Medical Blogging and the tragedy of the commons

I have been thinking about medical blogs since Flea deleted his. Fat Doctor has deleted hers too, and unfortunately I don't think we will see their blogs reappear. I think the risks are too high. I think that all of the medical bloggers are going to disappear or go private in a month or less. I have no doubt that there are lawyers right now, trying to figure out who various medical bloggers are and who their patients are, so they can file suit against the doctors for "privacy violations" and then "settle" instead of going to trial. (aka as "legal extortion" (to non-lawyers)). Settling for $10k, $30k, even $50k, is much cheaper than going to trial for $200k.

Once that becomes common (i.e. happens even once) we will see US medical blogs disappear. It will be a shame when that happens.

Medical malpractice insurance isn't at a state where it can accommodate blogging. There isn't enough experience with it to be able to set premiums other than exorbitantly. There isn't enough income associated with blogging to support even modest premiums.

The UK medical blogs will stay up because in the UK legal system the loser pays the legal bills of the winner. If the US were to adopt that policy, marginal lawsuits would disappear in the US too. But then so would marginal lawyers. As a non-lawyer cynic, I say that will never happen.

But hey, when a judge can demand $65 million for a lost pair of pants, what does anyone expect? Certainly not "justice".

It is what is known as a "tragedy of the commons". When a resource is not privately controlled, the first to exploit it can liquidate it and acquire what ever the liquidated value is. The liquidated value of medical blogging might be a few hundred $k (liquidated by "legal extortion" that is). The non-liquidated value to everyone collectively might be higher, but who ever liquidates it first gets all the liquidated value.

With such a time pressure to be first, I think it will happen within a month.