subject: Chopped Liver
 
A little humor.

One nice evening your doctor tells you that, "the RIBA-3 test confirms
your positive serology for hepatitis C, just as the results of the ELISA
test indicated". He makes you go to the specialists at the hospital. There
you learn that you must submit to a certain number of tests ("liver
biopsy", "amplification de l'RNA", and other joys which will indicate
whether you will benefit from "treatment with interferon alpha-2b
supplemented with ribavirin"). 

Confident in Medicine and in Science, you nevertheless regret having
skimped in your own "basic science" and "beginning math" courses (on the
question, "what is the function of chlorophyl", I scored 0/20...) and you
tell yourself, "I am going to find out something about this just to be
sure that I have not fallen into the hands of some quacks".  

You quickly are reassured, for -- thanks to the Internet -- you learn that
the Professor of Medicine who is taking care of you is the author of
numerous articles on this subject in scientific journals (in English) of
great authority (the journals, not the English).

Cruising along on the Internet you quickly discover that the abstracts
of the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, and
many other scientific medical journals (in English) are available online
for free, and that the Center for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta has a
super Web site.
 
Beginning your reading, you quickly discover that you urgently need a
review of genetics, and of biology, in order to understand things like
"the double helix of the DNA which recovers after the division of a
segment of RNA infected by the virus in order to attack the liver..." For
this you bless the US Department of Energy for its excellent "Primer on
Molecular Genetics" (Human Genome Project), which is accessible online. 

You finish by having obtained a "baque - ground" sufficient to upset both
you and your boss, who asks the reason for this sudden interest in
"superoxy dismutase" growing out of your researches on AltaVista (where
you learned that "the case of being SOD negative on a RIBA-3 confirms the
positivity to HCV", something which your doctor overlooked), and also the
specialist who does the biopsy for you when you demand details about the
"polymerase chain reaction of RNA", the "classification of cirrhoses in
ana - path", and the specifics on "genotype 1 sub - type 3b". 

You subscribe to an econference on hepatitis - c (in English). You spend
two days figuring out a translation for "milk thistle" (_everybody_ in the
US knows what _that_ is), only to discover that it is "chardon marie" and
that your pharmacist has no idea what it is. Happily a German server
explains to you that the main active ingredient of this plant is
"silymarine", and that this is sold in France under the name of "*******". 
You delightedly link over to a new site which you have found,
"www.vidal.fr": it is closed for repairs (oh well). 
 
All this just to say that in several months of research on the Net, on a
precise subject, the only information which I was able to obtain in French
came from Canada, and that further research of even this information led
me inevitably to pages written in the English language (these are
numerous, and they are well done). 

We are talking here about a major public health problem (600,000 people
afflicted in France, 3.5 million in the USA, 400 million in the world),
which overtaxes the World Health Organization's network. 

We are talking about an illness, the treatment for which has involved the
testing of new experimental remedies -- you would like to be well -
informed.

People are, elsewhere, but in English.

That French scientists publish in English does not shock me -- on the
contrary. As they say in Las Vegas, the cards have been played...  There
certainly will be the information - poor and the information - rich.  And
one must understand English to have scientific information which is "up to
date" and to take part in a "society of information". 

p.s.: It seems that France is one of the countries which is most advanced
in the control and treatment of this infection. You learn that on the
servers, in English. We don't even know how to be chauvinistic any more!
That's the game. 

p.s.2: In fact, on the Minitel, in the MGS directory, when you enter
"hepatite C" you immediately find the "Association des victimes de la
transfusion sanguine", which offers several videotex screens on the
subject.

XXX

FYI France (sm)(tm) e - newsletter        ISSN 1071 - 5916

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