Drowning or thirsting: the extremes of availability of medical information

The March 2006 issue of PLoS Medicine contains the following editorial and a thoughtful debate on the issue of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. The same issue contains a fascinating article on a "low tech" approach to information management, the blue trunk approach. This electronic journal is one of several published by the non-profit Public Library of Science (PLoS), a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. PLoS Medicine is an open-access, on-line journal that contains timely discussions and new findings on a broad range of medically-related topics. Readers are referred to the PLoS Medicine website: http://www/plosmedicne.org to read the full pro and con debate mentioned in this paper and to learn more about this valuable intellectual resource.