Is it fair to charge for a publication about swine flu?

That's the issue a reader raised with us recently. What follows is the email trail with this customer. I'd be curious to know your thoughts if you wish to share them. Have we struck a reasonable balance?


-----Original Message-----
From: [email address deleted]
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: Harvard Medical School Releases Special Health Report on Swine Flu

you really think you're doing a public service by charging $18 for this. you are absolutely shameless and I will make sure every editorial office of every paper in this country knows how you are taking advantage of what could turn into a terrible catastrophe. Shame on you!

[Name deleted]


-----Original Message-----
Dear [ ],

We charge only for the report, and most proceeds collected by Harvard Health Publications go back into Harvard Medical School to fund research and scholarships. The Flu Resource Center we created, http://www.health.harvard.edu/flu, is free and open to the public.

If you would like to speak further about this issue, I can have someone get back to you.

Thanks,
Raquel Schott
Associate Editor, Harvard Health Publications


-----Original Message-----
From: [ ]
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 2:43 PM

if this isn't a case of price gouging nothing is! yes, I would like someone to get back to me. and you put the notice out like it was some great public service. as I said before it is shameless!


-----Original Message-----
From: Coburn, Edward
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 3:50 PM

Dear [ ],

Thank you for your note. I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts.

Through our website and our newspaper column, as well as such websites as Newsweek.com, Intelihealth.com, Gather.com, and other websites, we have made a great deal of information freely available to the public on swine flu [including a Question & Answer article that we have made available to websites in English and Spanish].

After 34+ years publishing health information for the general public, we know there is a subset of the population that wants additional, more detailed information so we create special reports. These cost money to produce and proceeds from the sales of these reports enables us to create the content that we make freely available to the public. We have priced this report at the same level as all of the reports we publish. If we were price gouging, we would have substantially increased the price. That is not the case.

I trust you are compensated for the services you render to [your employer]. We also compensate the faculty and staff members who research and write our publications. Since Harvard Health Publications doesn't receive government grants or sell ads, selling publications provides the funding that makes it possible to produce the information that has helped millions of people since 1975.

I understand your concern but fundamentally disagree with your conclusions. I assume you can at least acknowledge that our position is reasonable and we may just have to agree to disagree.

Sincerely yours,
Ed Coburn
Publishing Director, Harvard Health Publications Harvard Medical School
______________________________


What do you think? Have we struck a reasonable balance?

Swine flu or H1N1 flu?

We take great effort to provide thorough, authoritative health information to our customers. We know it's also important that our information is empowering and to do that it must be accessible, meaning we need to use the language you use. That's easy to say but sometimes harder in practice.

Let me tell you a little story ...

On Friday evening, April 24, our Editor in Chief realized the reports about swine flu coming from Mexico seemed likely to create an interest in authoritative information about this disease. Our editorial team jumped into action over the weekend, drafting a report called Swine Flu: How to understand your risk and protect your health. By Monday afternoon we had the report completed, as well as a Q&A, a newspaper column, and a video. By Tuesday morning the report was prepared and available for sale on our website. Pretty good for an organization that is used to turning out things on a monthly or quarterly basis.

This past Tuesday afternoon, we published the second edition of that report, updating it to reflect new information and new research. By the time we went to publish the second edition, the Federal government, purportedly under pressure from the pig farming industry, was referring to the disease as H1N1, which refers to the type of virus. I was surprised that H1N1 actually seemed to get picked up by some government officials and media very quickly.

But, most people were still referring to it as "swine flu." So, as publishers, what do we do? We want to use the official language but we also have to use the language our customers want. In the end we went with "Swine (H1N1) Flu" as the main title. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but let's face it, in the face of personal health concerns, people are probably more interested in solid, authoritative health information than examples of sparkling literature.

This recalled for me a similar dilemma we had a number of years ago when the medical community moved away from the term "hormone replacement therapy" or "HRT" in favor of simply "hormone therapy." This was not some arbitrary change but reflects the fact that many horomone treatments are not technically "replacements." We jumped to use the new terminology to reinforce that we are thorough and up to date in our research. Unfortunately, the general public, to this day, predomoninantly still refers to HRT and hormone replacement therapy. We've made appropriate adjustments.

Sometimes it's challenging to be both authoritative and accessible.


* If you want, find more about our swine flu, er, 2009 H1N1 Type A Influenza report.

For Harvard Health Publications customer service.