We welcome the series of articles on rare pulmonary disorders which started in the March 1999 issue of Thorax. In the introduction to the series Tattersfield and Du Bois¹ describe the frustrations felt by patients unable to obtain information about their rare pulmonary condition from clinicians with little or no experience of that disorder. The isolation of such patients is emphasised when they are unable to share their experiences with others diagnosed with the same disorder. Whilst we appreciate that this is true for many patients, we would draw attention to the massive range of information on rare pulmonary disorders available to both patients and doctors via the Internet. There are over three million UK subscribers to the Internet currently and, with the advent of digital television, this number will rise exponentially over the next few years. The problem then facing the patient (and clinician) is too much information. For . . . [Full text of this article]