Talk:Microcephaly

What does two standard deviations below average mean? For us stupid people

"head circumfrance more than two standard deviations smaller than average for the person's age and sex." What is it to be two standard deviations below average? This isn't informative without telling us the average head size. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.41.210.245 (talk) 20:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Is this the same condition as Micrencephaly ? Is a merge required. GameKeeper 15:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I changed "gender" to "sex" because gender is often used now as a social construction of identity, versus the strictly biological significance of sex. aron 71.198.76.26 05:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

To Mr./Ms. 71.198.76.26 - Sex is derived from physical characteristics. Gender from social constructs. In the context of this article, sex is appropriate as the patient's mental state has little to do with the circumference of their head. I would have reverted your edit if someone had not already done so.

You would have been foolish to do so since 71.198.76.26 is saying the same thing you are with greater subtlty. And the edit was not reverted. Paul B 15:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

H. floresiensis, not microcephalic human

Current evidence suggests that Homo floresiensis was NOT microcephalic, and for that matter, NOT human. Although a section about the now largely resolved debate might be warranted in this article, I have deleted the paragraph previously in this article claiming unequivocally that H. floresiensis was microcephalic. I have seen pictures comparing the different brain sizes, and they are very convincing. A microcephalic brain looks nothing like a H. floresiensis brain, and is more similar to that of H. erectus.

Homo_floresiensis#Evidence_against_microcephaly —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philolexica (talk • contribs) 05:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Diagnostic criteria

Are there any statistical data for skull circumference in adults (in particular communities) that would help determine whether someone who did not have a set of measurements plotted on a growth chart in childhood should be regarded as microcephalic? NRPanikker 16:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Definitions?

It seems to me that the same word is defined two different ways on this page, and it's confusing... I don't know enough about it to fix it, though. Anyone? Omgitsmonica 03:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Zip the Pinhead

On Zip the Pinhead's page it states several times that he was not microcephalic, though he was sometimes incorrectly thought to be. I'm going to remove him from the list of famous microcephalics, unless anyone has any objections. Shralk (talk) 06:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Current last sentence of first section

Suggest that mentioning a term to be discouraged actually preserves if not encourages it. 212.84.106.191 (talk) 11:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Assertion of highest incidence rate in Pakistan

I am deleting the sentence "Islamic State of Pakistan has the highest occurrence of Microcephaly in Asia and Africa", as this should be backed by comprehensive scientific study of prevalent rates in countries of Asia and Africa. No such reference is included.

Microcephalic individuals occur in every society as they do in Pakistan. In Pakistan they are unusually more visible to public for reason explained below.

In rural areas of Pakistan there is superstitious culture (which has no origin in Islam) of leaving such children at a certain shrine in Punjab, being afraid of superstition that not doing so would make their forthcoming children also Microcephalic. From that shrine they are adopted by professional begging syndicates, who exploit their unusual disability to attract sympathy for begging. These syndicates take them for begging throughout their lives to different areas across Pakistan on rotational basis like once or twice a year in a given area for maximum begging revenues. This forced 'wide-coverage-begging' makes them highly visible to public in Pakistan. That higher visibility to public does not necessarily mean that Pakistan has higher incidence rate of Microcephaly, unless found by scientific study comparing different countries.

One of the reference of this same article states that there may be 1000 Microcephalic individuals in Punjab. If that is accurate (and the source acknowledges it may not be), with 82 million population of Punjab this translates to incidence rate of 1 per 820,000.

Also, whoever had wrote this sentence, next time you spew your venom against Islam or Pakistan, do know it is not "Islamic State of Pakistan”, it is "Islamic ***Republic*** of Pakistan". Mnyaseen (talk) 04:19, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Also modifying following sentences,,,

'The slur "chua" (Urdu for rat) is commonly used against them in the Islamic state' (religiously/racially motivated stereotyping).

'the Pakistani government bans them from entering numerous places[1]' (even per referred source government bans people leaving Microcephalic individuals at that particular shrine to break the begging syndicates exploiting them) Mnyaseen (talk) 05:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Mental capacity?

Are microcephalics of less than normal IQ in every single case? Geo Swan (talk) 16:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Exaggeration

The following line under the 'other' heading is not supported by the reference: "After the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a large percentage of women who had been pregnant at the time gave birth to children with microcephaly." The reference merely states that SOME of the women pregnant at the time of the dropping of the bomb gave birth to babies with micocephaly, not that a large number or large percentage gave birth to children with the disorder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.84.64.106 (talk) 21:35, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Image ist problematic

In my opinion, choosing an image of an african boy to illustrate microcephaly tends to be racist, because it reminds of 19th century "scientific" discussions saying that africans have smaller brains than europeans. I propose to change it. Maralui (talk) 09:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

If i get good picture under free license i will try to replace it. -- Dr meetsingh  Talk  17:26, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done Dr meetsingh  Talk  19:22, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Conflict over Incidence of Microcephaly in in utero Hiroshima fetuses, &.

Paragraph disputing the 'large percentage' of post-Hiroshima microcephalic births directly contradicts source above. Furthermore, said paragraph is poorly written, clearly agenda-driven and is otherwise suspect.50.10.99.70 (talk) 19:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Microcefalia.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Microcefalia.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests April 2012 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Microcefalia.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 12:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

File:Kokuvi with microcephaly at the Volta School for the Mentally Challenged.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Kokuvi with microcephaly at the Volta School for the Mentally Challenged.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests January 2012 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Kokuvi with microcephaly at the Volta School for the Mentally Challenged.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 12:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Lack of Detail in this Article

Folks, this article sucks. There is a lack of detail. Several terms such as 'later in life' are undefined, there is very little detail on how the problem would imact sufferers in their daily lives, there is mention that survivability is low, but no data and no as ranges given. In other words the article is a sorry example of what is too often wrong with Wikipedia. You have to add more detail, along with the appropriate citations. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 07:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)