Today a reader here at this poor neglected blog pointed out to me that a few of the links in my MedBlogs blog roll were defunct. One had changed URLs...easily fixed. Several were personal bloggers from various doctors or patients who had stopped blogging (and apparently stopped paying hosting fees to keep their archives live for the finding)...a shame, but understandable.
But one dead pool blog really surprised me. It was the Beat the Blues blog on Yahoo!'s health site, written by one of their Health Experts, Dr. David Neubauer.
OK, so times change, the economy is tough, I get that they may have cut back on their experts. But as far as I can tell the archives of this blog is gone. His most recent post was earlier this month, but searching by his name or by the last few topics he wrote about brings up nothin'!
Dr. Neubauer may not have blogged often (and who am I to judge on that?) but when he blogged it was simple, straightforward, easily digestible information for a lay audience on an important topic. Important because depression is realtively widespread, but still a pretty silent ailment.
So, apparently, the Internet isn't always forever. Isn't Yahoo! a search company? Shouldn't they get that people will still be searching for help with their depression long after the end of this one individual's contract? And that his info should be evergreen and ever-available? Perhaps there were contract issues at stake here. If not, I'd say Yahoo! blew it by wiping out a valuable archive of information.
I'd still like to have a good link to a medblog about depression in my blog roll. Any suggestions?
Comments