Kuromiya pointed out that Critical Path updates its site daily.
Nancy Marks, a community organizer for the AIDS Action Committee, is using the 'Net to encourage people to respond to public policy initiatives.
But Marks expressed some reservations about using the Internet to fight the spread of HIV and to treat those living with AIDS.
"I'm not clear yet that the use of the Internet...is of the greatest value," she said. "The problem with the Internet is once you...sign on, you cease to have any contact with me."
Likewise Geoff Eisen, the international data manager for the Harvard AIDS Institute, said he doubted that the Internet could be of much use in the fight against AIDS because it is inaccessible to so much of the world's population.
But James Marks, president of the New York AIDS action group The Body, pointed out in response that AIDS is now the leading killer of young American males--the very demographic group most likely to use the Internet.
Also on the panel were Lauren Ferguson, who runs the Harvard AIDS Institute's Web page, and moderator Richard Marlink, executive director of the Harvard AIDS Institute. --By Elizabeth T. Bangs