Go to the previous, next section.

Health

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration runs a database of health-information.

Telnet: fdabbs.fda.gov
Log in: bbs

You'll then be asked for your name and a password you want to use in the future. After that, type

topics

and hit enter. You'll see this:

   TOPICS       DESCRIPTION

*  NEWS         News releases
*  ENFORCE      Enforcement Report
*  APPROVALS    Drug and Device Product Approvals list
*  CDRH         Centers for Devices and Radiological Health Bulletins
*  BULLETIN     Text from Drug Bulletin
*  AIDS         Current Information on AIDS
*  CONSUMER     FDA Consumer magazine index and selected articles
*  SUBJ-REG     FDA Federal Register Summaries by Subject
*  ANSWERS      Summaries of FDA information
*  INDEX        Index of News Releases and Answers
*  DATE-REG     FDA Federal Register Summaries by Publication Date
*  CONGRESS     Text of Testimony at FDA Congressional Hearings
*  SPEECH       Speeches Given by FDA Commissioner and Deputy
*  VETNEWS      Veterinary Medicine News
*  MEETINGS     Upcoming FDA Meetings
*  IMPORT       Import Alerts
*  MANUAL       On-Line User's Manual

You'll be able to search these topics by key word or chronologically. It's probably a good idea, however, to capture a copy of the manual, first, because the way searching works on the system is a little odd. To capture a copy, type

manual

and hit enter. Then type

scan

and hit enter. You'll see this:

FOR LIST OF AVAILABLE TOPICS TYPE TOPICS
OR ENTER THE TOPIC YOU DESIRE ==>

   MANUAL
   BBSUSER
   08-OCT-91
1  BBS User Manual

At this point, turn on your own computer's screen-capture or logging function and hit your 1 key and then enter. The manual will begin to scroll on your screen, pausing every 24 lines.

Go to the previous, next section.