Connecting the Dots on Moms, Roads and Plumpy'Nut

Most people I run across in the public health world still view blogs suspiciously as the source of a lot of heat and not very illuminating. But with a little judicious filtering (both mental and electronic), I find blogs incredibly useful in my research and reporting.

Recently, in response to my post on Peanut Butter and Patents, someone with the handle "RUTF blogger" posted a tip about the production of peanut-based nutritional supplements in Malawi for a story I'm following on the patenting of Plumpy'Nut. Obviously, the information needs to be checked out but at least I have some names and an idea of where to look.

And last Friday, I received an e-mail reply to a question I posted at The INFO Project Blog, the brainchild of the Center for Communication Programs at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. While researching the link between paved roads and improved maternal health, I found a blog post that related to maternal health from the folks at JHU. I asked my question and a very nice person named Rose replied both by e-mail and on the blog.

In both cases, I am learning and assessing what I need--but because the q and a are publicly available, others may benefit as well.