ProMED offers RSS Feed

(News) You can now get RSS feeds from ProMED, the e-mail alert system for outbreaks and emerging diseases. The International Society for Infectious Disease started offering an RSS feed earlier this month, according to an e-mail I just received from Dr. Larry Madoff, ProMED-Mail's editor. I completely missed the announcement, which came out while I was on vacation.

As an added feature, Madoff notes you can also filter the RSS feed for specific keywords like "measles" or "botulism."

Madoff hadn't heard about the counterfeit RSS site I wrote about earlier. He notes that ISID tries to make ProMED-mail reports available as widely as possible--with proper credit-- but they don't expect people to use it for commercial gain.

Here's what Madoff wrote (used with his permission):

"I wanted to let you know that we have, in fact, recently made our own RSS feed available. We announced it in an e-mail to subscribers but have not prominently displayed it on our website. (Ironically, our plan was to eventually make this a part of our 'premium subscription' package that costs $39 per year to help raise funds to support the operation.)

The address for the feed is:

http://ww2.isid.org/rss/xmlrpc_client.php

The full announcement of our RSS feed is at:

http://www.promedmail.org/pls/pm/pm?an=20070403.1135

I'll let you (and your blog readers if you wish) know of an unannounced feature of the RSS feed. You can filter the reports using any term you wish.

For example:

http://ww2.isid.org/rss/getrss.php?filter=avian+influenza

http://ww2.isid.org/rss/getrss.php?filter=avian+influenza+human
http://ww2.isid.org/rss/getrss.php?filter=measles
http://ww2.isid.org/rss/getrss.php?filter=botulism

http://ww2.isid.org/rss/getrss.php?filter=salmonellosis

will provide feeds of just the selected topics. We plan to announce this feature soon."