Putting Our Heads Together

Migraines, Blogs, Blogspoot, and Google!

People who blog about Migraine disease and headaches are some of my favorite people. There are some superlative blogs out there that offer readers information, support, and hope.

Sadly, there are also others out there that irritate the daylights out of me. Why? Because they're put up by (I can't and won't say "written by.") people who can't be bothered to write their own content. Instead, they steal content from other blogs or Web sites. I've come across yet another of those who's owner is ripping off articles Nancy and I have written on MyMigraineConnection. Mind you, these articles all have copyright notices on them. This person just seems not to care. This blog is called "Migraine Mastery." It's published on Blogspot, which is owned by Google.

I'd love to give this person the benefit of the doubt and email them about this issue, but I can't. Nobody can email them because they've not put a profile on their blog, or an email address, or even their name. They also don't allow comments to their entries. So, there's just now way to contact them.

Google owns Blogspot, and I could contact them. I could fill out all their forms and snail mail or fax them, but their copyright infringement complaint system is complicated and time-consuming. I suspect they do that deliberately to discourage people from filing reports.

What I'm going to do about this is something I haven't yet decided. For now, I'm sad. Sad, frustrated, and yes, ticked off. Here are the URLs for the articles Nancy and I wrote and they ripped off:

• Migraines Often Tirggered By Chane In the Weather
• Famous Migraineurs - Terrell Davis (written by Nancy Bonk)
• Trileptal Fails Test for Migraine Prevention
• Medication Overuse Headache - When the Remedy Backfires
• Cluster Headaches - The Basics
• Chronic Daily Headaches - The Basics
• Acephalgic or Silent Migraine - The Basics
• Abdominal Migraine - The Basics
• Ice Pick Headaches - The Basics
• more...

Some of these articles have been republished on "Migraine Mastery," without permission, in their entirety. Others have been excerpted. They do say "For more information visit healthcentral.com, but that doesn't excuse using the content without permission. If a blogger likes an article they read elsewhere, there is a legal and respectful way to share it with their readers. They can excerpt a paragraph or two of the article and provide a link to the full article for people who want to read the rest.

You know, in one way, maybe I shouldn't be bothered by this. After all, it may be getting information to more people. Still, Nancy and I spend a great deal of time researching and writing our articles. The HealthCentral Network helps many people, but they have a business to run. When people republish our articles elsewhere, it may be taking traffic away from the THCN, and we must have traffic there to stay in business.

The bottom line is that his is wrong and disrespectful. It's stealing our work. I wonder how bloggers who do this would feel if someone were using their work this way.

HELP! Email Your Senator TODAY About Migraine and Headache Research!

Please, please, please... Read the letter below, then click the link in it and email your Senators TODAY!
Thank you!

Please Email Your Senator Today! Dear Dr. Robert:  Our efforts last month to urge members of the US House of Representatives to support increases in NIH funding for research on headache disorders were highly successful. Twelve Representatives signed the Obey/Walsh letter. This is an outstanding result for the first mobilization of our numbers, and we are optimistic that it will be enough to have our message appended to the House appropriations bill. It is now time to contact your US Senators for the same purpose. Unfortunately our window of opportunity is only narrowly open. The letter with Senators' signatures must be submitted by today, April 4th. Please take just 5 minutes RIGHT NOW to go directly to http://capwiz.com/headacheadvocacy/issues/alert/?alertid=11231066&PROCESS=Take+Action  and send your message to your two US Senators Please forward this email right away to anyone else concerned about the inadequate state of care for patients with headache disorders. Only with increased research will new effective treatments for headache disorders become available. And only with your help will such research activities increase to levels appropriate to the huge scale of this problem. The larger our voice, the greater will be our impact. Thanks again for your efforts. Robert Shapiro, MD, PhD William Young, MD, Teri Robert, PhD Brad Klein, MD, MBA

If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from us, you can unsubscribe here.

 

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Migraine Treatments - We're running out of time. Can you spare five minutes?

Good morning, dear readers,

Today, I'm writing to you somewhat differently from my usual way of doing things. This is more personal. More from the Migraine and headache sufferer me. More from the your friend me.

Some thanks and a plea...

To all of you who responded to the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy Action Alert and emailed your members of the house, my very, very deepest thanks.

To those of you who have not yet responded to the Action Alert, I make this plea...

Can you spare five minutes, please? That five minutes will help everyone who has Migraine disease and / or other headache disorders now AND in the future.

This is an extremely important issue to me; not only professionally, but personally. Generation after generation of both sides of my family have lived with and suffered with Migraine disease. From my great grandmother to my grandchildren, this disease has taken its toll on our lives. For years, I have wished for a way to DO something that would make all of our lives easier, healthier, and happier.

I have lost 50% of the vision in my right eye and 25% of the vision in my left eye because of low-tension glaucoma. Glaucoma specialists have told me that it was most likely caused by the years of having horrid Migraines before type of abortive medication was available to me. Intraocular pressure (the pressure inside the eye) is elevated during a Migraine, and the periods of elevated pressure during the years of untreated Migraines damaged my optic nerves, causing the glaucoma and the vision loss.

Now, we have two daughters in-law and three grandchildren who have Migraine disease. Our granddaughter Alexandra had her first Migraine at the age of 2-1/2. I don't want her to go through what I have gone through over the last 47 years of Migraines; what many of you have gone through. I don't want her education, career, having her own family to be disrupted. I don't want her to face the possibility of blindness because of this disease. As you do for your children and grandchildren, I want better for her and for our other grandchildren. And it goes without saying that I want better for you and for myself.

Monday, March 17, is the last day for your Member of the House to sign the "Dear Colleague letter" from Congressmen Welch and Moran. So, we are down to the last days to send your emails.

I know everyone is busy and that many of you may well be in pain. That's one reason we're doing all we can to make this very easy to do. This was our first Action Alert, so we've had a few things to learn along the way.

The easiest and least time consuming way to send an email to your Member of the House regarding this Action Alert is to go directly to THIS PAGE.

 

The image above is of the "Take Action" section of the page. Just follow the directions, and you'll have a great email to your Member of the house in just minutes.

You can read the two sections of preset "required" text that we've put in place so you don't have to worry about an introduction or wording the closing section, which specifically asks our Members of the House to sign the Dear Colleague letter.

You can see the arrow pointing to the area where you can write a bit of a personal message about how Migraine disease and other headache disorders impact you or others you know.

Even a brief paragraph or two can be very powerful, but if you're not comfortable adding anything in that area, you can leave it blank. If you do write something for this part of the email, you may find it helpful to save it on your computer as a text document so you can use it again later when we write to our Senators.

After you click the red "Send Message" button, the next  page that comes up presents an opportunity to enter the names and addresses of six people. If you choose to enter those names and email addresses, an email will go to them asking them to join you by writing an email of their own. If you don't want to do this, that's fine.

Following these steps, you will get a confirmation screen showing that your email has been sent. You will also receive an email from me and the other officers of the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy thanking you for your help.

No system is perfect, so if you do not receive that thank you email, please repeat this process to send your email. This has only happened in a few cases, but I do want you to know about it so you don't miss out on this opportunity.

If you subscribe to our mailing list, you'll receive email updates when it's time to act again. I promise you that your email address will not be shared with anyone or used for any purpose other than keeping you updated on our advocacy efforts.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking the time to read this and for taking the time to email your Member of the House. Together, we CAN make a difference in the future of the treatment available to us.

 

Take Action NOW for Better Migraine and Headache Treatment!

Do we  want, need, and deserve better Migraine and headache treatments? Absolutely yes!

Think there's nothing you can do? But there is! You can take five minutes to send an email to your Representative in the House of Representatives. It's easy and only takes about five minutes. The Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy site is set up for us to send an email to our Representative, even if we don't remember who he or she is.

PLEASE, go to www.AllianceForHeadacheAdvocacy.org NOW. Click the "What YOU Can Do" link in the left column. You will go to our Alert Center. There is a box with our Featured Alert. Simply click the red "Take Action" button in the Featured Alert box. That will take you to a letter that's ready for you to add what you want to say about this issue, fill in your name and address, and have your email sent directly to your Representative. It is urgent that you do this NOW because the House is setting 2009 funding appropriations in just a few days.

Here's one undeniable fact for you...

Continue reading Take Action NOW for Better Migraine and Headache Treatment!

Blogspot "Migraine Treatment and Symptoms" blog

I love my work -- love learning and sharing what I've learned so other people have better information for their struggle with Migraine disease and headaches.

Something I don't love, however, is having my work ripped off. Unfortunately, that's been happening more and more. The most recent culprit is whoever does the Blogspot blog "Migraine Treatment and Symptoms." I came across this blog through a Google Blog Alert on an article entitled "Abdominal Migraine What Is It?" That caught my attention because it's the title of an article that I originally wrote and published on About.com. The same article is now among my published articles on MyMigraineConnection.

This blogger doesn't have a profile on the blog, so there's no way to email or send them a message. So, I posted a comment to the blog asking that they contact me about the article. They didn't. They DID delete the comment AND close the blog to comments. They also published another of my articles, even giving the URL to the article.

It's possible that this person doesn't understand copyright law, but if that's the case, why delete my comment and close the blog to comments? I left my name. Copyright law does NOT say that it's legal to copy and republish an entire article. That is NOT "fair use." Fair use would have been copying and republishing a small portion of the article and providing a link for those readers who wished to read the rest. Posting the original URL or even the person's name doesn't make things legal either.

Obviously, this person likes my articles, or they wouldn't be copying them. If you like someone's work, don't you owe them some respect? It's hardly respectful to copy someone's work. If people don't visit my web sites, I won't have a job. Copying the full article is not only stealing my work, it means fewer people will come to my sites.

Google, who owns Blogspot makes it very difficult to report copyright violations. There's a long list of information that you must provide them with -- via snail mail or fax. They also say that anyone filing a copyright violation report that doesn't pan out will have to pay costs. Well, I'm going to take the time to do their onerous paper work because it's my work that's being stolen.

If you see something on my site or someone else's that you like and want to share, please be respectful and law abiding. Copy and paste only the first couple of paragraphs and provide your readers with a link to the original article. You'll be doing me and other writers a huge service.

What YOU Can Do To Get Better Migraine & Headache Treatments

It's time for my promised update on Headache On the Hill. For those of you not familiar with Headache On the Hill -- a group of doctors, scientists, and patient advocates made a trip to DC in September to talk with Senators and members of the House about the dire need for an increase in NIH funding for basic headache and Migraine research. That basic research MUST be done if we're to have new and more effective treatments.

We're gearing up for the grassroots part of this campaign, and that's where each and every one of you come in. Since the Headache On the Hill participants were from several organizations -- the American Academy of Neurology, the American Headache Society, MAGNUM, the National Headache Foundation, the Headache Cooperative of New England, and others -- we've formed a new organization to continue the Headache On the Hill advocacy efforts. The new organization is the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy (AHDA). You can reach our web site at www.HeadacheAdvocacy.org or www.MigraineAdvocacy.org.   

What YOU Can  Do To Help

Now:
Visit the AHDA site, lood around, and sign-up for email updates. We will notify you by email when new information is added and when it's time to take action.

Please spread the word to your friends and family. You can download our flier and distribute it to friends, family, whomever you know to encourage them to participate in this project. Every single person counts, so please talk to everyone you know about this and give them a copy of the flier. CLICK HERE to  download the flier.

Early in 2008:

The most effective time to influence Congress is early in the year. So it will be crucial that as many emails as possible reach Congress at that time in order to affect the 2009 NIH budget. The AHDA website will make emailing Congress much easier for you. Our email notifications will prompt you to return to our site and email your members of Congress at the most effective time. Please ask your friends and loved ones to visit our site and email Congress as well.

I hope you'll all become involved in this important initiative. We all know how important it is that more effective treatments be found for Migraine disease and other headache disorders. But, without NIH funding, the basic research upon which other research depends will not be done. Senators and members of the House do listen to their constituents, so every single email to them will be vital. This is our chance to make a difference, and the AHDA is making it as easy as possible for everyone to participate. 

Please join us!

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