Talk:Delusional parasitosis

This is the discussion/talk page for: Delusional parasitosis.

Topics from 2006

Link to discussion board

I've removed the link to the morgellons discussion board, since it's a tiny non-notable board that only has the most tenuous connection to DP. If it were to go anywhere, it should go on the Morgellons page. If you want to put it back, please explain why. Herd of Swine 15:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Topics from 2007

A Scanner Darkly

--- someone should put something in here about "a scanner darkly". theres a long scene about this

There IS something in here already. It's been here for a long time, in fact. Dyanega 04:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism

The introduction and the "Presentation" section of this brief article appear to have been copied almost verbatim from the website of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis: http://delusion.ucdavis.edu/delusional.html -- Mukrkrgsj 03:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing that. I have removed the content. --Arcadian 14:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Fiction?

Is it really common practice for articles on diseases to list fictional examples from literature and popular culture? I'd like to remove this. Thatcher131 14:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like WP:TRIVIA. Per that page in the Manual of Style, such sections should be avoided. Iknowyourider (t c) 14:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but suspect it will be futile; new editors will almost certainly show up and re-add much of this material, I imagine. Dyanega 16:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Well; I'll poof it for now, then. Thatcher131 18:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

a type of infestation

I don't believe that this is NPOV, nor is it in the Morgellons article. The CDC calls Morgellons a skin condition. I am changing this to be consistent. Pez1103 21:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Thatcher131 21:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Just keep in mind this is an article about delusional parasitosis, not Morgellons. I added a mention of Morgellons since it's mentioned in the eMedicine article[1]:

Savely et al1 introduced the term morgellons disease to describe a type of infestation characterized by fibers attached to the skin. The entity appears to be little more than a new designation for DP. Koblenzer2 and Waddell and Burke3 have discussed the utility of the term, with Murase et al4 finding the term useful for building a therapeutic alliance with patients with DP. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently investigating Morgellon disease

Do we really need a paragraph with 7 references? (the articles as a whole only has six other references) Perhaps it could be simplified a little?

Herd of Swine 22:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Since there is a direct link to the Morgellons article, I would normally suggest a briefer mention. I don't object to the longer description if makes some editors more comfortable. Thatcher131 23:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Herd of Swine, your continual dedication to move this topic to match your personal debunking agenda is truly impressive. As you well know, the initial mention you inserted was biased. Additional text and reference was added to balance; then that was challenged by someone else. The only way to address the challenge was to add the existing reference set. If your initial edit had truly been neutral and not an attempt to insert your viewpoint, it would have been a shorter and simpler mention. I do not intend this as any offense to you; anyone who reviews the historical edits can draw their own conclusion. Since you invoked it, please do not complain about it. --Parsifal _Hello 07:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC) [re-edited my post to strike-through off-topic comments --Parsifal _Hello 00:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)]

PS... since you mention it, this article having only 6 other references is somewhat sparse. With your extensive knowledge on the topic of "Delusional parasitosis" (aside from the Morgellons aspect), I welcome you to add more references to improve this article. --Parsifal _Hello 07:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)ve.

It does not really need more references, it does perhaps need more content. The Hinkle article and the eMedicine entry provide a good overview of the subject and are both well referenced. I'll probably do some expansion based on them, eventually.

If seems you read nefarious debunking motivations into my every deed. I added the mention of Morgellons (both short and simple), [2], simply because of the mention in eMedicine (see above). eMedicine is included in the "Classification & external resources" box along with ICD-9, and it seems like a reasonable source. I paraphrased the original, and changed "The entity appears to be ..." to "Dermatologists generally consider this to be ..." to reduce what might be seen as a biased opinion. Herd of Swine 16:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't consider your motivations to be "nefarious"; I don't know what your motivations are. It's clear you have a bias on the topic of "Morgellons" and it is generally present in what you write on that topic. Also, you showed your bias again by complaining about the way this paragraph turned out after it went through the balancing process.

The paragraph you added was unbalanced. It said "Dermatologists generally consider..." and that's not the same as "Most, but not all, dermatologists consider..."; you omitted that there is enough question about the condition being separate from DP that there is ongoing research. The way you wrote it, it looked like just another name for DP.

You could have chosen to include a short entry that was not biased, but you did not; that's why it needed to be made NPOV. Even then, I did not say anything about you personally. I didn't mention your bias until you wrote on this talk page to complain about the references that were added. --Parsifal _Hello 19:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC) [re-edited my post to strike-through off-topic comments --Parsifal _Hello 00:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)]

All I did was suggest it could be simplified a little. And yes, "Dermatologists generally consider..." IS the same as "Most, but not all, dermatologists consider...". Like: "scientists generally consider the earth to be billions of years old". It's a statement of the prevailing option that had be accepted on the Morgellons page. Herd of Swine 22:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• "Generally consider..." is not the same as "Most, but not all, consider...". The former implies the lack of controversy. The latter acknowledges that it is not a settled matter and there are some who question it.
• the "age of the earth" comparison is a false analogy. That topic has been studied extensively for a hundred years so there, "generally considered..." is a fine description. In the situation with Morgellons, it's hardly been studied at all yet, so the analogy doesn't track.
• You wrote: It's a statement of the prevailing option that had be accepted on the Morgellons page.. That also a logical fallacy, a half-truth. That page does not state "generally considered.."' it says: "a majority of health professionals, including most dermatologists,..." and, that is followed by "Other health professionals don't acknowledge Morgellons disease or are reserving judgment ..." So, that's the information that was added to this article, to match the agreed upon NPOV version. --Parsifal _Hello 22:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

There is really no need for this discussion to get personal. Thatcher131 23:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right. Without retracting my logical arguments for neutrality, I apologize to Herd of Swine for any of my comments above that were personal in nature. --Parsifal _Hello 23:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Though I don't find either either Herd of Swine or Parsifal to be lacking in good faith, there are subtleties about 'generally considered' that deserve to be carefully tracked. I understand the point that Parsifal is trying to make, and I'm assuming he wants to keep whatever compromise was reached over at Morgellons to be in place here as well. EdJohnston 23:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's it precisely... Thanks. --Parsifal _Hello 00:07, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether the space given to Morgellons is appropriate

The paragraph on Morgellons (which is only five sentences) perks up an otherwise dry article. I would vote to keep this paragraph in its present form, with its six possibly-excessive references. Morgellons may be contentious and may not be a real disease but it is interesting, and the paragraph serves to focus the mind of the reader on the problem that the article is talking about. EdJohnston 17:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur with EdJohnston about keeping the paragraph. Maybe that little paragraph can spark larger improvements to the whole article. --Parsifal _Hello 19:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Topics from 2008

Retrofit topic-year headers

21-Aug-2008: I have grouped older topics above using headers "Topics from 2006" (etc.) to emphasize age of topics. Older topics might still apply, but using the tactic of yearly headers to note the age helps avoid rehashing old news, without archiving any ongoing issues. Also, new topics are more likely to be added to the bottom, not top. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Body Lice

Anyone remember the school age science books bout body lice? Microscopic, no anuses, all that jazz? Haven't seen anywhere bout this subject where doctors have ruled them out, basically whole lot of clinical diagnosis. Though some would be psycological, couldn't some be basic body lice? Even a genetic mutation in the lice causing them to grow larger? Maybe more active? etc...