Talk:Morgellons

NPOV dispute

There is a strong bias presented throughout the whole article.

for instance: "...is a condition in which people have the delusional belief that they are infested with disease-causing agents described as things like insects, parasites, hairs or fibers, while in reality no such things are present, or are present only through benign causes, such as a piece of thread falling onto the skin.[1]" [1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons#cite_note-Freudenmann-1

This is cherrypicked information, an opinion, in fact.

The second reference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons#cite_note-Schulte-2), published 1 year AFTER the publication of the first reference, explicitly proclaims that no conclusions have been reached:

"So, is Morgellons real? Or is it a delusion? The CDC won't say right now, for fear that releasing information might jeopardize the study's publication. Mark Eberhard, director of the CDC's division of parasitic diseases, said, "We were very clear from the outset that no one study, not even this one, would likely provide the whole answer."

Symphanticade (talk) 03:08, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I suggest you read the archives. Dbrodbeck (talk) 03:47, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Er, reference [1] (Freudanmann and Lepping) was published in October 2009, whereas reference [2] was published in January 2008. Reference [1] was published nearly two years after reference [2], not before. (And in any case, Ref [1] is a review article from a highly-regarded, highly-cited medical journal; Ref [2] is a column from the Washington Post, written by an author with no obvious relevant skills, knowledge, or credentials.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:41, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Just to say I feel it is strongly WP:POV, said this long ago. The thing is that it doesn't mention the one remaining scientific hypothesis that is still being investigated - that it is caused by spirochetes. It mentions biological warfare, nanotechnology, chemtrails and extraterrestrial life as hypotheses on the basis of a single Washington Post article - but it never mentions the papers by Marianne Middleton and others who are currently actively investigating the spirochetes hypothesis. It should be mentioned. Some of the people with Morgellons go half crazy with pain and become delusional. But there are scientists who are working on it who publish in peer reviewed articles. And they actually have quite a lot of data in their favour. The CDC study had many flaws. Harry Shone, in his MSc dissertation for University College London, the only person to do an in depth review of the CDC study that I found, wrote this:

"It is indeed true that the CDC were being cautious, that they found no positive evidence for the claims made by Morgellons sufferers, but it does not mean that the study can go without critical appraisal. Although expensive and lengthy, the research only clinically evaluated 41 people. Furthermore, since the population was selected by criteria other than self-identification it has been argued by critics of the study that some of those included did not have or even consider themselves to have Morgellons. The validity of these criticisms may rest on somewhat pedantic points, but what is certainly true is that an awful lot of reading between the lines has been passed off as something more substantial."

41 people is not a strong basis on which to make such a wide ranging conclusion, especially since their selection criteria have been challenged. And the study itself did not totally rule out that it had a medical cause. It just said that they hadn't found one.

"We were not able to conclude based on this study whether this unexplained dermopathy represents a new condition, as has been proposed by those who use the term Morgellons, or wider recognition of an existing condition such as delusional infestation, with which it shares a number of clinical and epidemiologic features. We found little on biopsy that was treatable, suggesting that the diagnostic yield of skin biopsy, without other supporting clinical evidence, may be low. However, we did find among our study population co-existing conditions for which there are currently available therapies (drug use, somatization). These data should assist clinicians in tailoring their diagnostic and treatment approaches to patients who may be affected. In the absence of an established cause or treatment, patients with this unexplained dermopathy may benefit from receipt of standard therapies for co-existing medical conditions and/or those recommended for similar conditions such delusions infestation"

There were many competing hypotheses for it at the time of the study. But the remaining researchers have converged on a single hypothesis now. They think that it is caused by spirochetes, and is a possible result of chronic lyme disease, if not treated in time. The main proponent of this hypothesis is Marianne J. Middelveen, MDes, a Veterinary Microbiologist from Alberta, Canada. She made a connection with a disease of cattle, called Bovine Digital dermatitis which has similar symptoms - and in that case, it is well established that there are microfilaments of keratin and collagen which form beneath the skin. She analysed the filaments that form beneath the skin of sufferers, and found out that these also are made of keratin and collagen. She also found spirochetes, which are usually associated with Lyme disease in humans. More details here in my article about Morgellons with links to the papers.Mystery Of Morgellons - Disease Or Delusion - Scientific Hypothesis Of Connection With Lyme Disease. That article started as a serparate article here in wikipedia, but it was merged away, you can read about that in the archives, and as a result I put it up in my science blog instead.

I think this hypothesis and research should be mentioned somewhere in the article. It's far more notable and WP:RS than extraterrestrials, chemtrails etc. Robert Walker (talk) 00:52, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:MEDRS we base biomedical content on reviews in the biomedical literature or statements from major medical/scientific bodies (like the CDC). here is a pubmed search for reviews about Morgellons. I didn't find any mention of the spirochette hypothesis there. If there is a MEDRS source that discusses the spirochette hypothesis, would be happy to include that content - please cite it. Please do not take up time/space here on the Talk page bringing refs that don't comply with MEDRS. If you don't understand MEDRS, please ask. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 01:02, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I know, that was the argument before. But then why do you include mention of the chemtrails and extraterrestrials hypothesis? I think it is highly WP:POV to mention conspiracy theories only and not to mention scientific research. I agree it is currently a minority view but it is being carried out according to scientific methods and I wouldn't say it even counts as fringe science. (If it was you should include it and label it as fringe but I don't think it is). Just minority view science.

The main published articles include:

• Middelveen, Marianne J; Burugu, Divya; Poruri, Akhila; Burke, Jennie; Mayne, Peter J; Sapi, Eva; Kahn, Douglas G; Stricker, Raphael B (2013). "Association of spirochetal infection with Morgellons disease". F1000Research. doi:10.12688/f1000research.2-25.v1. ISSN 2046-1402.
• Middelveen, Marianne J; Bandoski, Cheryl; Burke, Jennie; Sapi, Eva; Filush, Katherine R; Wang, Yean; Franco, Agustin; Mayne, Peter J; Stricker, Raphael B (2015). "Exploring the association between Morgellons disease and Lyme disease: identification of Borrelia burgdorferi in Morgellons disease patients". BMC Dermatology 15 (1). doi:10.1186/s12895-015-0023-0. ISSN 1471-5945.

• Marianne J Middelveen, Raphael B Stricker, Filament formation associated with spirochetal infection: a comparative approach to Morgellons disease, in Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology 2011

• Marianne J Middelveen1, Divya Burugu2, Akhila Poruri2, Jennie Burke3, Peter J Mayne1, Eva Sapi2, Douglas G Kahn4, "Association of spirochetal infection with Morgellons disease", F100 research

• Marianne J. Middelveen1, Jennie Burke2, Eva Sapi3, Cheryl Bandoski3, Katherine R. Filush3, Yean Wang2, Agustin Franco2, Arun Timmaraju3, Hilary A. Schlinger1, Peter J. Mayne1 Culture and identification of Borrelia spirochetes in human vaginal and seminal secretions, F100 research [1]

• Marianne J. Middelveen1, Elizabeth H. Rasmussen2, Douglas G. Kahn3 and Raphael B. Stricker1*, Morgellons Disease: A Chemical and Light Microscopic Study, Journal of Clinical & Experimental Dermatology Research [2]

• Peter J Mayne, Clinical determinants of Lyme borreliosis, babesiosis, bartonellosis, anaplasmosis,and ehrlichiosis in an Australian cohort, International Journal of General Medicine, 2014 [3]

BMC Dermitology is peer reviewed [4], so is the International Journal of General Medicine, and the Journal of Clinical & Experimental Dermatology Research, and Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology. The F100 research is not peer reviewed prior to publication [5]. But the others are.

They are far more notable and WP:RS than the Washington Post or online forums which is their original source for their information. If you don't include this you should also remove the Washington post and the references to conspiracy theories in my view. But I think you should include this as it is surely sufficiently notable to be included, peer reviewed research by multiple authors in multiple different journals. There has to be some way that it can be mentioned in the article. Robert Walker (talk) 01:33, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

"Peer reviewed' is not sufficient to meet MEDRS as you know. I asked you not to post references that don't comply with MEDRS and you did anyway. I am uninterested in being bludgeoned so will not respond further in this thread. If you wish to ask simply, in a non-WP:POINTY way, about other sources and how they are used I would be happy to answer (but see the third paragraph here and please take note of the section of our article in which those sources are used, and the kind of content they are supporting). You can do that in a separate thread as I am done with this one. Jytdog (talk) 01:53, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Question about sources for medical articles

Okay you said to start a new thread for this, will this do? Sorry, I don't understand. I understand these cites do not satisfy MEDRS - which basically means if I understand right, that the research is at such a stage at present that it can't be a basis for medical advice and health information. But the same applies to the Washington post and the conspiracy theories there.

It says in WP:MEDRS

"Wikipedia's articles are not medical advice, but are a widely used source of health information. For this reason, all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge. This guideline supports the general sourcing policy with specific attention to what is appropriate for medical content in any Wikipedia article, including those on alternative medicine. Sourcing for all other types of content – including non-medical information in medicine-articles – is covered by the general guideline on identifying reliable sources."

Surely it is alright therefore to cite this, as WP:RS in the general sense, so long as it is clearly labeled as minority view cutting edge research and not as medical advice? Or are we not permitted to mention such research at all in medical articles? If not, why not, if it is generally WP:RS? Is there some guideline about medical articles having to include only research that satisfies MEDRS? Surely there must be some way that you can do it, some acceptable way to mention notable WP:RS research of this type? Robert Walker (talk) 02:51, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how the Washington Post article falls under that paragraph you cite - as it says "As the quality of press coverage of medicine ranges from excellent to irresponsible, use common sense, and see how well the source fits the verifiability policy and general reliable sources guidelines." I'd say the quality of the Washington Post article is very low, and it is just referring to forum posts and such like which would not normally count as WP:RS in wikipedia. It is not even a survey of the number of people that hold those views amongst Morgellons sufferers. Robert Walker (talk) 02:57, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

The key sentence in the third paragraph is the first one. "Conversely, the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs, financial, and historical information in a medical article." MEDRS (recent literature reviews in good journals or statements by major medical/scientific bodies) applies to biomedical information; "social, biographical, current-affairs, financial, and historical" content is not biomedical information. If you look in our article at the section where WaPo is used it is the "Media coverage" subsection of the "History" section - not biomedical. If you look at each instance of a non-MEDRS source, you will see it is not sourcing biomedical information but rather "social, biographical, current-affairs, financial, and historical information" content. Please take your time and consider how we parse the different kinds of content and the different kinds of sources required, and please do look carefully at how the article is sourced. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 03:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes I understood that. But first - I have two points here, the first one is that I don't think the Washington post source should be used in the way it is used in this article. The journalist who wrote it could well be biased, it's not an impartial source and it is only based on reading forum posts online, it's not an interview or survey of Morgellons sufferers. If you want to say that most Morgellons sufferers believe in conspiracy theories (not my own experience of talking to them via email and messaging at all, I've had a fair number of comments and replies since publishing my article on Science20 and none have said they subscribe to any conspiracy theories), you need something more reliable than this. The washington post article is not a good source I'd say on the "social, biographical, current-affairs, financial, and historical information", those guidelines mention the Scientific American as an example there.

This is their source of information:

"Google it, and nearly 162,000 references show up, many of them chock-full of vivid color photographs of what people claim are strange, colorful fibers growing under their skin. Several other sufferers have taken graphic videos of themselves poking with tweezers at what appear to be fiber-entangled lesions and then posted them on YouTube. Long online discussions ramble on about the latest conspiracy theories that cause the disease -- poisonous chemicals produced by the government and spread by jet contrails, so-called chem trails; aliens; artificially intelligent nanotechnology; genetic engineering; or a government bioweapon gone awry. Others debate the latest expensive cure-alls -- antibiotics, antifungal creams, vitamin supplements, liquid silver, food-grade diatomaceous earth, deworming medication meant for cattle."

How is that better than just relying on a google search ourselves as a source of information about the views of Morgellons sufferers? It's easy for such results to be skewed by a few vocal people who write lots of information in web pages and even trolls and hoax websites made by people for their own amusement. I don't think we should use this as a WP:RS on the views of those who self identify as Morgellons sufferers. I don't think that section of WP:MEDRS is saying that we should use such sources in these articles.

Then the other thing is that I'm not saying it should be represented as WP:MEDRS. Just as you feel that it is okay to put other information in a "Media coverage" subsection of the "History" section - can you not also find a way to include this WP:RS research in a separate subsection which is not covered by WP:MEDRS? Find some way to label it so the reader understands its status? For instance you could label it as controversial, as in Lyme disease controversy. That is one way to mention research that is regarded as controversial. It then doesn't have to satisfy WP:MEDRS. Robert Walker (talk) 05:21, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Robert I understand you are passionate about this but you are pushing very hard for what you want and trying to figure out a way to make that work in WP. That is not how things we work here and we don't just bend the policies and guidelines because advocates show up demanding that. We start with reliable sources (MEDRS sources for biomedical information, and RS sources for society culture history etc) and we summarize what they say here. I'll see if I can find other reliable society/culture sources. That is what you should do. Jytdog (talk) 06:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog just want to say, I'm not an advocate. I'm an independent science blogger who read on this topic, with no prior encounter with Morgellons. I read the science literature on the subject, and the CDC report and Harry Schone's MSc thesis on it, and his criticism of their research. And I know you say that an MSc thesis is not a citable source in medical articles - but all this seems to me very much like double standards. Why can't that be mentioned, and yet you mention really flimsy journalist articles that back up the view that it is delusional? Harry Schone's criticisms are cogent. The scientific research seems valid. They found spirochetes in Morgellons patients and they analysed the threads and found that they are made of keratin and collagen. This does not read like fringe research and it is published in peer reviewed scientific journals.

I will be very surprised if you find independent reliable evidence that shows that the Morgellons sufferers have high levels of delusion, especially in view of this article:

Virginia R Savely1 and Raphael B Stricker2 Morgellons disease: Analysis of a population with clinically confirmed microscopic subcutaneous fibers of unknown etiology [6]

They found no evidence of a higher occurrence of pre-existing psychosomatic disorders in this group of patients than there is in the population at large (0.03%), which in their view distinguishes this group of patients from usual cases of delusional parasitosis. The only things I've seen suggesting they are delusional are journalistic anecdotal reports. My own experience also backs up what they say in that paper - the emails, and comments on my blog where as I say, out of many posts, not one suggests a conspiracy theory. They just talk about how much they suffer and about how they can't get doctors to take them seriously because of the CDC report. I have 62 comments on my article which you can read if interested, and there are no conspiracy comments there that I remember. No mention of chemtrails or extraterrestrials or anyting like that. I know that's anecdotal, but you are relying on anecdotal evidence in the article, by using the Washington Post as evidence.

I think that there is something wrong with the Wikipedia guidelines if it leads to this situation where you can write about conspiracy theories based on online forums, and can't write about minority view peer reviewed scientific research on the topic even labelled as controversial. Or something wrong with their customary interpretation. I don't want the article to say that this research is confirmed as it is work in progress. I just think it should be mentioned and think it would be of interest to readers of the article. As it is the article creates the impression that the entire scientific and medical profession backs up the view that it is a variety of delusional parasitosis. That is not entirely true. Robert Walker (talk) 06:41, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes you have showed up here with a very strong point of view and you are trying to figure out a way to get that expressed in WP - this is what advocates do. (read WP:ADVOCACY). Advocates (like you) refuse to acknowledge, or cannot see, that there is an actual foundation here for rational discussion The policies and guidelines are that foundation. Like most advocates, you shrug aside every attempt to base the discussion on the policies and guidelines and make arguments based on your experience, or from what you "just think". Neither are valid bases for arguments here. This page is not some general forum- it is intended as a space for discussing article content and sources based on the policies and guidelines. That's why it exists. (see WP:Talk page guidelines) So I am done here. No experienced editor is going to take you seriously until you at least express an interest in becoming what we call clueful (please read that link) . Future posts you make like the one above will probably be removed or will be ignored. That is how this place works. I guess that was a harsh thing to write but you really don't understand the context within which you are trying to operate. Jytdog (talk) 07:09, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

All that said, I have to take back some of what I said earlier. This article is very badly sourced in some places and I am reflecting on what to do about that. Adding more bad sources is definitely not the right answer though. Jytdog (talk) 07:11, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I am here, I'm listening. Glad you agree the article is badly sourced in places. At least that's some progress. If you can remove the Washington post source, which is very low quality rather sensationalist journalism, and the remarks about Morgellons sufferers being prone to believing in conspiracy theories based on no real evidence at all, that's some progress. The wikipedia guidelines themselves say Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines

" Policies are standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to be best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense."

So the guidelines themselves don't take such a hard stance as you are taking here. And I'd say that it is not common sense to mention flimsy journalist extrapolations and to not mention peer reviewed research. Do you agree that readers of this article would be interested to know about the spirochetes research? And to have the opportunity to make their own mind up about it? I think it is a failing of common sense to say it must be omitted from the article entirely just because it is not suitable for use as medical advice. Why not include it, say in a new section "Controversial research into spirochetes as a cause for Morgellons" or some such? Robert Walker (talk) 07:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

So once advocates start to think about engaging with the policies and guidelines, the very first thing they do is grab some bit that justifies what they wanted to do anyway and quote it here, like you just did. It isn't productive. There is really nothing new under the sun here. People have done a zillion times, are doing in other articles right now, and will do a zillion times in the future, what you are doing now. It is the opposite of cluefull work here - please do read WP:CLUE including the footnote.

The article needs major work and i am going to concentrate on improving it. This is my last reply. Jytdog (talk) 07:29, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay. I'm a long term wikipedian and I'm perhaps not as clueless as you think about the guidelines :). And as I said, nor am I an advocate, I enter into this discussion in a spirit of dialog, presented one side of the argument of course, but listened to your response and you haven't really had one as far as I can see except just repeating that it can't be included because of MEDRS. I understand that they are needed as guidelines for articles that readers might take as medical advice. But you haven't yet convinced me that these guidelines mean that the research can't be included under some such heading as "controversial reasearch". It's your last reply, fine. But the way wikipedia works, anyone can reply to a thread and it is not possible for a single wikipedian to declare a thread closed to all participants in a situation like this, though of course anyone can declare that they will no longer respond to it themselves. Others might have interesting viewpoints on this however, different from either of us and I'll be interested to see if there are any further replies from anyone else. Thanks for the discussion, and hope that it helps improve the article! Robert Walker (talk) 11:03, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Robert Walker I think that study you link is very interesting, and deserves some space as it really shows us clearly there is some mystery and controversy surrounding Morgellons. On the board WT:MED, some are are wanting to combine Morgellons with the article on "delusional parasitosis", which doesn't make much sense to me, as this is a controversial topic, and Morgellons is clearly a phenomena on its own terms which shouldn't be swept under the carpet as it were. I can't see how wikipedia has the right to discount something so certainly, when the primary CDC study on this is called "Clinical, Epidemiologic, Histopathologic and Molecular Features of an Unexplained Dermopathy", with the word "unexplained" being quite prominent here.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029908

You will only find the term "delusional parasitosis" in this study once!

If you look up the antonym of advocacy, I think you will find it does not represent a NPOV. So often with wikipedia, you can see people trying to push what looks like an agenda. WP:MEDRS seems to be used by some wikipedia editors to prevent the inclusion of a full spectrum of points of view, and the pushing of one point of view, often represented by the most conservative consensus. I can understand this, but understand that the most conservative consensus is not always right or even necessarily accurate, and it would clearly be foolish to think that it always must be. Are we really writing an article that should be useful to people and provide them with accurate information, or is the article pushing a point of view too hard in one direction or another?

In this case, we must ask hard questions: What if Morgellons is a real disease? If so, then could the present article be harmful to those who suffer a real disease? It seems to me a more neutral article would present Morgellons more as a mystery or an unknown, yet mysteries or unknowns seem to be unacceptable to many people, it seems to make them anxious, and that is afterall, a very human psychological tendency.

Probrooks (talk) 12:09, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

The CDC used the term "unexplained dermopathy" as the framework for their investigation. The investigation supplied the explanation.

"We were not able to conclude based on this study whether this unexplained dermopathy represents a new condition, as has been proposed by those who use the term Morgellons"

That means: Morgellons is not a thing. There was no evidence that it was a thing, so they were not able to conclude that it is a thing.

"We found little on biopsy that was treatable, suggesting that the diagnostic yield of skin biopsy, without other supporting clinical evidence, may be low. However, we did find among our study population co-existing conditions for which there are currently available therapies (drug use, somatization)

In other words, those who had real infections, had infections which are already known; and the rest were delusional.

This is just like "chronic Lyme": the symptoms are real, whether psychosomatic or not, the issue is not the symptoms, the issue is that a group of people have decided that Morgellons is the cause of those symptoms, and ther eis quite simply no evidence to support this, since there is no evidence that Morgellons is a thing.

This is, of course, entirely unsurprising: the number of new diseases discovered by people who have no medical research background, based primarily on rejection of a disgnosis on the ground sof personal distatse, is approximately zero. It wuld be astounding if Morgellons wass a thing, given its provenance. Guy (Help!) 14:39, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Your last two paragraphs are just empty rhetorics. Try to replace morgellons with any arbitrarily silly idea in your reasoning. The sentence

"we must ask hard questions: What if Morgellons is a real disease?"

turns into

"we must ask hard questions: What if Santa Claus is a real person?"

and still works "as well" as before, so it is empty rhetorics. Please leave unnecessary ballast like that out, it just clutters up the talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:08, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Just a few points:

• The Lyme disease hypothesis is already mentioned in the article.
• Washington Post and Atlantic are good sources for the fact that Morgellons are combined with other weird ideas in the same heads. And of course googling by a journalist is preferable to googling by a Wikipedia user. See WP:OR.
• Primary sources such as the CDC report are discouraged by WP:OR#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:00, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

@JzG: - what you are missing here is that this particular PlosOne cite is the CDC study - the entire basis of the claim that Morgellons is delusional parasitology. So it is certainly relevant to discuss it here. Many people say that it has settled the question but as @Probrooks: says, the very title of the study calls it an "Unexplained Dermopathy". They were not able to determine the cause. They did not prove that it was delusional parasitology and said clearly in the report that this was not their remit, and nor was it their area of expertise. There hasn't been an acceptable clinical proof that it is delusional parasitology published to date. Robert Walker (talk) 13:45, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: I would not agree that googling by a journalist is preferable to googling by us.

I would not agree that googling by a journalist makes it WP:RS

. I don't think googling and using forums and youtube videos as a source is acceptable at all except for articles that specifically discuss forums and youtube itself because of the tendency of a few people to produce a lot of the content and because of the tendency for trolls and hoaxers to engage in conversations posing as genuine people. Journalists need to write compelling copy and they have a tendency to exaggerate things in order to make their story more exciting for the reader. Robert Walker (talk) 13:49, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

If you do "not agree" with the rules here, maybe you should go to another site with rules more to your liking. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:08, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't disagreeing with any guidelines, as none of you have yet shared any guideline that says that it is okay to cite a journalist story which treats google search results as their only source of evidence for what they say. Please tell me where this guideline is. I don't see anything in WP:NEWSORG to support it. And the guidelines themselves say that they need to be interpreted using common sense and it flies in the face of common sense to rely on a journalist's interpretation of google search results, not backed up by any independent research by anyone, as any form of WP:RS. Robert Walker (talk) 13:23, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

"as none of you have yet shared any guideline that says that it is okay [..]" Nobody said there was such a guideline. But I said "And of course googling by a journalist is preferable to googling by a Wikipedia user. See WP:OR." WP:OR says "To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented." So, whatever you do, as a WP user, to research the subject, including googling, is not as good as the same research done by a source.

So, what you said "I would not agree that googling by a journalist is preferable to googling by us." is clearly a disagreement with the rules. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:54, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

The nub there is "reliable". If the published source is reliable, you can use it. But if it is not, you can't. A journalist who says "just google xxx and you get lots of search results" as their only basis for their assertion proves themselves to be not a reliable source at that point. The same article can be reliable in some places for some topics and not reliable in other ways. It is not preferable to googling by us because it is not acceptable at all as a WP:RS. Sorry I didn't express myself clearly. Of course googling by us is also not WP:RS either and is WP:OR. And journalists are sometimes sensationalist so WP:OR by a journalist is no better and can be worse than WP:OR by a wikipedia editor. It says "Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article should be assessed on a case-by-case basis" - well in this case this is not a WP:RS for this particular statement. A paper in a scientific journal surveying Morgellons patients is reliable. The only one of that sort that I know of came to the conclusion that there is no higher prevalence in delusional beliefs than the population at large. I hope that is a bit clearer, and sorry for the confusion. 14:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

"I would not agree that googling by a journalist is preferable to googling by us" is still a disagreement with the rules. Either take it back or acknowledge that you disagreed with the rules. Otherwise I can't take you seriously. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:11, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Done. It was just clumsiness on my part. Robert Walker (talk) 14:23, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Maybe I was too literal, but that sentence just pressed my "original-research-by-WP-users-is-an-absolute-no-no" button. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: Oh I'd missed that somehow. If the "some people" there was replaced by "some scientists" it would be a good starting point to help with redressing the balance. I don't think it needs a long section necessarily, maybe one or two sentences, but I think it would be good to add mention of spirochetes and the keratin and collagen analysis of the fibres and links to the most WP:RS of the research papers by these scientists, also to say specifically that it is linked with Digital dermatitis rather than chronic lyme disease, though there is of course a connection with the hypothesis of chronic lyme disease as well. Robert Walker (talk) 13:52, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

No reason to do that. Actually "some people" or "some scientists" is WP:WEASEL, so neither wording should be used. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:08, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay so what wording do you recommend? I think it should somehow mentioned that there is on going research, that it is based on the hypothesis of spirochetes as the cause, and on the hypothesis that humans suffer from a disease similar to bovine Digital dermatitis which is a known disease of cattle, and based on analysis of the fibres as containing a mix of keratin and collagen as for bovine digital dermatitis, with cites to the most WP:RS of that research. Something like this

"Not all scientists agree that the CDC closes the book on Morgellons. There is research still continuing by a number of scientists based on the hypothesis that it is a disease similar to bovine Digital dermatitis which is a known disease of cattle. These researchers report discovery of spirochetes in the wounds and fibres containing a mix of keratin and collagen as for bovine dermatitis. [cites]. This research is minority view and controversial."

Or some such. Just a suggestion, comments welcome! It doesn't need to be much. Just a mention, I think it is notable enough to mention. Robert Walker (talk) 13:37, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

No. No ongoing research. Too many users who are fans of pseudoscientific ideas want to add "ongoing research" to articles, as if the existence of that research somehow were a reason for believing in the pseudoscientific ideas. We describe what has been found out, not what will possibly be found in the future. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes but this isn't pseudoscience. It's ongoing research which shows that not all scientists think that the case is closed on Morgellons. There's a difference. But I can see we aren't going to settle this, I think we have both said our say on this matter of whether it should be mentioned. Will have to see if anyone else comes into the debate with new viewpoints on it. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

To answer your question: Iff I had a suggestion, I would have given it in the first place. And "Not all scientists" or "a number of scientists" is as weaselly as "some scientists". Even "scientists" is weaselly. Scientists should always be characterized by area of expertise. Neurologists, psychologists, parasitologists may be relevant here, but "scientists" could also be geologists or meteorologists dabbling in subjects outside their field. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:07, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, fair point. The principal author of most of the recent WP:RS papers is Marianne J. Middelveen, MDes, a Veterinary Microbiologist from Alberta, Canada. Another principle author is Peter J Mayne, a dermatologist from Australia who graduated from Cardiff university. So you could say

"Not all scientists agree that the CDC closes the book on Morgellons. There is research still continuing, lead by Marianne Middleveen, a veterinary microbiologist, based on the hypothesis that it is a disease similar to bovine Digital dermatitis which is a known disease of cattle. These researchers report discovery of spirochetes in the wounds and fibres containing a mix of keratin and collagen as for bovine dermatitis. [cites]. This research is minority view and controversial."

How does that sound? I would not call it pseudoscience. There is nothing in it that rings any alarm bells of that sort. It is just research in progress with interesting results that suggests that the case is not yet completely closed on Morgellons. Robert Walker (talk) 14:20, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. (But I am not an expert for this specific subject - maybe others will disagree.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, glad to hear it. But I have to stop this line of discussion as I have been told on my talk page that I may be topic banned or have some other sanction imposed if I continue it[7]. I take this seriously as I am currently in the middle of a six month topic ban on another talk page in which I was rather outspoken, in a completely different topic area, and the situation was similar, no editing, just talk page discussion. This time the editor concerned had the decency to warn me first :). Robert Walker (talk) 21:13, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Probrooks: Yes I agree. For as long as it is not totally settled, and the CDC study has definitely not settled it, they say so themselves, then it needs to be presented as a mystery or unknown and the minority views also presented. If some day we had definite proof accepted by the medical community that it is delusional parasitosis, or indeed, that it is a spirochete caused illneess related to Digital dermatitis as Marianne Middelveen has proposed, then we can present just those views, and present anything else, if at all, in a historical section. But at present, it has not been settled. There is no proof that it is delusional parasitology in any published paper, never mind one that is accepted widely. All we have is an expensive but somewhat inconclusive CDC report that's been promoted as saying more than it actually does if you read it in detail or even just read its abstract. Robert Walker (talk) 13:59, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

The fact that the CDC did not come up with the answer you wnated, does not make it any less settled. The CDC investigation was patient, thorough, and robustly failed to demonstrate that "morgellons" is a thing. The CDC is about as reliable as it gets, when it comes to medical sources. Guy (Help!) 14:22, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't get what you are saying here. How does the CDC failure to find an explanation for it count as a proof that it is delusional parasitosis? Especially since they say in the report itself that as experts in infectious diseases, they were not qualified to diagnose delusional parasitosis. And though it was a long and thorough report, they only found 41 patients to examine them, and they didn't ask them if they were suffering from Morgellons so many of them may not even have self identified as having Morgellons. The Harry Schone MSc thesis makes these points. Since scientists are continuing to research in this topic area, it's clear that not all scientists are convinced that the report closes the book on Morgellons. I think this needs to be said in the article, somewhere. Robert Walker (talk) 13:30, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

The issue is that the original diagnosis was DP, but the self-diagnosed "Morgellons" community decided they had something else instead. The fact that the CDC's investigation found there was no evidence of a distinct condition means that it reverts to its former status, which is DP. The MeSH code also makes this clear. It's not proof of DP because that wasn't the question, the quesiton was: is this a new condition? And the answer was: no. The CDC findings are ocnsistent with DP and other known conditions. Guy (Help!) 16:37, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Reply and restatement of case for including it using wikipedia guidelines as best I can

I don't see the relevance of the CDC here to diagnosis of DP as they specialize in infectious diseases - no more than a study that found that they don't have DP would prove that it was an infectious disease, whatever the previous default assumption was. Nobody seems to have done a psychological evaluation of them, except for that one report I found which found that they were no more prone to delusion than typical members of the population prior to the symptoms, which distinguishes them from typical sufferers of DP. The main problem here as I understand it is that both DP and Morgellons are very rare conditions, so rare, that most doctors will not see many instances of either. So it is hard to build up enough evidence to get a clear picture of what is going on. When you say "the original diagnosis was DP", I don't think that was a clinical evaluation either. Just an observation that the symptoms resemble DP, not a large scale study to prove that.

Also, the abstract of the CDC report makes a much stronger statement than the discussion section in the report. That just says

"We were not able to conclude based on this study whether this unexplained dermopathy represents a new condition, as has been proposed by those who use the term Morgellons, or wider recognition of an existing condition such as delusional infestation, with which it shares a number of clinical and epidemiologic features. We found little on biopsy that was treatable, suggesting that the diagnostic yield of skin biopsy, without other supporting clinical evidence, may be low."

As for what the CDC study showed - I know we don't have any highly rated third party review of all this. But Harry Schone's thesis is as close as we can get to that. It's an MSc thesis for UCLA UCL which is fourth ranked of all the European universities, so a prestigious university. His main aim is not to establish a particular view on the CDC report but as he says in the conclusion

"In this essay I have endeavoured to show how instructive this case can be in demonstrating the functioning life of a modern, contentious, chronic disease. Morgellons teaches us lessons about how conflict plays out between patient communities and health care professionals, and how those communities perform a second (though not secondary) pastoral role."

It's as close to neutral as you can get, basically a third party review of the literature. It's for a thesis in the philosophy of medicine. It would be the result of a year of supervised work and then examimed and passed. Now the main problem with it is that it is not cited by anyone else, which is of course a common situation for theses. Also he hasn't published any papers on it, though he gave a talk on it to a conference. His thesis is here Learning from Morgellons. He goes into it in some detail, but in his summary he says

"It is indeed true that the CDC were being cautious, that they found no positive evidence for the claims made by Morgellons sufferers, but it does not mean that the study can go without critical appraisal. Although expensive and lengthy, the research only clinically evaluated 41 people. Furthermore, since the population was selected by criteria other than self-identification it has been argued by critics of the study that some of those included did not have or even consider themselves to have Morgellons. The validity of these criticisms may rest on somewhat pedantic points, but what is certainly true is that an awful lot of reading between the lines has been passed off as something more substantial."

Another point on this discussion as a whole - I did a PubMed search for "Morgellons + Spirochetes" and it turns up several results, including some of the peer reviewed articles I mentioned above. [8]. This doesn't prove that it satisfies WP:MEDRS as there is more to it than having cites in a PubMed search - you need review articles or similar, something that elevates it above ordinary medical research. But it does help establish that the research is medically respectable and not fringe science. I'm not arguing that we include it under WP:MEDRS but under a more general WP:RS labelled as controversial, and the reason for that being that the article suggests that the case is closed for Morgellons, but the combination of Harry Schone's thesis + these PubMed articles shows that not all researchers agree that the case is closed, so it is not accurate to give that impression. I think, for the sake of avoiding WP:POV we should mention that, that there are some scientists - lead by a veterinary microbiologist who found similarities to a disease of cattle in the condition and who has confirmed that connection in all the tests she and the other researchers following this hypothesis have done so far - who think the case is not closed and have a specific scientific hypothesis that they are investigating via respectable scientific methods. That's my case for including it, now restated as best I can using Wikipedia guidelines. Robert Walker (talk) 11:48, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

A Master's thesis and an amateur search result are not reliable sources at all. The CDC source is super reliable. The case is closed and Wikipedia shall reflect that until or unless that changes in RS. Alexbrn (talk) 12:28, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Robertinventor, you have repeatedly and over a long period of time been explained by multiple users what kinds of sources are required for biomedical and health content on Wikipedia, and asked to limit your responses to those supported by MEDRS sources, and yet you continue to fill the talk page with speculation based on original research and opinion. You operate a blog, and you have taken a position on Morgellons on that blog, which indicates a position of advocacy. Please refrain from posting further off-topic commentary and opinion on this talk page; for that, you can use your own blog. For Wikipedia content, we have guidelines for reliable sources to avoid unhelpful and dangerous speculation in health content such as what has been furthered by the internet. Please stop. Thank you, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:13, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I've made my case as best I can here, the rest is up to you. I'm not an advocate for the view that spirochetes cause Morgellons, and I haven't taken a position on that, I'm like Harry Schone in his thesis, coming to it as an uninvolved party who neither has Morgellons nor is involved in the research in any way. It is however the only current ongoing scientific research into Morgellons. That's why I wrote an article about it. I don't know what you mean by an "amateur search" - earlier in this conversation I was challenged that there are no MEDRS results for "spirochetes + morgellons". The link I posted show that there are - I think the reason the earlier search by @Jytdog: turned up no results is probably because they spelt it as "spirochette" when the correct spelling is "spirochete". Apart from that - well I've made the case, so it is over to others here to decide. I thought I had enough new here for it to be worth restating. The main new thing in my restatement here was more careful attention to the wikipedia guidelines as well as the PubMed search results and more careful explanation of my reasons for suggesting Harry Schone's thesis as being worth consideration although it is a weak source I agree, but sometimes a weak source may be all you've got. It is over to you now and you have made your reply. Others of course are free to reply here also. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 14:31, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: has told me on my talk page that the link he posted only listed reviews. I didn't understand this point, sorry, a lot of the talking at cross purposes here is due to that. He has also posted a warning that I am becoming a trouble maker by posting in this way and could face sanctions for so doing[9]. I thank him for the warning and just want to say I have no intention at all of doing anything that might disrupt wikipedia in any way. If that is the general consensus here I have to stop whatever my own thoughts on the matter. Robert Walker (talk) 14:59, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Robert Walker that the case is not closed, and that to posit a one sided position on this matter, (which may turn out to be incorrect as I have stated) makes this article farcical. It just looks like North Korean propaganda which represents only one "official" scientific study. Of course there are other studies, and other viewpoints which should be taken into account, and actually many people are reporting suffering here. And I don't believe that rushing to conclusions or trying to tell people what Morgellons is, is going to be taken seriously by many people. Obviously, this is very far from NPOV. Intelligent people who are really interested in finding out Morgellons and the current research and theories behind it, are going to be turned away from this article. I don't believe Robert Walker has been disruptive and his points seem fair.

Probrooks (talk) 22:12, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Probrooks: Thanks for your support and glad you don't think I have been disruptive. Normally at this point I'd suggest an RfC (Request for Comments). We have two in support of the change, two against, and one weakly in support so it is quite evenly balanced at present. However on reflection, I have realized that even without a consensus to take me to AE, I can't continue any further unless @Jytdog: withdraws this threat. There are two reasons. One is that an AE action would be time consuming, to defend myself, also emotionally stressful, and I don't wish to set aside the amount of time needed at present as I have a lot on, and I don't want to escalate such a minor matter (as it seems to me) to AE. It would also be distracting and time consuming for any other editors who join the debate on the proposed TBan. The other is that I have a project proposal on meta which I wish to publicize for comment on wikipedia (in suitably neutral ways of course), and because of the subject matter of the proposal, I can't publicize it for as long as I have a topic ban against me however minor the ban. I will be able to publicize it two months from now. A new ban however minor would mean I can't publicize it for anything from six months to indefinitely depending on the decision in AE. So I can't participate any further here for as long as there is a risk I could be taken to AE as a result. I hope you understand. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 10:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I guess you counted me as "weakly in support" but that would be wrong. I still don't think that stuff should be included but I am not qualified enough to argue against it. I agreed that your last suggestion was better than the previous ones, but I obviously did not say that clearly enough.

Also, WP is not a democracy. What counts is good reasoning. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:26, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your headcount is wrong. You have 4 very experienced medical editors including one Admin (Guy, SandyGeorgia, Alexbrn, and me) saying "no" unambiguously, and each having explained why; Probrooks has all of 149 edits.

And a weak source is not "all we've got". We have strong sources that are cited in the article and that I have actually provided to you, personally, on your Talk page. They just don't say what you want, and ignoring strong MEDRS sources that don't say what you want is the epitome of WP:TENDENTIOUS editing.

You are still not listening and you continue to blow off MEDRS. This is your last warning. If you write here again pushing non MEDRS sources and ignoring the strong MEDRS sources we have, we are off to AE and you will not have a leg to stand on. I doubt it will be time-consuming; it will probably be very swift. Just look at how you have WP:BLUDGEONed this Talk page. Look here and look here - 214 comments and 126,000 bytes, and blowing off a widely respected guideline the whole time - only finally hearing that we use reviews published in good journals after you have made 213 comments here, and ignoring that even in your 214th. Jytdog (talk) 10:39, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

While I've not commented on this time sink of a thread I can say that the majority opinion here is correct. Read WP:MEDRS. Understand it. Trust that people who have been here a long time actually know what the heck they are talking about. There is no reason to make the changes you want. (Oh that makes the head count five now). Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:06, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Robertinventor, your comments above about other issues relative to Arbitration Enforcement would be better placed on your talk page, as they have no bearing on this article, its content, and the need for reliable sources in this article. Please use this talk page for discussing article content relative to reliable sources so as not to extend the time sink. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Don't worry, you have nothing to be upset about, I get the message. I only posted about @Jytdog:'s warning to explain to others here why I would no longer be contributing to this discussion. I will not discuss the other points you raise, in my experience to do so is likely to be seen as aggravation and that's the last thing I need. I am going to log out of wikipedia for a few days so will no longer get message alerts. Goodbye. Robert Walker (talk) 14:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

comment

I am concerned on the knowledge of where you base your information off of. If wikipedia is going to "pose" as an encyclopedia/fictionary, it should cite it's quotes. Otherwise ur walking a thin line. Especially on controversial issues! Brea nail511 (talk) 05:52, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

This defiantly seems to bias. Which Wikipedia claims not be! Brea nail511 (talk) 05:54, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

This is sensitive subject, which I dont believe any company trying to succeed should lean one way towards. It's only a matter of time until it is at your doorsteps. Brea nail511 (talk) 06:00, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. I'll leave a message on your Talk page with links describing them. If you want to be part of this community you need to follow the policies and guidelines - article content is not driven by what people like and don't like. Jytdog (talk) 06:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Infobox

Morgellons

Would it make sense to put delusional parasitosis in the infobox too since the MeSH entry for Morgellons says "See also: Delusional Parasitosis" and vice versa? If so, would this be the right way to show that? —PermStrump(talk) 01:23, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I think that would make it seem to be an actual diagnosis, which it is not. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:54, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Dbrodbeck, First I was thinking there shouldn't be an infobox at all, because that made it seem like a real diagnosis, but I couldn't believe it really had a Mesh ID, so then I thought maybe also linking to delusional parasitosis would make it seem less like its own thing. I guess the extra numbers would make it look more legit... Is that what you were thinking? —PermStrump(talk) 07:16, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

In essence yes. There aren't any MDs (or perhaps there are a vanishingly small number of them) who would diagnose someone with Morgellons, but I fear that this would make it look like that happens. I guess we could look at other articles on other, I dunno what the term is oh, 'hoax disorders' let's go with that, and see what we do. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:59, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

doesn't make sense to have a "disease" infobox for a society and culture topic. Jytdog (talk) 03:26, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

• I think we should look for a way to include the reclassification in 2008/2009, away from parasitic skin diseases. The current MeSH descriptor means it should probably be classified as psychiatry / dermatology, it's under skin diseases and psychotic disorders. Guy (Help!) 09:31, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

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Examples of Typical Morgellons taken from infected patient

These photos depict the fact that, as stated here, Morgellons is not a psychotic delusional condition but a real and very adaptable organism. Too much direct evidence now exists. As to what Morgellons is, classification etc. is still unknown but it resembles a fungal organism, but in parts of the U.S.A, it seems to be associated with the spirochete "Borrellia Burgdorferi" ~~Rodney K. Burgess~~

References

If there really was a disease at least one pharmaceutical company would have developed a treatment for it, and adverts would be everywhere selling the drugs. Since their is not, and since every doctor and scientist on the planet agree that there is no disease, well.... TechBear | Talk | Contributions 06:17, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Please review WP:MEDRS; talk pages are for discussing content relative to reliable sources. (While we are on the topic of other sources, PMID 27269255 is interesting.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:37, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Wording of the lead

The lead of this article typifies the dismissiveness towards Morgellons patients. Rather than acknowledging the real discomfort and distress of Morgellons patients, it hammers with judgements that they are "delusional" and "hallucinating," which I find inconsistent with NPOV. Here is another way to go about it:

Morgellons ... is a largely self-diagnosed skin condition characterized by lesions from which the patient produces fibers or particles. People who claim to have the condition experience itching along with the belief that something is crawling, stinging or biting the skin.(ref1)(ref2)(ref3) A range of experts, including dermatologists, entomologists and pyschiatrists, have examined Morgellons cases. Predominant medical opinion holds that the produced items are textile fibers or other external materials, that the lesions result from the patients' own scratching in response to the sensations, and that the symptoms are consistent with the existing diagnosis of delusional parasitosis.(ref1)(ref4) The delusional parasitosis may in some cases be secondary to a common skin disorder.(ref3)

Also change "proof" in scare quotes to evidence, without quotes. 24.7.14.87 (talk) 23:16, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

The scientific consensus is quite solid. Until and unless that changes, the article is accurate as it is. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 23:38, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

You didn't read my proposed wording. Please do so before you reply. The "but actually" tone of the current lead, which elevates prevailing medical opinion on a controversy to eternal fact, is inconsistent with NPOV. 24.7.14.87 (talk) 02:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policy on fringe theories is pretty clear: A Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is. Statements about the truth of a theory must be based upon independent reliable sources. If discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, a theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight Morgellons has been studied, and it has been researched, and everything consistently leads to the same point: It. Does. Not. Exist. Can you provide ANY references of similar quality to the ones that reach this conclusion? References on par with the Centers for Disease Control, the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology, and the American Journal of Psychiatry?

The principle of neutral point of view means sticking to established facts. And the established fact is what the article currently supports: Morgellons is a delusional disease. Trying to soften that scientific consensus would violate NPOV, not support it. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 05:14, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

article structure

I just fixed this article in these difs. The WP:Biomedical information is now sourced to MEDRS sources and the rest is society and culture. There is no point duplicating the delusional parasitosis article here.

If anyone wants to contest this, please bring only sources that comply with MEDRS for discussion. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:09, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

A substantial improvement. Guy (Help!) 16:35, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Joni Mitchell and Morgellons

JzG, I'm surprised you reverted my edit containing information about Joni Mitchell and Morgellons, and you claim WP:MEDRS is needed to cite such information? Well that is clearly just not the case. I am not presenting bio-medical information, just communicating some cultural background and interesting information about a famous person who is self diagnosed with Morgellons. What I quoted was the quote most commonly quoted by newspapers at the time.

Probrooks (talk) 23:13, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Agree with the removal. Joni Mitchell's opinion on Morgellons is non-encyclopedic trivia. Alexbrn (talk) 23:44, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Robert Walker says in an article here

http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/mystery_of_morgellons_disease_or_delusion_scientific_hypothesis_of_connection_with_lyme_disease-155742

he found out about Morgellons through Joni Mitchell. This time magazine article uses Joni Mitchell's case to communicate about Morgellons.

http://time.com/3768710/what-is-morgellons-joni-mitchell/

I think this is relevant, because often times celebrities represent a human face of something. IF we are to talk about Morgellons as a cultural phenomena, Joni Mitchells diagnosis represents a big part of that surely, enough to warrant a short mention I would have thought. There is no good reason not to mention her as far as I can see.

Probrooks (talk) 00:04, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

There is already a huge block quote from her that is close to being UNDUE; why do you want more content about Mitchell? Jytdog (talk) 02:34, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Do you understand the difference between a news magazine and an encyclopaedia? Guy (Help!) 22:09, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Open Minded Writing and Research

WP:MEDRS is a red herring here. The real issue is how the CDC report is worded and interpreted in a way that is proportionate to the nature of that report. That could include criticisms of that report as Robert Walker stated, it is a very small study (something not mentioned in the present article!) and also the controversial nature of this disease. Some seem to be saying that saying this disease may be a thing, represents "advocacy"!!! The CDC report is far from conclusive in any sense, and I do not think the wikipedia article should reflect a greater degree of conclusiveness than the CDC report.

Others here say, there is no way it is a thing or a disease, that it doesn't exist categorically. This attitude is not disimilar from advocacy, but perhaps more pernicious as it denies communicating the debate and controversy in a reasonable and neutral manner, and could be viewed as being closed minded.

And what is important I think is how the information from secondary sources about Morgellons in filtered into the page in a way that is balanced and fair. This is not a fringe topic, as it is not a practice, but what many say is a disease; apparently 14,000 people claim to have it! (something not mentioned on the article either)

I think this is quite well covered in this article, which I think is well written.

http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/14-thousand-people-have-morgellons-disease-but-cdc-says-it-doesnt-exist/

Shouldn't we also report what many morgellons people say it is?

"Many Morgellons patients say that their symptoms are related to “chemtrails.” The chemtrail conspiracy holds that the long trails of condensation made by planes in the sky are actually trails of chemical vapor that contain nano-robots which are being used for population control as well as mind control.

However, how these nano robots are connected to the exact symptoms Morgellons patients suffer is never fully explained in any online media, at least not in an easily understandable way. Some people say their symptoms act up whenever the chemtrails are being sprayed while others say they feel they must have inhaled the nano robots that are now spinning these fibers inside of their bodies. Other explanations include: the fibers are fungal in nature; the fibers consist of plant genes; the fibers are a side effect of lyme disease, and numerous other stories which have yet to be proven."

I think something of nature should be paraphrased in the article, as there appears to be some sort of consensus among morgellons suffers, but I will need to do more research and try and find some reliable sources.

I have met a woman with Morgellons before, and this is what she said it was. I honestly simply don't know. I believe your man on the street doesn't know either, but is probably looking for information to TRY make up their mind about what it is, rather than simply being told what it is by "the authorities".

I also know this woman was suffering and believes she has a disease, I think some element of compassion is in order in society itself, and not just a blanket denial, "shuddup and take your anti-psychotics you loony tune" kind of attitude, which seems to me be lacking humanity and understanding.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts about how to make this article more informative and balanced.

Probrooks (talk) 22:12, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Always keep an open mind, just not so open that your brains fall out. The findings are that Morgellons is not a thing. Many self-diagnosed Morgellons patients have delusional parasitosis. Others have other skin conditions. The fibres reported are of textile or other environmental origin and are the result of scratching the lesions. And as soon as the consensus of reality-based opinion moves away from this, we will follow it. But not before. Guy (Help!) 22:22, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

WP:Biomedical information must be sourced per WP:MEDRS. That is not a "red herring", that is community WP:CONSENSUS, the bedrock of everything that happens here. Consistently ignoring community consensus is disruptive and has consequences, usually in the form of loss of editing privileges in one way or another (blocks, topic bans, etc). You will do as you will, as will the community in response. Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Hey Jytdog, Please let me know what you believe to be the right WP:MEDRS source is for my edit! I only used an reference that was already used, as the 2nd sentence wasn't backed up with any reference. What I am saying here, is that paying attention to good writing and wording is important. I'm trying to improve this article, and I do not consider that disruptive. In future if you can help reword or spend some time collaborating with me in good faith, rather than just reverting my edits, it would be appreciated! Remember, "Consensus is an ongoing process on Wikipedia". WP:CONSENSUS

Probrooks (talk) 22:56, 30 September 2016 (UTC)