American Cancer Society
If there is a better-designed, more informative non-profit health site than this, I sure haven't seen it. Cancer.org for the American Cancer Society (ACS) is outstanding in just about every aspect. The layout and overall impact demand respect. And the amount of information archived here is astonishing.

On the top level, the ACS highlights four main areas: Golf; SmokeScream (anti-smoking propaganda); Breast Cancer Network; and How To Contribute.

I admit to being slightly confused at the significance of "golf"on a cancer information Web site, but it seems the ACS has a few clubs around the country that have a special deal for people wishing to contribute. Kinda dull, but wait, hang onto your seat for the rest of the ride - it's long, colorful, and full of medical facts, statistics, research data, grant resource info, links, and more more more.

Quite impressive is the SmokeScream area, which specifically targets younger net surfers. It's by far the brightest section with the coolest of cool graphics. Follow IkeMan, the hip icon-o-graphic mascot, as he gives us facts about smoking, invites us to play a "clean the lungs" trivia game, and answers questions in a "Dear Ike" column. It's a little funny that Ike, obviously a 30+ writer/editor type, is pretending to be a teenage hipster. He messes up a lot of the "cool" and "groovy"jargon with awkward, out-of-context type blunders, but overall, he tries. We'll give him points for that. And, besides, the message is good: Kids and adults shouldn't smoke cigarettes if they hope to breathe well for a long time. The SmokeScream area also plays some Netscape frames tricks, incorporates Macromedia's Shockwave, and offers a nice young people-focused link list.

The Breast Cancer Network is one of the online authorities for women's health. It's packed with statistics about breast cancer - who it affects, at what age, and survival rates. The site also offers diet and fitness recommendations, discusses several treatment options, and has a well-supported "recovery"section. The graphics here are simple, yet pleasing and quick. There will be no waiting around for pages or image maps to load. Nice.

And while my Netscape browser tells me that transactions at cancer.org aren't secure, they still have an online donation form: Visa, MasterCard, American Express. Though I'm sure it's a safe as any of them, you might feel better committing to a little volunteer time instead - call the 800 number for details.

This is a win-win site! -BG

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Air-Medical
How exciting it would be to perform medical procedures of critical importance in helicopters and planes. I was instantly drawn to a site about being a flight nurse. Air-Medical covers education requirements, archives a monthly newsletter about the profession, links resources and organizations, and has a classified section for job openings at Florida Hospital. The design isn't so brilliantly executed; in fact, it's rather bland, but the info is interesting.-BG

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Borderline Personalities
BPD is a form of mental illness marked by sudden rage and mood swings, self-destructive behavior, chaotic relationships, and the like. Here's a very thoughtful site that offers hope, information, and common sense for all concerned about the disorder. There are Internet resources - FAQs, mailing lists, and multiple Web pages - as well as a nicely annotated bibliography of lay and professional books on the subject. You can go to the archive of alt.support.personality to read more, or learn about the the AOL-specific folders and conferences (no links, though). It's maintained by two individuals who are providing a real service.-KW

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Lifelines Health Page
Lifelines is a fairly useful meta-site with lots of good links, some helpful tidbits, and a pleasantly light sales pitch. (The company makes various health maintenance products as an employee benefit program for other corporations.) Even knowing that, Lifelines offers a good library of annotated articles, regular newsletter,s and pointers to medical, nutrition, and fitness links. These links are wide-ranging: from alternative healing to the American Medical Association, computer-related health issues to sports medicine to the World Health Organization. This page alone (http://www.lifelines.com/medlnks.html) is a good resource.-KW

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Names Project
The "AIDS Quilt" is a huge AIDS education project that memorializes those who have died from the disease. This Web page (beautiful as it is valuable) for the Names Project, home of the Quilt, extends its educational value by offering statistics like these: 3,000 women are infected each day; 5 million *more* children will be infected by the year 2000; it's the leading cause of death for Americans aged 25-44. The Names project also produces traveling exhibits of portions of the quilt, now too large to be shown in full. (There will be a one-time display of the entire 33,000 panels in October 96 in Washington, D.C.) There's also information on making panels, related local events, and Names Project memorabilia.-KW

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