Comment Policy

We encourage your comments on Mayo Clinic's various blogs, and hope you will join the discussions. We can't respond to every comment, particularly those that deal with individual medical cases and issues. We review comments before they're posted, and those that are off-topic or clearly promoting a commercial product generally won't make the cut. We also expect a basic level of civility; disagreements are fine, but mutual respect is a must, and profanity or abusive language are out-of-bounds.

That's the plain English version. Here it is in legal language:

By posting any comments, posts or other material on Mayo-sponsored blogs, you give Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research ("Mayo") the irrevocable right to reproduce, distribute, publish, display, edit, modify, create derivative works from, and otherwise use your submission for any purpose in any form and on any media. You also agree that you will not:

1. Post material that infringes on the rights of any third party, including intellectual property, privacy or publicity rights.
2. Post material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive, slanderous, hateful, or embarrassing to any other person or entity as determined by Mayo in its sole discretion.
3. Post advertisements or solicitations of business.
4. Post chain letters or pyramid schemes.
5. Impersonate another person.
6. Allow any other person or entity to use your identification for posting or viewing comments.
7. Post the same note more than once or "spam."

Mayo Clinic reserves the right (but is not obligated) to do any or all of the following:

1. Remove communications that are abusive, illegal or disruptive, or that otherwise fail to conform with these Terms and Conditions.
2. Terminate a user's access to the blog feature upon any breach of these Terms and Conditions.
3. Edit or delete any communications posted on the blog feature, regardless of whether such communications violate these standards.

Finally, you agree that you will indemnify Mayo against any damages, losses, liabilities, judgments, costs or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees and costs) arising out of a claim by a third party relating to any material you have posted.