DISCLAIMER

The Partners Infectious Disease Images web site is intended to present images of interesting and instructive Infectious Disease cases to health care professionals for educational purposes. Registration is required and is available only for healthcare professionals. Of note, some of the images are of a graphic and sensitive nature, and therefore are not intended for a general audience.

The information and images presented have been contributed by the faculty and fellows of the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) of the Partners HealthCare System (Partners), unless otherwise specified.

This site is not an attempt to practice medicine or provide specific medical advice and should not be used to make a diagnosis or to replace or overrule a qualified health care provider's judgment. Nor should users rely upon this web site if they might need emergency medical treatment. We strongly encourage users to consult with a qualified health care professional for answers to personal questions or individual cases.

You assume full responsibility for using the information on this site, and you understand and agree that Partners and its affiliates, including MGH and BWH, are not responsible or liable for any claim, loss, or damage resulting from its use by you or any user. While we try to keep the information on the site as accurate as possible, we disclaim any warranty concerning its accuracy, timeliness, and completeness, and any other warranty, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. MGH and BWH also do not warrant that access to the site will be error- or virus-free.

We provide access to other web sites for your convenience. MGH and BWH are not responsible for the availability, accuracy, or content of those external sites, nor do they endorse them.

PRIVACY POLICY

We respect your privacy interests and so operate this site by these principles: To use this site, you must register, which requires providing limited identifiable information as indicated in the registration form, but otherwise you may use the site without providing personally identifiable information. We have taken reasonable steps to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of personally identifiable information that you may provide. These steps include, for example, restricting access to registration information. You should understand, however, that electronic transmissions via the Internet are not necessarily secure from interception and so we cannot guarantee the security or confidentiality of such transmissions.

The web server of the Partners Infectious Disease Images web site collects and saves the default information customarily logged by World Wide Web server software. Our logs contain the following information for each request: date and time, originating IP address and domain name (the unique address assigned to your Internet service provider's computer that connects to the Internet), object requested, and completion status of the request. We use these logs to help improve our service by evaluating the "traffic" to our site in terms of number of unique visitors, level of demand, most popular page requests, and types of errors.

These logs may be kept for an indefinite amount of time, used at any time and in any way necessary to prevent security breaches and to ensure the integrity of the data on our servers.

Please note that if you request that the site remember your e-mail address, we will use "cookies" (small files stored on your computer's hard drive that are used to track personal information) to do so. We use this information to increase the ease of your use of the web site. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations or other facially valid legal processes or requirements, we will not share any personally identifiable information we receive from users with any parties outside of Partners.

If you need to change your registration information or to report any problems with this site, please contact us at, IDimages@partners.org. By choosing to use the Partners Infectious Disease Images web site, you acknowledge and agree to the terms of this Disclaimer, our Privacy Policy, and Copyright. We encourage you to read them. We reserve the right to modify these terms and policies and recommend that you periodically review them.

COPYRIGHT 2002 - 2008

Material on the Partners Infectious Disease Images web site is protected by copyright law. Unless otherwise stated, users may print or download information from this site for personal, non-commercial use only, provided they identify the source of the material and include a statement that the materials are protected by copyright law. Otherwise reprinting or reproducing any document in whole or in part is prohibited, unless prior written consent is obtained from the copyright owner.

Material provided by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) from the IDSA Annual Meetings is marked accordingly, used with permission, and protected by copyright law. Unless otherwise stated, users may print or download information this information for personal, non-commercial use only, provided they identify the source of the material and include a statement that the materials are protected by copyright law. Otherwise reprinting or reproducing any document in whole or in part is prohibited, unless prior written consent is obtained from the copyright owner.