Mike Homer passed away yesterday from CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). CJD is a rare neurological disease, which can be infectious, but wasn’t in this case.

Mike was one of my senior managers at Netscape, who I always held in high regard. I’m saddened by this event and hope this will help accelerate research into a cure for the disease.

(In addition to its decision support application dealing with Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Toxicology, GIDEON Informatics, Inc as part of GIDEON Labs, maintains a second service – www.VIPatients.com – which follows the diseases and deaths of all famous persons throughout history. The user can review all diseases of a specific VIP, or generate a list of famous persons by Profession, Disease, Year – or any combination. The following is based on data generated from the site).

On December 31, the Media will once again recount all of the wars, earthquakes, divorces, births, rapes, sporting records …. Inevitably, a long list of famous persons will have passed on: most “after a long illness,” “suddenly” or “of natural causes.” 427 famous folk died of specified misfortunes in 2008. For the purpose of this research, “famous” is defined as “well recognized by the general public at large.”

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Predictably, 2009 will be greeted with endless publications which recount the divorces, disasters, political events, athletic records and famous deaths of 2008. Sadly, the routine misfortunes which visit most of the world will be largely neglected. Individual countries are burdened by major outbreaks of infectious disease on an almost daily basis; but few people in the West hear of these episodes unless they are sensationalized by the Media (Ebola) or are seen as a threat to other developed nations (Avian influenza).

Although the current outbreak of Avian influenza (”bird flu”) began in 2003, and has continued well into 2008, the numbers of reported cases and deaths has actually been decreasing since, 2006. A total of only 387 cases, and 245 deaths, from this infection have been reported to date. In other words, the chance of dying from a lightning bolt or scorpion sting in one of the infected countries is far greater than the chance of acquiring bird flu.

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Steve Stallman recently interviewed Uri Blackman, GIDEON’s CEO, in SCribe magazine, which was mentioned in the Technology Council of Southern California blog. The interview provides some background on the company and the benefit of GIDEON to its users:

What is the main value proposition you offer?
Originally, we focused on compiling the entire world’s data for Infectious Diseases in one easy to use location combined with medical decision support. Now we have taken this to the next level by adding other medical domains on our platform. We help identify the diseases, their global footprints, and provide specific information on treatments. Medical professionals now have one clear source to get the most up to date information, which can change by the minute. This often makes them aware of things they never thought of and helps them make the best decision possible.