The site for the book, as before, will be at www.beautyfromafar.com. I’m switching to the blog format. It will take me a while to sort out how best to present the book. An e-book will be available for download … but today is the first day of this project, and I have a lot of decisions to make and work to do.

I’d be interested in hearing from other authors who have put their books online. And, as I said — the rights to the book are mine and I am willing to entertain offers for what could very quickly become one of the most trafficked medical tourism sites on the Internet.

But when Robin Cook uses medical tourism as the backdrop in his new medical thriller, “Foreign Bodies,” … well, who keeps up with medical trends more than has Dr. Cook?

I blogged this at The Bridge, in more detail, here.

I’d love to swap an autographed copy of Beauty from Afar for one of “Foreign Body.” Maybe someday …

I’ve already blogged about this at The Bridge, where I have the nine principles as stated by the AMA.

The principles had not appeared on the AMA site with the initial media release, but I got them direct from the AMA after a phone call. For the moment, The Bridge is the only place you can find them.

I didn’t say this “over there” since it’s not a place where I allow myself to pat myself on the back … but every time medical travel and tourism gets recognized for what it is, an important and global phenomenon, I feel proud to have been on top of it years ago, and to have written Beauty from Afar.

The blog, called The Bridge, (catchy, huh?) is at:

www.bridgehealthinternational.com/blog

It isn’t officially launched, but it might as well be. We’ve taken the password protection off. There will be a news release on it in the next few days.

I probably will continue to write about medical tourism hereabouts, but it’s nice to have other outlets for the kind of reporting and writing about the subject that I think is important. BridgeHealth wants very much to be associated with authoritative, factual information about medical travel and the people who run it are fans of Beauty from Afar, so it works out well for both of us. When people have questions about medical travel for which I’d prefer to get first-hand answers from medical professionals or people on the ground in medical tourism destination countries, I can get the information I want from people who are in the front lines.

In this part-time venture, I’m happy to be somewhat reunited with Stephanie Sulger, another medical tourism pioneer and the founder of Medical Tours International. Stephanie was in Beauty from Afar and her company is now part of BridgeHealth. I picked a few winners in my book and she was one of them.

I know some people subscribe to my blog principally to see what I have to say about medical tourism, and I hope those folks will go take a look at The Bridge, perhaps specifically at:

Imagining Medical Travel’s Future

Medical Tourism and the Falling Dollar

and

Medical Travel: Fast Times, FastCompany …

all of which might have been written for this site but are better placed where they are, to help healthcare consumers.

I also continue to manage the Prisma Dental blog for my Costa Rican dentists, who are as busy as ever.

From my inbox, two minutes ago:

“We’re making some changes that will affect one of your Yahoo! profiles. After April 9, 2008, mature content will not be
permitted within Yahoo! Profiles. In accordance with this new policy, users will no longer be able to designate an ‘adult profile,’ and mature content will be removed. The profile for the Yahoo! ID scribblerbot is marked ‘adult.’ The picture associated with this profile will be removed and deleted on April 9, 2008.”

This is goddamn big news, for a number of reasons. Yes, I have a Yahoo adult profile and it has a photo on it. It’s the one in this blog post. As you can see, it may not be the greatest photo in the world, but it is not a nude photo of me or of any nekkid body parts. (None of your business as to whether I have any, either. )

1.) I know that there are, oh, about a bazillion people who have adult profiles because they belong to Yahoo groups for which Yahoo has REQUIRED a Yahoo Adult Profile, because the group has adult content.

Yes, this includes a LOT of groups dedicated to ogling nude photographs. However, because Yahoo has been amazingly prissy in the past, with this whole adult-content schmear, it ALSO includes lots of people who belong to groups that are about cosmetic surgery or weight loss surgery, for example. I know about those because I belong to a bunch of these groups. It was part of my research for Beauty from Afar and I still keep track of what is going on with people who go overseas for surgery.

Some of these groups used to get closed or even deleted by Yahoo when “someone” would complain that there were nude pictures on the group pages, right where anyone could see them! Hence, these got made into “Adult” groups, meaning no kid could look at them unless, of course, he or she jumped that HUGE hurdle and clicked on a box that said “I’m more than 18 years old.” (As though that ever stopped someone.)

2. And yes, then there a whole lot of people who use their “adult profiles” to post nude photographs of themselves and/or other information in hopes of enticing Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. Right-Now will want to have sex with them. And there are a cajillion (which is not as many as a bazillion, but almost) women who have a Yahoo adult profile, or even many of them, for a single purpose: To advertise their webcam stripping activities, for which some people pay money.

Presumably, Yahoo wants to get rid of the porn-related profiles … and that’s going to be unpopular with a lot of people who will scream about censorship. I’m witholding comment on that for the moment but if you’re not, click the comment button and go to town.

My big issue, for now, is that they haven’t told me anything yet about how they are going to handle the relationship of adult profiles to adult groups, especially those groups that have nothing to do with anything that could reasonably be considered as porn. Breast Cancer Awareness groups, perhaps? Etc.

I’ll be following up … Stay tuned. (See next related post.)

(See the latest, including how to browse the soon-to-be-deleted profiles.)

And … April 11. They did it. No more Yahoo adult profiles.