Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine

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Merged Archive WikiProject Preclinical medicine: 1 Merged Archive WikiProject Clinical medicine: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 WikiProject Medicine Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171

Urolithin A

Urolithin A

Assessment and comments for this article and its Talk page. If basic-stage phytochemical research is published in Nature Medicine here, does that elevate it as MEDRS? --Zefr (talk) 23:59, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Nope. The quality of the journal publishing is just one factor that makes a source MEDRS-compliant. Primary studies (such as "Urolithin A induces mitophagy and prolongs lifespan in C. elegans and increases muscle function in rodents") are not really what we need for biomedical claims. Nor for that matter would it be a good idea to extrapolate studies in roundworms and rats in order to draw conclusions in other lifeforms. On the plus side, the research is indexed at pmid:27400265, and it is cited in other works such as PMC5054377, but my advice would be to wait for a sober review to do some analysis before trying to use it. There's likely to be just too much hype around the idea of using pomegranates to extend lifespans. --RexxS (talk) 00:34, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Do we actually want to make "biomedical claims" about this? Or can we give WP:DUE attention to this collection of research by saying something in a ==Research== section like "Some of the basic research around this compound has been focused on its role in mitochondria and muscle development" (or whatever that source says, when it's been reduced to plain English)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

agree best if mentioned in research--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:54, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Introducing myself

Hi, I'm at the Global Evidence Summit in Cape Town and have just created an account! I'd like to contribute to health information on wikipedia. Some years ago I wrote an editorial about Wikiprojects Medicine for the BMJ http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d3387 Look forward to working with you Lyndal Lyndalt (talk) 10:20, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Lyndalt:. Thanks for the message. I will leave you a note on your "talk" page with some more information about the Cochrane-Wikipedia project. I am looking forward to working with you. JenOttawa (talk) 12:46, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes welcome. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:32, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Bilateral cancer

I've proposed deletion of this article - rationale in the PROD - would appreciate your thoughts. (also hoping I did this properly - just followed the "PROD" template from TW) — soupvector (talk) 18:10, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

We need to wait until Sept 23rd to delete. But agree with deletion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:33, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I kind of wonder whether this seems worthless to physicians but extremely valuable to people who are trying to figure out whether their mother is going to die ("bilateral breast cancer" being a bad sign, generally). If, for easy math, we assume about 1.5 million new cases of breast cancer each year, and 1% are bilateral, then that's 150,000 women whose friends and families are going to want to know what this whole "bilateral" word means (and that's just for breast cancer).

So rather than thinking about whether it's an important "thing" biologically, what do you think we could do to make this information easy to find in Wikipedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

You seem to have started with the assumption that "bilateral breast cancer" is a bad sign, specifically (as opposed to, say, more than one focus in the same breast). What is the basis for that? Perhaps I misunderstand. I absolutely accept that the definition for "bilateral" should be available - would apply to bilateral broken leg, bilateral pneumothorax, bilateral stroke... do we need an extra article for each? (btw, is your response a veiled ad hominem rejection of the perspective offered?) — soupvector (talk) 02:33, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

It seems to me that the POV offered by people who already know what this word means in this context is that they don't think that people will be trying to find out what it means. But someone created that article last week, and I assume that it wasn't for a frivolous purpose like boosting the edit count. (The purpose might be because it's been listed for years at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Cancer dictionary.) I'm not convinced that having this separate article is the best way to deal with the information, but I believe that information needs to be somewhere in Wikipedia. Maybe it belongs in a glossary of cancer-related terms? Maybe a single sentence in Cancer? Maybe somewhere else? But somewhere, and ideally with this title redirecting there.

As to the example, I understand that a woman with bilateral breast cancer is about three-quarters as likely to survive long term compared to a woman with similar-grade unilateral breast cancer (which is commonly but not always single foci, of course). Other cancers will mostly be worse: I understand that bilateral ovarian cancer is correlated with metatases. I imagine that treating bilateral lung cancer could create some significant treatment problems, because there's only so much lung tissue that you can remove.

Most average, non-medical people react to any sort of diagnosis by trying to find out what all that medicalese means. Grandma comes back from the doctor's office with some papers, and they sit down with her papers and type each of the unfamiliar words into their favorite web search engine. They may not want to admit it to their doctors, but this is how a lot of people figure out what's going on. They will end up somewhere in their searches, and I'd kind of rather that they ended up here.

By the way, the PROD's out of process. User:Jd22292 already removed a prod once. So if we can't find a decent redirect/merge option, you will have to send it to AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

PROD removed - thanks for pointing that out. I discuss WP content with my patients, trainees, and colleagues - I appreciate its value and limitations. I don't think "bilateral condition X[i]" is a good template for articles where i = 1 to N, but let's see what happens - it's great to be pleasantly surprised. — soupvector (talk) 03:57, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, and why can't this currently tiny article simply be covered in the Cancer article, if not already covered there? Why do we need this one-sentence article? Yes, we can often expand tiny stubs, but stuff like this should be covered in the main article before being split off. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:10, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Never mind; I see that you stated, "Maybe a single sentence in Cancer?" Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I've 'boldly' inserted the entire contents of Bilateral cancer into a single sentence in Cancer#Definitions and made Bilateral cancer into a redirect to there. Let's see if that sticks. If not, there's always AfD. --RexxS (talk) 16:01, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Now reverted. Opinions welcome at Talk:Cancer #Bilateral cancer. --RexxS (talk) 00:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Chiropractic and other alternative medicine practices as "health care"?

Eyes and comments here. If one quackery practice is included, is the article on health care open to others? --Zefr (talk) 19:04, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

A few off-the-cuff thoughts:

• That article has mentioned Ayurveda and other forms of traditional medicine for years. What's so bad about chiropractic that we swallow these forms of quackery but strain at that form?
• How would you describe the current realities of health care in developing countries without mentioning "quackery"?
• How would you describe the economic issues without mentioning the multi-billion-dollar SCAM industry?
• How would you describe the history of European health care without including "quackery"?

Everything depends upon the exact sentence(s) in question, but I think that it's going to be necessary to mention the undisputed fact that alternative medicine exists (and costs money).

Also, I notice that you reverted any mention of optometry, and if that's part of your idea of "quackery", then we might need to spend some time coming to a shared understanding of what that word means. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

A few off-the-cuff replies:

• Ayurveda, homeopathy, etc. are mentioned in the body, but not the lead - what makes chiropractic so significant as a mode of health care that it needs to be listed in the lead alongside mainstream professions?
• What has quackery to do with the weight we give to chiropractic in the lead's list of health care provisions?
• We can describe the economic issues raised by the multi-billion-dollar SCAM industry without mentioning it in the lead.
• I would describe the history of European health care as a learning experience, in which quackery played a significant role, but I still don't think the history of European health care is vital to an understanding of present-day health care, nor that it is so key that it needs to be in the lead.

The sentence in question was a poorly thought-out 'laundry list' of every conceivable medical and pseudo-medical discipline. Not a good idea for the lead of such a top-level article as Health care.

I always thought optometry was the good deeds done by groups of women who weren't allowed to join the Freemasons, but I could be getting muddled there. Even so, do we really want to list in the lead every possible medical speciality? Would we then wish to quote Tom Lehrer: ... as sort of an educational feature at this point I thought I would acquaint you with some of the results of my recent researches into the career of the late doctor Samuel Gall, inventor of the gall-bladder. Which certainly ranks as one of the more important technological advances since the invention of the joy-buzzer and the dribble-glass. Doctor Gall's faith in his invention was so dramatically vindicated last year, as you no doubt recall, when, for the first time in history, in a nation-wide poll the gall-bladder was voted among the top ten organs." And then why stop with just the top ten? What next - manicurists? --RexxS (talk) 16:24, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Optometrists are the licensed professionals with a doctorate who spend all day telling people that they need new glasses. I suppose that one could make a case for manicurists (some elderly and disabled people are unable to cut their toenails, which makes walking painful), but nobody does, so I don't think that we need to go down that slippery slope yet.

If the problem was really "in the lead", then I'd have expected the editors to move that information to a different part of the article. Wholesale blanking suggests that the editor who blanked it does not want it mentioned at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:22, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

First, I think that's a narrow view of the role optometrists play in total eyecare. Ophthalmologists would say that well-equipped, well-trained optometrists are essential for screening, detection, and referrals of more serious vision problems than just supplying glasses, particularly for seniors. Second, the lede addresses mainstream, evidence-based areas that are within the connected network of a total health care system, with the quackery practices removed from the article for lack of sources showing they are part of a network. Quackery and fringe practices - chiropractic, naturopathy, acupuncture, herbalism, etc. - tend to take their roles as singular endpoints, rather than being referrals or partners in a network for total care. It's possible we could have a section on quackery practices under 'Related sectors' here, particularly for less-developed world regions, but the challenge is finding good sources showing such practices are effective and perceived by respected health organizations as useful. --Zefr (talk) 15:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, do the telephone sanitisers need someone to speak up for them here too? There are quite a few occupations where incompetence or inaction would pose health and safety risks (to clients or the public) yet are minimally regulated rather than recognised professions. Food handlers, heavy equipment operators, janitors, firefighters, police, and yes even manicurists all fall into this group. It's not just the academic difficulty of admission to the traditional self-regulated professions which defines them. Sheldon Cooper's discipline isn't about to be regarded as a profession any time soon. Perhaps we need a different collective term for these relatively-easy-but-still-risky jobs. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:07, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Zrii

• Draft:Zrii (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

A new alternative medicine marketting company draft. —PaleoNeonate – 22:46, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Fairly typically for undisclosed paid promotional editing. Have blocked the accounts in question until the TOU are followed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

This aricle William F. Farley also likely needs clean up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Merger proposal: Talk:Oropharyngeal cancer#Merger proposal

Head neck overview

please comment. Jytdog (talk) 00:04, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:45, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should the WP:TALK guideline discourage interleaving?

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#RfC: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? #2. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Why on Earth would you think that's an RFC of particular interest to WikiProject Medicine? Please try wp:VPP instead rather than posting this everywhere.LeadSongDog come howl! 19:11, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

As a one of the three most active projects I see how we may be interested in this. I have added my thoughts. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Merge duplicate

Any thoughts about this merge? It appears the duplicate article still carries the sandbox edits in it's history. I would have thought it would be better to take the duplicate and merge with the original and tidy up. CV9933 (talk) 10:58, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

yes agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:51, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Merge done. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:42, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Journal of Dietary Supplements

If a journal does not have the impact factor, this journal is not "reputable medical journal" (WP:MEDRS)? Even if it is include in the Index medicus (MEDLINE)? Or am I wrong? --Мит Сколов (talk) 12:23, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

This criteria would seem to imply any recently created journal is not a reliable source. This seems not ideal to me. If Elsevier or Springer or PLoS start a new journal with stringent editing standards I think it would be reliable despite not having an impact factor (yet). Sizeofint (talk) 00:46, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

That said, I think the lack of an impact factor is a red flag to investigate further. Sizeofint (talk) 00:46, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

According to that article, this journal has been around since 1996 and is published by Taylor & Francis, a reputable publisher as far as I know. ResearchGate gives it an impact factor of ~1 which isn't horrible [1]. Sizeofint (talk) 00:51, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Given the small number of articles published per year – I counted just 50 articles spread across six issues in 2016; I see only 17 articles in four issues for 2015 – I would take the RG impact factor numbers with a large grain of salt. Having (or not having) a single moderately-widely cited paper would be sufficient to swing a calculated impact factor wildly up or down. (The relatively low and rather uneven output of this journal may be a reason why Clarivate doesn't even calculate an impact factor for them.) The vast majority of articles could well never be cited (beyond self-cites) or even read.

The scope of the journal encompasses a lot of territory frequently infringed by woo promoters, and would require a diligent editorial staff and careful peer reviewers to effectively police. Unfortunately, the top scientific entry on the journal's homepage is to Emerging Adjuvant Therapy for Cancer: Propolis and its Constituents, which has a wildly-overblown abstract about the miraculous healing properties of bee glue:

"...Its biological effects, which range from antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, dermatoprotective, anti-allergic, laxative and immunomodulatory to anticancer, have been validated. Propolis has shown efficacy against brain, head and neck, skin, breast, liver, pancreas, kidney, bladder, prostate, colon and blood cancers...."

On the other hand, right next to it we have An Evidence-Based Systematic Review of Goji (Lycium spp.) by the Natural Standard Research Collaboration, which offers

"An evidence-based systematic review of goji (Lycium spp.) by the Natural Standard Research Collaboration consolidates the safety and efficacy data available in the scientific literature using a validated, reproducible grading rationale. This article includes written and statistical analysis of clinical trials, plus a compilation of expert opinion, folkloric precedent, history, pharmacology, kinetics/dynamics, interactions, adverse effects, toxicology, and dosing."

(The Natural Standard Research Collaboration, as near as I can tell, is small but reputable and associated with Edzard Ernst.)

So altogether the journal's a mixed bag. I would be very careful about which articles I cited from it, and reluctant to use any content from articles without independent indicia of reliability. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Cochrane switcheroo

I thought WPMED might find this Cochrane review interesting, because: (1) as I note in a PubMed Commons comment there, it's a revised set of conclusions for a Cochrane review published earlier this year under the same title and authors but a different PubMed record; (2) if you go to the prior record and scroll down, you'll see from the PubMed Commons comments (including mine) that this was a highly controversial report. Sometimes, "high quality sources"... aren't. — soupvector (talk) 01:57, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Yay!! We had discussed that a bit when it came out, here. but YAY!! So good that they had the guts to step away from that. And thank you for interlinking them on pubmed. That is a huge service that they should have done themselves. Jytdog (talk) 02:37, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree the new conclusions are an improvement on the prior. I think much of the world was left scratching their heads after the first one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this!JenOttawa (talk) 01:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

IMO we are losing Wikipedia to undisclosed paid editors

Thankfully most paid editors are still obvious like this

• User:Bu11man7 who created an article copied and pasted from here which was Methylated Septin 9 DNA blood test

But they make a fair point here regarding:

• AlloMap_molecular_expression_testing
• Multitarget_stool_DNA_screening_test
• Oncotype_DX

Because we are getting overrun by spam, they do not see why they cannot add their spam as well :-(

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:15, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

• What's the problem here?

• Poor article quality

or

• "Fruit of the poisoned tree"

There is an increasing incidence, agreed, of paid editing and undisclosed paid editing. There are always questions of article quality. Yet, despite the initial gut reaction, I can't see so much of an inherent problem with paid editing. None of us are trusted as sources here: everything added needs to be sourced in a way that's independently verifiable. It doesn't matter whether additions come from "good faith" editors or from paid editors: are their edits any good?

We have an article quality problem. I don't see paid editors significantly changing this. Maybe competent paid editors are to be encouraged? We do have a number of incompetent, secretive and usually quite obvious paid editors around too, and most of those are quite obviously the low budget end of the market.

We have a bias problem too. But even that is greater from the volunteer zealots, rather than the professional advocates.

I think we need to focus less on the horror of editors being paid, more on quality generally, and more on efficiently working as a collaborative team. The amount of sniping at other good editors from those self-appointed "senior editors" in power (in their own mind at least) is far more of a problem than UPE. Also it makes tasks like SPI uselessly inefficient, when that's bunged up more with personal sniping than exposing real sock editors pushing an agenda for hire. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:38, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

The short answer is that paid editing (or advocacy of any kind) corrupts a consensus-based process. WP:COINOTBIAS. More at WP:CONSENSUS. Alexbrn (talk) 18:48, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

The question of what harms WP more, unpaid advocacy or paid advocacy, is unanswerable and a waste of time. They both harm Wikipedia. People who spend time maintaining articles clean up after both kinds. Jytdog (talk) 19:14, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

• Doc James, I get that argument a lot. Bad content becomes a model and justification for more of the same. Jytdog (talk) 19:19, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
  • In this example the company in question copied from their press releases into Wikipedia because they see other companies copying from their press releases into Wikipedia.
  • The article quality is exceedingly poor and promotional as is typically. We would not be here if paid editors created good content. They simply do not. I do not think I have seen a competent undisclosed paid editor every. And by far the majority of disclosed paid editors are also not competent and a greater harm than benefit. Overall disclosed paid editing is an overall harm and paid editing, taking over all, is a serious harm.
  • CU is already verging on useless when it comes to experience / professional paid editors as it only picks them up when they become lazy. Saying that the real problem is "senior editors" is basically the saying the volunteers who have built up Wikipedia and put it in the top ten of Google hits should now simply hand it over to those who want to make a profit off the site.
  • I am not there yet. Wikipedia officially does not accept advertising, we need to enforce this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:57, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Additional details:

This person added "SEPT9 DNA was listed along with the recommended Grade A screening tests in the United States Preventive Task Force (USPSTF) Colorectal Cancer Screening (2016)."

The actual source says "Although a serology test to detect methylated SEPT9 DNA was included in the systematic evidence review, this screening method currently has limited evidence evaluating its use (a single published test characteristic study met inclusion criteria, which found it had a sensitivity to detect colorectal cancer of <50%).1 It is therefore not included in this table."[2]

This is a serious misrepresentation of the source and of a US government position. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:42, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Just cleaned up another one.[3] Sources were all primary or not about the subject in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:14, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

"I do not think I have seen a competent undisclosed paid editor ever"

How would you even know?

(This kind of discussion always reminds of something that I think User:MastCell first commented on: if you see a well-written contribution from a new account, it's probably a copyright violation. It's very unusual for a newbie to get everything right.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:29, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

We discover undisclosed paid editors by means other than their contributes such as Fiverr or Upworks. And when we discover them by those methods we find that invariable the articles they are creating are poor quality. Another way we discover paid editors is via SPIs and there to they are poor quality and spammy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:11, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Even the copyvios, although textually well written, are liable to be rife with formatting errors. Also, even where a paid editor does those things well, they are going to be an SPA, or have at most a very limited number of topics that they address. bd2412 T 00:38, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Last I heard, ~70% of registered editors who make one edit never come back on a second day. So practically everyone has "at most a very limited number of topics that they address". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

• "I do not think I have seen a competent undisclosed paid editor ever"

Then find it and remedy it because of their incompetence, which should be obvious. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Andy Dingley — Adding yet another task to the plate of the already low number of medical editors. We are only a handful who are truly active, and we all have limited time. I'm tired of how people who have no idea what they are talking about come here and bicker...

The fact that you are alone as a non-regular in taking a position against the rest of the community who actually edit medical articles should be enough to tell you that you don't really grasp the issue at hand. Carl Fredrik ^talk 12:50, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

You might get to tell me about "workload" when you get >100k edits

Nor is medicine a special case. UPE affects all of WP. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:53, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

So, this is exactly the problem. Wasteful automated edits, such as most who perform over 100k edits make are not going to help this issue. As for editors above 100k in medicine, there are either 3 or 4 in total (Arcadian, SandyGeorgia... maybe someone else), and only 1 who is active now: Doc James.

Medicine is a special case, and this would be obvious if you weren't so ignorant of our policies and guidelines, such as WP:MEDRS.

Other topic areas are absolutely under fire from UPD, however, medicine is especially susceptible because of the amount of money that goes into lobbying and marketing things that are not best practice. I suggest you read: Jytdog's excellent essay Wikipedia:Why MEDRS?, especially the section A lot of people have strong opinions about health-related matters. Carl Fredrik ^talk 13:00, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Wanted to emphasise CFCF's point, excellently illustrated by the fact that some software or editor somewhere thanked me for being in the top 200 medical editors. I have an interest, but am most emphatically not a medical editor. -Roxy the dog. bark 13:23, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

That is what some of use are working to do User:Andy Dingley, we are trying to solve the problem at its source so that less edits are required. We need to put in place measures to limit activities by those not here to build a high quality and neutral encyclopedia. Should we remove rules against socking because we have a non perfect ability to enforce it? Should we say socking for any reason is perfectly fine because we should just look at the edits by said socks and not whether or not they are a sock? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:47, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

If we are to create more stringent "measures to limit activities by those not here to build a high quality and neutral encyclopedia", we should tighten the editing capability by having edit page code to screen for socks and encourage user registration or temporarily embargo an edit until review. In most cases, socks do not engage productively on Talk pages or follow guides like MEDRS. --Zefr (talk) 15:39, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Zefr makes some good points for consideration...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:50, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:ACTRIAL has started a few weeks ago. We have pending changes but the software is slow and thus why I do not use it much. But agree Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:32, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia's effects on science

This research presentation might interest some of you: youtu.be/VR5JwqyVGSk?t=1614 (Yes, you're going to have to copy that. The "URL shortener" is on the blacklist, and I don't know any other way to get the relevant timestamp in the URL.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Or this link [4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Most of this is about scientists reading Wikipedia articles but not citing it.

Two quick details that will interest editors:

• Journals with below-median impact factors are more likely to plagiarize Wikipedia's text (but it's still very uncommon).
• Citing a scientific paper in Wikipedia does not seem to change the rate at which it's cited in the literature. (So REFSPAM is a waste of time.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Citing a scientific paper (or any other source, particularly if it's online) on Wikipedia does have a measurable effect on the number of readers of whatever's being cited, even if people don't go on to cite it elsewhere. (Whether this is through people directly following links from the reference section, or through links on Wikipedia being used by PageRank to push the source higher up search results, I leave as an exercise for someone who actually gets paid to investigate these things.) The spammers can rest easy in their beds. ‑ Iridescent 20:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Refspam is unfortunately not a waste of time for some folks trying to get a job, to get tenure, or to stroke their ego (Look--I'm cited in Wikipedia. I'm somebody!). See, for instance, people taking this seriously in Are Wikipedia Citations Important Evidence of the Impact of Scholarly Articles and Books?. --Mark viking (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Two things: First, that's what this research project found, so if you think they're they're wrong, then User:DarTar can put you in touch with the researcher, and you can figure out what the data says. Second, when you reply to a discussion with mixed list formatting, it's <whatever the other guy wrote> followed by <your choice of additional punctuation>. The beginning of your line needs to exactly match whatever comes before it. Following ::* with :::* is always wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

      Did I say something to offend you? If so, it was not intended and please accept my apologies. I never said the study or your assertions were wrong. I think both studies probably have some truth to them. Even if WP citations don't alter literature citation rates, some people consider WP citations themselves as an adjunct to literature citations and a useful proxy for the educational or societal impact of an academic's research for the purposes of hiring, tenure, etc. Thanks for trying to fix my formatting typo, but what I intended was ::*:, as my reply was not semantically part of a bulleted list. --Mark viking (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

• I've been calling out refspammers on their talk pages, like this User_talk:Daviesw#Use_of_Wikipedia_for_self-promotion Jytdog (talk) 21:24, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Appreciate it as always User:Jytdog
  • Many "experts" are hear just to promote themselves :-( Not as bad of an issue as undisclosed paid promotional editing, but still not good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Notification of discussion on WP:FTN

Medicinal Plant garden

Some people here might be interested in Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Medicinal plants. (Ignore the venue as it's not really a fringe theory discussion per se, but primarily a discussion on whether separate articles on Medicinal plants and Herbalism is either viable or desirable.) ‑ Iridescent 20:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

If this is really a WP:GA then we might as well all give up hope. Alexbrn (talk) 21:05, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

yep--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:35, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Manipulation under anesthesia

• Manipulation under anesthesia (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Not a new article, but under recent changes, with some (perhaps outdated) complaints on the talk page about chiropractic vs osteopathy weight, more eyes always welcome. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 03:17, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

some additional sources could be added[5]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:15, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

The article requires cleanup and a possible merge to Spinal_manipulation#Assistance_of_medication_or_anesthesia. First, all the MEDRS violations need to be removed and then start the cleanup process. QuackGuru (talk) 14:32, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

List of youngest birth fathers

Trimmed a bunch of really poorly source items from here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:56, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

might be useful to expand the lede to this article/list[6]...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:13, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Noting that I started discussion section about it at Talk:List of youngest birth fathers#Existence of this article. Permalink is here. I'm really not seeing why this article exists other than to serve as the male version of List of youngest birth mothers. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:03, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Traveling with a mental health condition

If you know a bit about the practical side of a mental health condition, then please consider taking a break to read the new guide about voy:Travelling with a mental health condition. Feel free to add your advice for travellers. If you're not familiar with the travel guide's standards, then voy:Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians explains it all pretty well. Wikivoyage is a friendly, low-drama kind of place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

thanks for post WAID--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:17, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Potential new articles log

Hello again. This post contains multiple questions so I have numbered them.

1. Does anyone currently use these: User:AlexNewArtBot#Biology_and_medicine (specifically, User:AlexNewArtBot/MedicineSearchResult or User:InceptionBot/NewPageSearch/Medicine/log which are filled using articles matching the regexp patterns at User:AlexNewArtBot/Medicine?
2. Has a better tool replaced it? I'm wondering because the only WikiProject Medicine page I saw linking to it (other than archives) (User:AlexNewArtBot/MedicineSearchResult) appears to be Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Tasks (which itself, or part of it is reported to be transcluded at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Tools, which is what the main project's menu links to (but I still failed to see the link in the latter, interestingly)).
3. If this is still considered useful, perhaps links to these could be made more prominent (or the results transcluded on a more prominent page)?
4. I'm wondering if the project would also be interested in tracking alternative medicine using this tool. Various reports I have made here were as a result of pages reported by the WikiProject Skepticism filters which includes some alternate medicine terms (User:AlexNewArtBot/Skepticism). While that project also deals with other fringe topics and pseudoscience, it would be possible to create a rules list specific and specialized to finding new articles related to alternate medicine (alternatively, it would be possible to add related terms to the existing main medicine rules). Of course, this also depends on if the project is interested in tracking new alternative medicine article creations.

Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 09:04, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

tracking alternative medicine using this tool... might be useful, though you'd need more opinions--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:49, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I have used those lists in the past, but not for more than a year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:11, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Rajesh Shah

This article about a homeopath has seen its fair share of deletion discussions and controversial editing. The article contains several unsourced claims and other possibly controversial medical statements, that are solely based on Shah's own research and publications. It would be great, if an interested topic expert could look through the article to evaluate its claims and the used sources. GermanJoe (talk) 20:27, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I have AfD'd it with a request to salt. Alexbrn (talk) 05:47, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Anita Madnani

• Draft:Anita Madnani (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Recent altmed BLP draft: "color therapist, homeopathic practitioner and a motivational speaker". —PaleoNeonate – 07:22, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

barely meets Wikipedia:Notability--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:29, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Link to the site "drug-key"

Is anyone familiar with this site? I just noticed that an editor added it as an external link to one of the articles. http://www.drugskey.com/gabapin-nt-tablet-uses-side-effects-interactions-dosage/

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gabapentin&type=revision&diff=802353199&oldid=801462474

Thanks, JenOttawa (talk) 17:01, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Sets off a few warning alarms: "The tablet shows its effectiveness in a period of one week and one month", "Gabapin Nt Tablet can be interacted with the following drugs", "Keep the medicines reach out of children". So a bit short on proofreading. The page was created on 29 September 2016, so it's rather new, but old enough for someone to have caught the typos if it was well used. The publisher points to some messed-up facebook page. The generator is "WordPress 4.7.3". All of it is on http: rather than a secure protocol. Taken together, it doesn't inspire me to view it as a site that has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" as WP:RS would wish us to use. --RexxS (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

User:JenOttawa good catch. Typical spamming by a user with a COI. Delete and warn. If continues let me know. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback User: Doc James and User: RexxS. Was reverted by another dedicated editor a few hrs later. I enjoy learning and being part of this community. JenOttawa (talk) 14:13, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red: October focus on healthcare

		Welcome to Women in Red's October 2017 worldwide online editathons. New: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/57|"Women and disability"]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/58|"Healthcare"]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/59|"Geofocus on the Nordic countries"]] Continuing: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/00|#1day1woman Global Initiative]] Begin preparing for November's big event: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest|Women World Contest]]
		(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 18:39, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

good info, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:38, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

MACI and Maci

Hi all! Does anyone have a clue whether MACI and Maci (medical treatment) might not perchance be about the same thing? Their unpronounceably long names (when not abbreviated) are different but the topics look suspiciously similar. – Uanfala 18:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

And than we have

• Autologous matrix-induced chondrogenesis
• Autologous chondrocyte implantation
• Knee cartilage replacement therapy
• Microfracture surgery

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:46, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Medical identification tags

Can anyone get a photo of a typical/metal medical alert bracelet for Medical identification tag? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Note: If finding one of a common MedicAlert one, it could serve for both . I have searched on commons without success. —PaleoNeonate – 06:15, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

We're a pretty big group. I figure that there's got to be someone here who owns such a tag, or who has a friend or family member who wouldn't mind a quick snapshot of theirs (the non-personally-identifying parts, please). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:07, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I have a friend who has a bracelet, so I've photographed that and uploaded three images to Commons. It's really hard to stop the light from reflecting and bleaching out part of the engraving, but these are hopefully readable at a useable size:

See what you think. --RexxS (talk) 17:37, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added the first to Medical identification tag.

I've also checked the refs, and 100% were either links to websites selling these or obviously unreliable (e.g., the link to an Amazon product review by someone claiming to be a nurse), so I've removed them all. The content itself doesn't look wrong or promotional, but now it needs WP:Independent sources. User:Bluerasberry, do you know whether Consumer Reports or a similar independent group has written anything about this subject? I don't realistically expect it to be a hot topic in biomedical research. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Answer: Yes, they did: PMID 27197313. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:34, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Novel substance use disorders?

Alxlopz1999 has created several new pages on substance use disorders. Are these actually diagnosable conditions?

• Sedative, hypnotic, or anxiolytic use disorder
• Phencyclidine use disorder
• Other hallucinogen use disorder

Sizeofint (talk) 06:42, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, they are categories taken from the DSM-5. But the articles don't even say that -- I suspect they were created for the purpose of advertising a particular web site (which is not a WP:MEDRS source). Looie496 (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

And the website currently does not appear to work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:02, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

It does, but not when accessed using those links. Looie496 (talk) 00:18, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Given the small amount of content, should we redirect to substance use disorder? Sizeofint (talk) 05:51, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes I think that is the best approach Sizeofint.Charlotte135 (talk) 08:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)