U.S. Food and Drug Administration
FDA Consumer magazine
November-December 2000
Table of Contents
Information on topics ranging from immunizations to starting a small business to obtaining student financial aid is available on "Workers.gov" (www.workers.gov [Note, 3-14-2005: This URL no longer works]), a Web site launched in July as a gateway to more than 1,000 federal, state and local government resources. Through the site, users can scan Web sites for the latest medical information, check out job listings, acquire new skills through distance learning, and explore resources available for people with disabilities. The site also has information on money management, travel, tourism, and citizenship issues such as voting. Workers.gov is a joint venture between the Labor Department and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government.
So you've hit the half-century mark--now what? Well, you might want to check out "Staying Healthy at 50+" (www.ahrq.gov/ppip/50plus/), an online guide loaded with solid information about keeping fit and staying well in the middle-aged years. Though some of the advice is familiar--such as quit smoking, stay physically active and reduce dietary fat--the site also has helpful tips on disease prevention, health screening tests, and ways to fit exercise into a busy schedule. Also included are "personal prevention charts," such as ones that keep track of flu, tetanus and pneumonia shots. The guide also is available in hard copy by calling 1-800-358-9295; ask for publication AHRQ 00-0002. The "Staying Healthy" Web site is hosted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
It started as a way to keep astronauts from getting sick to their stomachs in outer space. Now the technique has come down to earth to help ensure that seafood is safe to eat. Called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP, pronounced "hassip"), the system identifies and prevents illness-causing hazards rather than relying on spot checks and random samplings of food. By going to www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/haccp.html, you can learn more about how HACCP is doing its part to curb foodborne sickness. FDA has required seafood producers to use HACCP since 1997, and the site discusses proposed rules for adopting HACCP to regulate fruit juice safety.
Let's face it, for some of us, spelling is not our strong suit. But that's okay when it comes to getting medical information--thanks to a new "spell-check" mechanism built into the search engine on the National Institutes of Health's Web site (http://search.nih.gov). It allows users to conduct searches on terms even if words are misspelled. For example, let's say you forget that the word "pneumonia" begins with a "p" and you do a search on "neumonia." No problem. A pull-down menu will appear with the correct spelling, which you can choose and continue the search. Developer Dennis Rodriguez and his NIH team plan to refine the spell-check mechanism even further in the near future with interfaces that engage users in actual dialogue and direct them to what is likely the best response.
In our last issue, we published a Web address for the Government Printing Office's "GPO Access" site, which links to more than 100,000 federal publications for easy access. Though that address will get you to the site (with a few extra clicks), the good folks at GPO tell us there's an even better address that will take you directly to the site: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html.
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