First to the Panic Button

Swine-flu panic may be passé now,
but back before anyone knew what the scary new flu was going to
do—back before anyone really even knew that there was a
panic-worthy flu circulating in Mexico—a secretive start-up in
Kirkland called Veratect thought something was amiss.

On April 6, the company, which uses a combination of “proprietary
artificial intelligence systems” and standard online search tools to
scour the web for signs of brewing global calamity, spotted indications
of an unusual respiratory illness spreading in the Veracruz region of
Mexico. This was a full 18 days before the World Health Organization,
on April 24, would post its first public warning about the virus.

On April 16 and 17, according to Jessica Luhrs, a spokeswoman for
Veratect, the company sent “automated e-mail alerts” to the Centers for
Disease Control telling it about the illness—which suggests that
the CDC is among many federal agencies, non-governmental organizations,
and private companies that pay Veratect to give them early warnings
about everything from emerging diseases to civil unrest.

Luhrs would not specifically comment on much of the company’s
operations, saying information about its methods and clients is
proprietary. Still, she was able to fill in some of the early-detection
timeline: “On April 20 and thereafter, Veratect then worked to make
[our] reports available to the Emergency Operations Center and Global
Disease Detection Center at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention as well as to WHO, the International Federation of Red Cross
(IFRC), and several other state and foreign governments,” she wrote in
an e-mail. The company also launched a Twitter feed that has been
thoroughly chronicling the spread of swine flu and its attendant panic,
from Wisconsin (May 5: “Two new cases of influenza A [H1N1] confirmed
by CDC in Ozaukee and Sheboygan counties; five cases statewide”) to
Sudan (May 2: “15 Swine Farms Burned; Minister of Health Assures That
Country Is Free of Influenza A [H1N1]”).

How does Veratect, launched in 2007 and reportedly backed by
Benaroya Capital among other investors, plan to make money? By taking
credit when it spots an outbreak such as this one—which
encourages more paid subscribers—and continuing to use its
custom-designed search engine, multilingual analysts, and top-secret
web-stalking methods to keep a virtual eye on people, animals, and what
Luhrs cryptically described as “disease-related events.” Is Veratect
tracking every single whiny Facebook status update posted with the
words “sick” and “flu” in it? “Proprietary information,” Luhrs
replied.