Using the crowd to help diagnose rare diseases: Crowdmed.com
Above is a video by Italian artist Salvatore Iaconesi that was uploaded in September of last year, that went viral
Three months later, Salvatore described the responses he got -- some expected, some very unexpected. He gave a Ted Talk about crowd-sourcing a treatment for his brain cancer.
Salvatore's experience was a groundbreaking case of health care by crowd-sourcing. And apparently Salvatore Iaconesi's chosen path of treatment is, so far, serving him well. He tells us by email his health is good and he's even been traveling.
Crowdmed.com Founder, Jared Heymen
Our next guest believes he's hit on something that could shake up the medical establishment. Jared Heyman is the founder of a new startup website called Crowdmed.com. It's designed to help people find cures for rare diseases -- the so called "zebras" of the medical world. Jared Heymen joined us from San Francisco.
Researcher at MIT's New Media Medicine Group, Ian Eslick
It looks as if "Dr. Google" has opened up an entire internet clinic. And the web keeps learning new techniques to uncover "what ails."
Ian Eslick is a researcher and Ph.D candidate at the New Media Medicine Group of the MIT Media Laboratory. He's been using crowd-sourcing in his work for several years and he also joined us from San Fransisco.
This segment was produced by The Current's Dawna Dingwall.
We want to hear what you think of health care by crowd-sourcing. Would you consider trying it to find a diagnosis or treatment... would you trust it? Send us e-mail us. Or call us toll free at 1 877 287 7366. And tweet us @thecurrentcbc.
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