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Infectious causes of cancer

Bfpage recently created Category:Infectious causes of cancer and added it to a couple of pages where I find that categorization rather dubious. It has already been removed from some of them (including a biography), but it's still on pap test and parasitism, on bacteria and virus. That seems overbroad to me. I also wonder whether the cancers caused by infectios should themselves be so categorized. Editors with more medical expertise than me may want to take a look. Huon (talk) 01:42, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Worldwide, infections are linked to about 15% to 20% of cancers. This percentage is even higher in developing countries, but it is lower in the United States and other developed countries. This is partly because certain infections are more common in developing countries, and partly because some other risk factors for cancer, such as obesity, are more common in developed countries.Infections can raise a person’s risk of cancer in different ways. For example:

• Some viruses directly affect the genes inside cells that control their growth. These viruses can insert their own genes into the cell, causing the cell to grow out of control.

• Some infections can cause long-term inflammation in a part of the body. This can lead to changes in the affected cells and in nearby immune cells, which can eventually lead to cancer.

• Some types of infections can suppress a person’s immune system, which normally helps protect the body from some cancers.[1] ...the American Cancer Society does seem to identify infections as a factor in oncological diagnosis, therefore it should be as is...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:41, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that it is a legitimate category. However there are currently several articles included that I am not convinced should be in there, such as "Colorectal cancer", "Ependymoma" and "Parasitism". Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Colorectal cancer is not unreasonable, given the possible association with HPV (per PMID 24560489 and others).

I suspect that the oversimplified ACS line about suppressed immune systems is probably mostly about HIV, and it probably mostly means "if you don't have a functional immune system, then other cancer-causing infections can get out of control". I've read that in other cases (e.g., some breast cancers), the immune system plays a role in establishing and protecting the cancer. (Don't bother asking me how; my interest in the subject doesn't extend past the handwaving-stage of explanation, so I know fewer details about this idea than you'd learn from asking your favorite web search engine.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Based on the high volume of bacteria and viruses that the intestine is exposed to and the importance of infectious agents in some gastrointestinal and anogenital cancers, it is not surprising the many studies have evaluated the association between colorectal cancer and infectious agents. This review highlights investigations of four agents in relation to colorectal cancer. Helicobacter pylori, Streptococcus bovis, JC virus, and human papillomavirus have all been evaluated as possible etiologic agents for colorectal cancer. For each of these agents, a review of possible mechanisms for carcinogenesis and epidemiologic evidence is discussed, and future directions for research are proposed [2] based on this review article, apparently further studies are needed but it does seem for the time being that it might be appropriate to leave it on the list...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:32, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

BacteroidesFragilis Gram

[3] related article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:16, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Bfpage has again added this and other categories to pages without any apparent discussion. Things associated with a disease are not their causes. Anal sex does not cause of disease, viruses like HPV are. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:12, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I am so sorry, sincerely. Where is the proper place to discuss this?

  Bfpage |leave a message  21:40, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I think this project page would be a good place since it's related to medicine and health and editors here are familiar with the topic. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Greetings EvergreenFir. What exactly is meant by "Arbitrary break"? Are you suggesting that something be done about me adding categories to articles? I spend a lot of time adding categories to articles and it has never even occurred to me that adding categories is something to be discussed, although discussing my adding categories is something I am perfectly willing to do with you. Are you just referring to discussing the category:infectious causes of cancer being added to the anal sex article?

What prompted me to add the category:infectious causes of cancer to the anal sex article were all the references to the organisms/pathogens that can be acquired during anal sex that cause cancer. The anal cancer article also lists these organisms as causing anal cancer and that anal sex increases the risk of acquiring cancer from these pathogens via the act of anal sex. Would it be helpful for me to post all the references documenting the strong link between anal sex and cancer somewhere for others to see for themselves. I'm not understanding the controversy. If you really don't like the category, you may certainly remove it, by all means. Here are some excerpts from the anal sex article about links to cancer:

(from the anal sex article:)Health risks>General risks

Increased experimentation with anal sex by people without sound knowledge about risks and what safety measures do and do not work may be linked to an increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs/STDs) [my note:STI/STD are strongly linked to cancer]...penile-anal penetration, colloquially known as barebacking,[93] carries a higher risk of passing on STIs [my note:STIs are strongly linked to cancer]because the anal sphincter is a delicate, easily torn tissue that can provide an entry for pathogens.[19][21] ...those who engage in anal sex at high risk of STIs.[21][my note:STIs are strongly linked to cancer]</nowiki>...condoms [my note: reduces the risk of acquiring cancer-causing STIs], ample lubrication to reduce the risk of tearing,[3][50] and safer sex practices in general, reduce the risk of STI transmission.[21][94] However, a condom can (and is more likely to (sic? break?) [my note: a broken condom increases the risk of acquiring cancer-causing pathogens]... anal sex are human papillomavirus (HPV)[my note: HPV is a pathogen that causes cancer] (which can increase risk of anal cancer...

The anal sex article contains information about infectious causes of cancer so I thought readers of the encyclopedia would benefit from the addition of the category:infectious causes of cancer that links the article with articles with similar information. I don't claim that anal sex causes cancer-the article simply reports that the act can result in passing on the pathogens that cause cancer. Respectfully and with Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  22:27, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Bfpage, and thanks for taking on the task of trying to add sensible categories. I think you've actually gotten tripped up in a fairly technical matter. Although anal sex is part of the etiology (medicine) of the disease, it isn't actually the "cause" of a sexually transmitted infection; it's a route of transmission.

An "arbitrary break" just means that someone stuck a section heading in the middle of a long section (in an "arbitrary" place), so he could edit just half the conversation instead of all of it. It doesn't mean anything about the people in the section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello, WhatamIdoing and it's great to have you comment in this discussion. I guess my paranoia was showing when I assumed that the arbitrary break title had something to do with editing errors that I may have made. In my response to EvergreenFir, I tried to show that I realized that anal sex does not causes cancer, but the article indeed contains information about pathogens that do cause cancer. I don't think that there is any type of sex act that would cause cancer, but if an article, any article, contains information about a pathogen that can be passed on to another person and that has been referenced by a medical journal review article as an oncogenic bateria, I thought it would be a good idea to include the article in the category. Thanks again for your comments, I really do take them to heart and remain eager to learn new things from more experience editors. The Very Best of Regards:

  Bfpage |leave a message  17:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm also somewhat confused by this categorisation. Cancers themselves are included? (Yet these are not infectious causes... they are cancers themselves). Pap test is included, Oncogene is included. Both not infectious too...? I support in general the idea of this category, but it may quickly become List of causes of sudden death (ie, almost anything can be added if it's an infection or cancer as most infectious confer a slightly increased risk, or may cause a complication that may predispose to cancer in some way)... so it may be useful to develop some criteria as to what goes in the category, or else it may rapidly become very large. The downside to largeness is it wastes a lot of whoever is doing the tagging's time, and the larger the category, the harder it will be for users to find the infectious with strong links when using the category. Cheers, --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:37, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, yes I understand these are cancers that may be "caused" by infection, or tests for infection, but the point of a category is to hold a defined set of articles, not every article that relates. In a category title "Infectious causes of cancer" I'd expect... infectious causes of cancer, not the other stuff. That's why eg Category:Arm doesn't contain diseases of the arm (a separate category) or information about Category:Leg. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:42, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Reddit Science AMA + PLOS + Wikipedia

Hello.

There is a crowdsourced media platform called reddit, and they have a science forum there called /r/science which presents academic papers. Starting next week PLOS will be partnering with reddit to increase and deepen scientists' participation in reddit. For a range of reasons, I think that a Wikipedia team could partner in this to everyone's mutual benefit.

I drafted the beginning of a grant proposal describing such a collaboration at meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Reddit Science AMA + PLOS + Wikipedia. Because of the regularity of the commitment to partner, and the need for professionalism when meeting scientists and representing a convergence of communities, I think that imagining this partnership to include some part-time paid staffing is reasonable. PLOS is already contributing some staffing, reddit has a super-committed volunteer base but is not really in the position to do this, and Wikipedia in my opinion has a lot to gain in terms of getting quality content, establishing relationships, and increasing its public profile.

I would appreciate anyone commenting at meta on the idea. If anyone knows anyone who might apply for a WMF grant to establish a relationship between these communities, then please have them comment on the grant page. I would love to see partnerships grow here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:05, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

give opinion (I gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:12, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Related to this, I am actually working to get the /r/emergencymedicine community on Reddit to be more active in contributing to Wikipedia by showing the benefits of doing so and working to make it easy for them to understand how they are able to contribute. A little bit ago I even posted on the /r/medicine page about this very topic. I would love to help you out in any way I can. Peter.C • talk • contribs 18:43, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

that's a great idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but I can't say I'm thrilled about Wikipedia being associated with Reddit, a site that proudly hosts threads promoting rape, the sexualisation of dead women, and over-the-top racism. Apparently until a couple of years ago the search term that most commonly brought Googlers to Reddit, other than "reddit", was "jailbait", referring to sexualised images of underage females (source). Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:20, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

If I wanted to take the five minutes to do so, I could find comparable situations in Wikipedias history. One thing I like about reddit though is that is merely is a platform for people to use as a public forum, that means that while there might be some degenerates on a certain "subreddit", it does not mean that those same users are active in others. The way I think this would work is that there would be a collaboration between this wikiproject and medical professions on medical subreddits. I invite you to look at some medical subreddits like /r/medicine and /r/emergencymedicine and see if you find any content that you find that you would not like to be associated with. Hopefully this reply will ease your concerns. Feel free to ask any other questions about reddit and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability :) Peter.C • talk • contribs 14:14, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

When we have scandals, we clean up. We don't continue to openly promote horribly antisocial or extremely violent activities. We host disturbing content to document it, whereas Reddit has fetishised free speech to the point where it welcomes original instructions for getting away with rape, delightfully illustrated with a cartoon of a woman being bleeding while being anally raped.

Surely there are countless alternative sites that use similar open-forum technology, while maintaining some modicum of basic human decency? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 00:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Adrian J. Hunter I respect your perspective that reddit is harmful and I hope that you will respect mine that it is helpful. No - reddit, is not replaceable. It is the largest community forum in the world for layman audiences to discuss new academic publications while reading the actual papers. All the problems you describe exist there just as you describe. They matter and need to be addressed, but I am not in a position to boycott this popular communication channel because I need to rally more resources and participation to come here. While I would not invite a direct threat into Wikipedia, the science forum there in my opinion is a threat only for being on reddit and not because the scientists do harmful things, and it is my opinion that inviting science enthusiasts from there to here has a low risk of harming Wikipedia's image or bringing over a more troublesome community base.

There is no defense or excuse for what is bad on reddit - it should be eliminated in whatever way does not destroy the good parts. Reddit is a place where the leaders of most major social movements in the English speaking world meet to present their perspective. Obama, Elon Musk, CNN's medical correspondent, college professors including this one, a Nobel prize winner for medicine, and other interesting people in health present on reddit daily, and I think that these people's endorsement of reddit is supporting evidence that it is not wholly bad. As to the harassment issues - I could talk with you more about these things if you like, as I talk with others about sorting the harassment problem through efforts like this meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Centralised harassment reporting and referral service. On Wikipedia the harassment problem is being addressed by keeping this place 90% male. Homogeneity does a lot to keep conformity to the rules but I feel that while suppressing diversity does reduce harassment, it is not a long-term strategy for developing the encyclopedia here. I think we need new people here, and the science forum at reddit is a reasonable risk in balancing the chance of recruiting collaborators versus increasing risk of harassment here. Certainly I want no tolerance for the dregs of reddit or any other website. I am ready to tell anyone that reddit hosts horrible content that cannot be excused. I understand that you would wish to avoid reddit and perhaps that might be best for almost all people, and people should know about reddit's problems. Still I want access to the reddit and PLOS communities and information, and I hope you can at least recognize some basis for my exploring this option even if you still oppose it. I feel unable to boycott reddit in entirety because it is too big. I do not see other options to go into another online volunteer crowdsourcing science community (reddit) to ask them to share open access content (PLOS) on Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Blueraspberry – Thanks for the considered response. You've convinced me that there's little risk that an association with Reddit will harm Wikipedia's reputation. So the relevant calculus becomes [cost to society of Wikipedia endorsing a site that condones promotion of violence and extremely antisocial activities] vs [benefit to society of Wikipedia recruiting more scientists and medics]. I doubt our association with Reddit would be all that visible to the public. On the other hand, given our immense popularity among the lay public and health professionals alike, the benefit of more accurate and comprehensive material on Wikipedia is considerable. And I know that we really, really need more competent and committed editors. So on balance I support this initiative. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

the link that PETER C. brought up looks fine...This sub is for medical professionals. We like to think of /r/medicine as a lounge where medical professionals can talk about the latest advances, controversies, ask questions of each other, have a laugh or share a difficult moment. Although primarily aimed at physicians, we distinctly encourage other health care professionals to add their voice to the discussions. [4]...it seems informative and like BlueRasberry indicated it gets a wide audience.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:40, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

"a site that proudly hosts threads promoting rape, the sexualisation of dead women, and over-the-top racism."

That article is really sensationalized. The subreddit they are primarily attacking currently only has 2 posts in it, one of which is asking if the subreddit is a joke. And far from proudly hosting them, most of the subreddits you and the article complained about were banned years ago.TypingAway (talk) 05:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

TypingAway – I don't follow – I know the Jailbait stuff is gone, but as far as I can see, everything else mentioned by the article I linked or by myself is still live and active. (See my comment above, though.) Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

The website is known for its open nature and diverse user community that generate its content. Its demographics allows for wide-ranging subject areas, or main subreddits, that receive much attention, as well as the ability for smaller subreddits to serve more niche purposes. For example, the University of Reddit, a subreddit that exists to communally teach, emerged from the ability to enter and leave the online forum, the "classroom," at will, and classes ranging from computer science to music, to fine art theory exist.[89] The unique possibilities that subreddits provide create new opportunities for raising attention and fostering discussion across many areas. In gaining popularity in terms of unique users per day, Reddit has been a platform for many to raise publicity for a number of causes. And with that increased ability to garner attention and a large audience, users can use one of the largest communities on the Internet for new, revolutionary, and influential purposes.[5]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Psychological resilience article and the Bigender article

In addition to the Phobia article that I mentioned in the #Phobia section above, there appears to be WP:Student editing at Psychological resilience (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I saw this after looking at Ericacomer (talk · contribs)'s edits at Bigender (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Flyer22 (talk) 01:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I expanded the title of this section to include "and the Bigender article" because there is also poor medical editing going on at that article. After I reverted Hunterashlyn (talk · contribs), stating. "See User talk:Lnortz2317. Your class is being irresponsible. If I have to revert each edit, I will.", he or she reverted me (and I reverted again). And then he or she stated on the Hunterashlyn talk page, "Please stop deleting our page this is for a project and we really don't need someone deciding what is 'irresponsible' thank you."

Once again, all these editors care about is getting a grade, not the quality of the articles. They have not even informed me of what class they are. And I asked about the class at User talk:Lnortz2317. I don't know if I should report this matter at the WP:Education noticeboard as well, or just here at WP:Med.

And as I just finished typing this section, I see that Hunterashlyn reverted me again, and then EvergreenFir reverted Hunterashlyn. Flyer22 (talk) 04:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I would just like to explain my group and once again please ask you to stop messing with our page. We are in a Gender Differences class, and we decided to take on the topic of Bigenderism because before there was only a three sentence definition on the page. We found the best (and only honestly) sources and most of them--if not all are from great sources. We truly care about this subject, and honestly no one else, including you, is adding anything else productive to the page. So please stop tormenting our group Hunterashlyn (talk) 05:18, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Hunterashlyn: Please take time out to think about what people here and the policies of wikipedia are saying - namely that medical claims should be based on good secondary sources. Imagine coming to wikipedia to look at a page and trusting a statement that turns out to be from a single study and which proves to be wrong, or an outlier, or whatever. In class that isn't going to make any difference, but out there in the world someone might read and trust it. Nobody is tormenting your group, and if you stopped to think and avoided getting angry, I'm sure you'd see the logic of this position. JMWt (talk) 11:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Note: TripleShotEspresso commented on these matters on my talk page, explaining the class's intentions. And I explained that the class has not had proper WP:Student training. Flyer22 (talk) 09:56, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

"Stop messing with our page? Oh, dear. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I think I know who the professor is. Just emailed with links to MEDRS and the editing psychology articles WikiEdu brochure. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Hunterashlyn: Although you probably didn't realize there was a problem, you struck a nerve with your "don't mess with our page" comment. Claiming "ownership" of articles is a surefire way to put people off here. But it's ok! Everybody was new once! The best thing you can do now is to take a look at the linked policies/guidelines and, if you don't understand or aren't sure how to do something, just ask. If you keep lines of communication open, ask questions, and take advice when you can, I think you'll find that your "tormenters" can be quite helpful. :) --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Wholesale reverts a good remedy?

I noticed that some of the information added comes from respectable peer reviewed journals such as J Neurosci. Are wholesale reverts the best way to manage this material? Samsara 07:32, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Note: WP:MEDRS is clear that peer review by itself is not the same thing as literature review or systematic review; WP:MEDRS prefers the latter two. Flyer22 (talk) 09:56, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Flyer22 is correct they are not the same as per Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:29, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Could any of the contested edits be interpreted as giving medical advice? Note that neither article has been officially claimed as being in the remit of WP Medicine. Samsara 10:34, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

It's not a matter of WP:Medical advice; it's a matter of biomedical content. Flyer22 (talk) 10:45, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Samsara, you are correct, neither article is tagged with Wikiproject Med, however ...in regards to the more general question (as well as reliable sources)...Ideal sources for such content includes literature reviews or systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant field and from a respected publisher, and medical guidelines or position statements from nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies. Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content. Many such sources represent unreliable information that has not been vetted in review articles, or present preliminary information that may not bear out when tested in clinical trials.This guideline supports the general sourcing policy at Wikipedia:Verifiability with specific attention given to sources appropriate for the medical and health-related content in any type of article, including alternative medicine[6])]...what this means is irrespective of whether an article is so tagged, if it has medical content, it is therefore subject to MEDRS for that content.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:04, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm concerned that this is a case of sprawl and hitting newcomers with the biggest hammer we can find. The term "biomedical" should be used with caution imo as everything - this has been pointed out very long ago - human is ultimately biological, including music and the stock market. Not all of those topics are necessarily covered by PubMed or similar explicitly biomedical reference collections in sufficient depth, and limiting our articles to such sources will eventually cause issues of WP:NPOV with interdisciplinary topics. This particular discussion started with reverting additions sourced to J Neurosci in an article that originally uses the Daily Mirror as a source. I think you can forgive a newcomer for being rather confused. Samsara 11:43, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that simply reverting is poor custom, and that engaging in discussion is far more preferable. That said it is hard to stick to this when you've already reverted 50 nonsense edits the same day. As for when a statement is biomedical in content we have an established consensus on a very liberal interpretation, and if you wish to dispute this you should do so over at WP:MEDRS. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I tried to discuss the matter with the students. And they behaved like students usually do when editing Wikipedia -- going about their business and seemingly discarding valid concerns. With these students, the only discussion I got was the aforementioned one with TripleShotEspresso. Flyer22 (talk) 15:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

And, yes, I usually will revert poor edits. They don't need to stay in the article to be WP:Preserved. Flyer22 (talk) 15:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

According to the rest of the community, adding information about what a major health organization says about a relatively obscure subject, with a source to back that up, is not a "poor edit". Also, according to the rest of the community, there's no need for you to perpetuate an edit war. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

CFCF hit the nail on the head. These articles are under high-speed revision by classes, often in ways that demand corrective action. We will have to be firmer in the way we deal with student editors who do not engage in dialog. For those who do, though, the best solution may be to move the problematic work to draft space. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

could be--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Hey y'all! I'm one of the members of the group that is editing the Bigender article. As Flyer22 mentioned, we had a rather productive conversation about the edits and I'm currently reviewing the suggestions that Flyer22 offered for my portion of the edits. I think some of the frustration that arose from the revisions came from the immediate deletions and unusual format of conversations. We are not well-versed in Wikipedia's preferences (although we did read through a preliminary description of Wikipedia edits) and it took a little while to adjust to where and how conversations are had between editors on this medium. I think we all expected a more user-friendly private message system. That being said, I'd like to clarify here what I clarified for Flyer22: We do not solely care about our grade and if that were the case, it would be reflected in our work and we wouldn't get a good grade anyway. We all care about gender and sexuality and some of us are very close to people who identify as bigender. I, myself, am queer, and often feel that Wikipedia can be lacking in understanding of queer theory in terms of how it goes beyond genes or hormones. Therefore, part of our interest was in reforming the page to spread knowledge about the difference between gender and sex assigned at birth and to reveal the areas in which research is lacking. Like Samsara said, many things in life relate to biology, but rarely is anything solely biomedical in nature and it is a huge failure to not consider environment and sociological factors in research. One problem we're trying to address is society's persistence in conflating gender and biological factors, such as sex. Additionally, bigenderism isn't something that is particularly well-researched and while we would never submit faulty or weak data, the best information available on the topic appears to be peer-reviewed articles and a pseudo meta-analysis (which primarily highlights the failure of the scientific community to research bigenderism). Therefore, while Wikipedia's preferences are for "literature reviews or systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books," I think the content we have provided can be argued for due to a lack of "ideal sources." Feel free to chat with us if you have any concerns, but please try to tag us, as it makes it easier for us new folks to find the content! Best wishes, TripleShotEspresso — Preceding undated comment added 02:22, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm personally fine with primary sources for such an obscure and medically inconsequential subject, but you need to be careful to only summarize what the source says, without adding any original inferences of your own. The Journal of Neuroscience source does not mention bigenderism. The reverted edit also claims that "A Public Health study found that 3% of biologically males and 8% of biological females identify themselves as bigender", which is a misinterpretation of the source. The sample consisted entirely of transgender people, and bigender was only one of the "Other" identities making up those percentages. KateWishing (talk) 04:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

TripleShotEspresso, for what KateWishing means about being "personally fine with primary sources for such an obscure and medically inconsequential subject," see the WP:MEDDATE section of WP:MEDRS, which states, "These instructions are appropriate for actively researched areas with many primary sources and several reviews and may need to be relaxed in areas where little progress is being made or few reviews are being published." I considered noting WP:MEDDATE to you all for why it might be okay to use some of the less-than-ideal sources you and your class have been using for the Bigender article, but it makes me uncomfortable seeing you cite primary sources and/or poor sources for the topic of brain plasticity, bipolar disorder, and so on. Those are the types of topics that should be supported by good medical sources. The fact that social aspects are involved does not mean that such content should not adhere to WP:MEDRS. WP:MEDRS does not apply to everything concerning biology; it rather applies to things that pertain to health/certain anatomical aspects, and it has exceptions. You speak of differentiating sex and gender, and I understand the need to do so. Wikipedia has a Sex and gender distinction article that makes clear the distinction. But, as seen in that article, Wikipedia is also clear that society commonly does not distinguish between biological sex and social gender. Since gender has various meanings, it's difficult to just state that it applies to social contexts only.

As for "tag us," I take it that you mean WP:Ping you? If so, know that WP:Pinging only works with a new signature. And on that note, you need to start signing your username. To sign your username, all you have to do is type four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~. There is no need to WP:Ping me to the Bigender talk page or to this WP:Med discussion, since both pages are on my WP:Watchlist. Flyer22 (talk) 04:56, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I think we need a bit of perspective here. The starting version was a one-paragraph, one-source, multiply-tagged article. The one source, by the way, was a survey of transgendered people living San Francisco during 1997. I'm not sure that it was ever published anywhere else.

We finally have someone who is willing to add properly published sources, from publications that have things like "editors" and even sometimes "peer review", and you all are reverting them? Why on Earth would anyone revert editors who are trying to move the article's sourcing all the way up from "horrible" to "only sort of weak in spots"?

And if you're going to revert it, why do so in such a ham-fisted, rapid-fire manner? I see that User:JMWt is only the latest to revert a perfectly appropriate use of primary sources. (For a statement like "____ has been recognized by ____", a primary source to the person or org recognizing ____ is the most authoritative source possible.) This sourced, policy-compliant information has been WP:DEMOLISHed four times in the space of half a day. Some of you ought to know better than to do that. If you revert twice, then you are no longer following the BRD cycle, and yes, tag-teaming so that each person only technically reverts it once does count. You guys are edit warring, you know better than to do that, and you need to knock it off. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

That is one little "bit of perspective" that isn't wholly supported in guideline or policy, or shared by everyone. Unsourced is what it is (obvious and dubious), while adding poor sources only lends credence to poorly sourced text. And sending the message to new editors that poor sources should stand for expediency is not good for them or the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:32, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe you will find this perspective supported quite clearly in the WP:Editing policy, which says things like "As long as any facts or ideas would belong in an encyclopedia, they should be retained in Wikipedia" rather than "Revert facts and ideas that belong in an encyclopedia unless they're currently supported by sources that are only medium-quality rather than gold-plated". If you don't find that policy clear on the point, then perhaps we should start a discussion there about how to improve its clarity, so that the two of us won't read it and come to opposite conclusions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Please note that while biomedical assertions call for MEDRS sources, all assertions which might be challenged call for secondary sources. Triple's statements above positively scream wp:POV editing. Wikipedia cannot lead but must follow the published literature. If that means waiting for the world to publish secondary work, so be it. There is wp:NODEADLINE. LeadSongDog come howl! 05:28, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

LeadSongDog, this is not true. WP:V says "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an WP:inline citation that directly supports the material." It does not say that any material whose verifiability is likely to be challenged must be supported by a secondary source, and never has. (Also, for the new folks, note that WP:Secondary does not mean independent. It can be a complicated subject.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

WAID, that is literally correct, but practically inconsequential. A primary source doesn't truly support any statement except those such as "In source, author said X". Without a secondary source, there's no reason to use that primary source in the first place.LeadSongDog come howl! 23:25, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Note: TripleShotEspresso, before anyone else states something, know that Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is a WP:Essay; it is not a WP:Policies and guidelines matter. Also know that Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary is a WP:Essay; it is not a WP:Policies and guidelines matter. Those matters are not policies or guidelines because it is common and usually acceptable for Wikipedia editors to revert more than once. This is also why the WP:3RR limit has the limit that it does, with known exceptions to the limit to boot. Also know that WhatamIdoing is not the exception when it comes to the many Wikipedia editors who revert more than once. When I revert more than once, I always consider the matter necessary. I'd left your class's material in the article. By the time that Hunterashlyn came around, and in the absence of a response from Lnortz2317, I felt that it was time for me to revert. I reverted Hunterashlyn's text (leaving the other text in the article), and tried to explain to Hunterashlyn why I reverted. Hunterashlyn reverted me. And, yes, I reverted again. I do not feel that I was wrong to revert again. I will not apologize for reverting twice. And I am not interested in being scolded like I am a child for reverting twice. Just know that WhatamIdoing and I often do not hold the same views as far as reverting goes, as is clear from this archived discussion. As for improving the article, I consider neither version (the one before your class or after your class) a good version or necessarily a better version. Flyer22 (talk) 06:50, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

As Flyer22 is indicating, it is better for everyone to follow...Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Guideline pages can be found in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines ...Although Wikipedia does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-agreed practices. Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common senseWikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:56, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

With respect to difficulty contributing to Wikipedia, all academic sources have guidelines. If one submits poor written or poorly formatted material to PLoS medicine or the NEJM they simply hand it back to you to rewrite / try again. Wikipedia is far simplier to contribute to than a peer reviewed journal. Writing an FA is about as hard as a mid tier journal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Ozzie, it's true that it's best to follow formal policies. Specifically, I believe that several of our core community members need to follow one of the oldest policies on the books, which prohibits WP:Edit warring and which explicitly states that it's possible for someone to be edit-warring even when she only reverted twice. Reverting exactly the same material twice in a few hours counts as "a series of back-and-forth reverts" and it is edit warring, even if it doesn't rise to the "automatic-block level" of four reverts within 24 hours. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

WAID, I realize your argument is right but in the interest of going forward...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:43, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

so WAID you appear to be really "thowing down" here. Let me first say that i have listened to you carefully, and you say a lot of wise things about sourcing (and unfortunately you have to repeat them many times) - that you look for the best sources, which are first and foremost independent, and then you have some careful criteria after that (like a primary source of an interview is probably a better source for a quote than a secondary source). I've heard you. You also tend to be less focused on evidence than on what is mainstream, when it comes to medicine. I have heard that too. (i hope i got all that right) As for me, i carry a pretty strict personal epistemology into my work in WP. There are things I know that I know are true (because i investigated them); there are things i know that i know are false (because i investigated them) and a whole lot of stuff that i know, i don't know for certain. A lot of stuff. Wikipedia is a reference work - a place people turn to for reliable information. If someone inserts a statement into an article that is unsourced or badly sourced... that is, to me, an unsourced or badly sourced statement. Going back to the editing policy and its statement that "As long as any facts or ideas would belong in an encyclopedia, they should be retained in Wikipedia" For me, is an unsourced or badly sourced statement a "fact"? If I have to say yes or no, i will say no... because leaving it (even with a cn tag) is a "yes". People will read it and take it as a fact. The ideas thing... not really sure why the Editing Policy includes that. Anyway, that is where i come from. WP is way too full of unsourced/badly sourced statements that purport to be facts, and to me, this really undermines our mission to provide the public with reliable information. So i revert unsourced or badly sourced statements most of the time (i try to be nice when i do it, and it is wonderful how often people who inserted the unsourced/badly sourced statement circle back around and source it. the other great outcome is that they understand that the statement is not found in good sources, so they agree to let it go). sometimes the outcome is bad and they are just angry their edits didn't stick. that happens an extra lot with students, who really are NOTHERE and never will come back. i know you have said that we drive students away. but so many students i have interacted with, really had no interest in WP per se. just in getting their grade. they had no time or patience for WP itself. i am happy to talk with you more about this. Jytdog (talk) 18:59, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Yep, on the "throwing down" aspect. I also suspect WAID mixes instances of removing the poor source itself, and removing the text attached to a poor source. I have many times removed a primary source that someone (typically a student) came along and attached to a piece of text that most likely is accurate and can be sourced to a secondary review because a) I am not going to leave the later sorting of correct vs. incorrect sourcing to someone else (better to remove it when you see it happen), and b) it is not wise or helpful on any front to let students think that they are sourcing something correctly when they are not. That will only lead to more of same, they will not learn, and someone else will have even more cleanup to do down the line, with a missed chance of the student learning guideline or policy. I'm not sure why WAID is so convinced of being the true arbiter of what facts or ideas belong in an encyclopedia, but policy is clear on primary sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:57, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Wow, thank you all so much for engaging in this discussion. We're learning a lot about Wikipedia editing policies through this discussion and we appreciate the support and feedback. Flyer22, your specific mention of the percentages we referenced was exactly the type of feedback we need to improve the information out there in the bigender article. We're not just trying to ram our heads against a wall until you let us do whatever we want and it's so so so helpful to us to get into specifics like that. I've alerted my team to your feedback and we're looking into it to see if it needs revisions. And again, y'all, you're really helping us to improve what used to be a rather lackluster and uninformative page, so thank you very much. If you have any other specific, constructive criticisms, we'd love to hear them, and we look forward to keeping up with this discussion. TripleShotEspresso (talk) 05:32, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

TripleShotEspresso, you're welcome. You're seeing the positives and negatives of Wikipedia. As for percentages, what do you mean? Do you mean what KateWishing stated above? Flyer22 (talk) 05:40, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Flyer22, yes, it is. I misremembered the signature as yours instead of KateWishing's. My apologies. TripleShotEspresso (talk) 20:14, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Update: TripleShotEspresso, regarding this latest edit that Hunterashlyn (talk · contribs) made, I will go ahead take the article off my WP:Watchlist and note the class editing at that article's talk page. This is not because I'm fine with Hunterashlyn's latest edit; it is because I've explained above what problems I have with the edits your class have made to that article. I don't see such poor biomedical content being added to that article as a good thing, even if exempt by WP:MEDDATE. I have similar issues with poor biomedical content at the Causes of transsexualism article. The only reason I'm keeping that latter article on my WP:Watchlist is because of the controversial nature of that topic and the inappropriate POV-pushing that has gone at that article. I wish your class all the best. Flyer22 (talk) 01:25, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia research update

There is a new study comparing Wikipedia medical articles to WebMD and the Mayo Clinic websites. The study is here. I don't have access to the full text, but the abstract does indicate that more answers for the health statements they tested were available on Wikipedia than on the other two websites, which is good. I am hoping that someone who has access to the full text of this paper can tell us more about it. Everymorning talk 20:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

this is all I found...

Objective

To examine the scope, completeness, credibility, and readability of health, medical and nutritional information found on Wikipedia, WebMD, and Mayo Clinic websites.

Methods

A total of 92 statements, across 9 health categories, were formulated and used to assess the selected websites. Trained raters used a standardized search protocol, electronic logs and the 9-item tool to assess for scope, completeness, credibility, and readability of online material across the 3 websites.

Results

In terms of the scope, answers for 91.3% of the 92 general health statements were available on Wikipedia. WebMD (89.1%) and the Mayo Clinic (81.5%) followed respectively. The Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) was significantly higher for Wikipedia compared to WebMD and the Mayo Clinic websites (p<0.001). The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) scores were also significantly higher for Wikipedia compared to those for WebMD and the Mayo Clinic websites (p<0.001). Sources supporting the general health statements were present for 96.0% of webpages on the Mayo Clinic site, 95.1% of webpages for Wikipedia, and 94.9% of webpages for WebMD.

Discussion

The study findings demonstrate the importance of aligning information and services for health with the skills and abilities of its recipients. As a result, these findings may be used to improve patient health literacy and consequently reduce health disparities.

Conclusion

As a growing number of people use online sources to obtain health, medical, and nutritional information, it is important that this information be complete, comprehensive in scope, and available at a literacy level that is accessible to the general population. (just the abstract) --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

References

This is an abstract for a poster presentation at a meeting - which is probably why the conclusion is so vague. Not clear what "answers for...general health statements" is intended to mean (health questions?) but it looks like the conclusion they're building toward is that we use too many elongated appellations big words. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:41, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Overall it is overwhelming but it also makes me wonder, how does Simple compare to WebMD and the MayoClinic? Peter.C • talk • contribs 21:45, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Simple: is seriously incomplete, and we get (and deserve) some complaints that some editors do not respect their rules about using Simple English when writing about health topics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the complete abstract is repeated above (we can find it in the links). Also, I see talk pages being taken over by excess markup (italics and bolding) which make it harder to read. I'm wondering if being compared to WebMd and Mayo is A Good Thing, but agree with the conclusions (we have about the same amount of cites ... they don't usually cite ... and coverage, but our language is off). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:37, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Either NHS Direct or Cancer Research UK patient information pages (or perhaps both, I forget) are written to a 12 year-old's reading level by people who have had training in doing that (they never allow doctors to do the actual writing), and are carefully checked on that basis. WP in theory aims at an 18 yo's level, though we know how little notice most editors take of that, & almost none of us have the training to achieve any target level consistently, which is a difficult skill. Many editors, here & elsewhere, are very seriously disconnected from reality over what level of language audiences below specialist post-grad level can understand, or will bother to keep ploughing through. Of course medical material has special problems with vocabulary. But it is clear to me that we cannot and should not attempt to compete at the bottom, introductory level of patient info, not least because we are not capable of doing so. There is a role for us on a couple of steps up the ladder, between patient info and textbooks and articles aimed at the medically trained. My research at CRUK adressed these issues, among others. It's still being written up - more later. Johnbod (talk) 14:28, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I can't disagree with any of that, but on the other hand, we do still have many articles that are unnecessarily dense, verbose, jargon-filled, and very hard to read even for someone with a post-graduate education level. Not only in medical articles, but perhaps more often than in other areas ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:32, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

probably--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:35, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Conclusions seem reasonable. We could do more to simplify. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:37, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely - most of the medical articles, & very many others, in scientific areas especially. Imo the priority is to at least get lead sections that non-specialists can make some sense of, which the medical project is attempting to do - kudos to Doc James and others. In advanced maths articles the problem is almost insuperable, and detailed topics in genetics & many other fields are very difficult. At least the macro human body is reasonably familiar to all .... Johnbod (talk) 14:40, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Now that you've brought up my pet peeve about our math content ... it is The Worst IMO. Other editors read our articles and think it's the math that is hard, but the problem is that they are not written in english. Not even the leads, not even on basic concepts, not even on FAs. Medicine is looking really good relative to math. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I am working really hard to convince the Khan academy to release their math videos under an open license (we currently have a pilot of three medical videos). Have a meeting in a couple off weeks again. My hope is that these maths videos if place in the lead will address some of these issues. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

It is the worst, but imo it is the maths that is hard, and also turning that into English. Medicine is better, but it ought to be. Non-scientists probably have more scientific vocabulary & some grasp of concepts in the area of medicine than any other area of science, because it is the hardest to avoid in an ordinary human life. One can easily live a lifetime without any actual need to understand any chemistry, physics, biology, or maths beyond school-level. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

on the accessible jargon-minimized content front, i have the impression that TylerDurden8823 has made that a focus of his/her editing - kudos for that! Jytdog (talk) 15:42, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I would like to second that. User:TylerDurden8823 is doing great work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:19, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

altering the DNA of human embryos./ unethical?

[7] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:21, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with that. It's similar to nuclear power and every other type of technology that is inherently non-ethical. Whether this should be allowed depends on the motives of the people doing it, not the technology itself. -A1candidate 18:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

notice that neither Nature nor Science decided to go with it and rejected publication?[8][9] [10]...(and NPR is not too happy [11])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:51, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

stupid, stupid, overhyping popular media is full of these headlines about "first genetically engineered human embryos". this is NOT the first paper where human embroyos were genetically modified. (see this equally stupid headline from Wired in 2008. what is "new" here is the use of CRISPR to do this. and the embryos used in the paper were not viable in any case. blech. double blech. blech. Jytdog (talk) 20:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

and this is why MEDRS talks about respecting secondary sources. yep. Jytdog (talk) 20:52, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

this is the ‎world’s first scientific paper on altering the DNA of human embryos, that is the difference...In a world first, Chinese scientists have reported editing the genomes of human embryos. The results are published1 in the online journal Protein & Cell and confirm widespread rumours that such experiments had been conducted — rumours that sparked a high-profile debate last month2, 3 about the ethical implications of such work.[12]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:02, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

CRISPR Sterics

editing yes, using CRISPR. that is what CRIPR does. different than transfecting and other forms of genetic modification. this public frenzy is so disheartening. what scientists do research-wise takes a lot of work to get to the clinic. and in this case, the scientists made super-sure the resulting embryos couldn't be used in IVF. just a lot of hype. Jytdog (talk) 23:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying this is not Genetic Engineering? The definition Wikipedia uses for Genetic Engineering is "the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using biotechnology". If it is not Genetic Engineering, what is it? Please explain. David Tornheim (talk) 02:23, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• Protein & Cell published a paper on CRISPR/Cas9 use for gene therapy in human embryos. An article in Nature states the paper looks "set to reignite the debate on human-embryo editing" - and the experiments are facing a backlash

Discussion on ITN: Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § Human embryos genetically modified for the first time -- Aronzak (talk) 23:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• It's not just the popular media who says this is a first. George Q. Daley says that "I believe this is the first report of CRISPR/Cas9 applied to human pre-implantation embryos and as such the study is a landmark, as well as a cautionary tale," [13] This does seem significant with respect to bioethics. Everymorning talk 09:23, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

it is the first report of CRISPR being used on an embryo. It is not the first genetically modified embryo and that is what a lot of the popular press is saying. CRISPR is not the first genetic engineering technology - the issues have been around for a long time - they go back to the first days of biotechnology. see this from 1990. PMID 23072719 is a pretty recent review (2012) of science/law/ethics etc. I'll note that actual medical use of germline modification is illegal in most of the developed world. This is hysteria over basic science research. Jytdog (talk) 10:08, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

• Another article on this in New York Times OpEd here David Tornheim (talk) 02:42, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
• A similar article in Forbes here. David Tornheim (talk) 02:51, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Question--Should this be mentioned in the Genetic Engineering article? If not, why not? I will ask the same question at Genetic Engineering. David Tornheim (talk) 02:26, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

answer David Tornheim perhaps you should actually read the genetic engineering article before you pepper this board with questions about something that is already there. Jytdog (talk) 02:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Good. Although I monitor that article, I had not noticed these new events had been added. My bad. No need to be so condescending about it. I thought your "blech. double blech. blech." was a peremptory challenge to signal your intention to oppose any inclusion of the material discussed here into the Wikipedia articles--I am glad it is not. Too be honest, I still don't know what causes you to say "blech. double blech. blech." and why you appear to have such a strong aversion to what is being discussed here. Providing RS that gives a different story would be more helpful than giving your opinion. David Tornheim (talk) 03:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

you still haven't read the actual study have you? nor the content on it that is now in several places in Wikipedia. please stop having cows about things and actually pay attention to the sources. Jytdog (talk) 07:50, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Please stop with your assumptions of "bad faith" and use of WP:Uncivil ad hominem attack of comparing my response to "having a cow". Please focus on the subject matter and not the person.David Tornheim (talk) 17:05, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

if it moos like a cow and walks like a cow, it must be a cow. and i will say it again - before you go ballistic and posting 5 times about something, please read the actual article and the relevant sources. you are the one acting solely on an assumption of bad faith. Jytdog (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Considering this event is just a tiny blip in the research world, I see no reason why it would be noteworthy. We generally don't report on research that does something that's largely already been done but just with a newer methodology. That's more for us scientists to geek out over within our disciplines, but isn't really encyclopedic in nature. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:03, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Merge Congenital hypopituitarism ?

Might this be already covered elsewhere in greater detail? Matthew Ferguson 57 (talk) 20:09, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

both references are dated ,(per MEDRS) BTW....Hypopituitarism has a congenital section--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:13, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Merged / redirect as not enough content for its own article yet. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Passive smoking

Could use more eyes and likely a bit of updating. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:11, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

will keep an eye on--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Lots of high-quality review articles and other MEDRS compliant sources in this article, but some primary studies here and there that should be trimmed. I have started making a dent. Everymorning talk 18:38, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

pulitzer prize/ebola photography (images)

for those of you that might be interested [14] (this was added to Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa ) thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:49, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

GlaxoSmithKline

If anyone has the interest it would be nice to have some input on the article above. Issues of disagreement (from my pov, @SlimVirgin: may have a different view.) are

• When is it appropriate to mention potentially COI funding of studies? Is it appropriate to discuss

• When underlying primary studies mentioned in secondary sources are industry or activist group funded?
• When the secondary source itself has COI funding (industry or activist group funded)?

• To what extent does WP:MEDDATE apply to discussion of historical controversies (In this case, rosiglitazone?). Should greater weight be attached to more recent analyses of the data on rosiglitazone's potential CV liabilites, or should equal weight be given to older ones? Should analyses (the number dead from Avandia induced heart attacks) based on the 2009 relative risk be included in the text given that FDA modified its conclusions in 2014?

• Is the GSK malaria vaccine as notable as other items included in the lede?

I'm sure SV will have a different view of how these questions should have been phrased, and I welcome her comments here. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI statement} 16:23, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

your asking several questions at once so lets take one at a time, in regards to MEDDATE...[15]....These rules of thumb have several exceptions:

• History sections often cite older work for obvious reasons.
• Cochrane Library reviews are generally of high-quality and are routinely maintained even if their initial publication dates fall outside the above window...maybe this will help with the #4 question you asked--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

a partial answer to your first question (as I see this is on a separate talk page) would be...Any external relationship – personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal – can trigger a conflict of interest. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. For example, an article about a band should not be written by the band's manager, and a biography should not be written by the subject's spouse. But subject-matter experts are welcome to contribute to articles in their areas of expertise, while being careful to make sure that their external relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia[16]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:33, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

"personal victory over polio"

The current Franklin D. Roosevelt page looks odd to me by using the phrase "personal victory over polio", as I mention on the talk page. I know very little of the disease, but I feel the phrase is way more politics than medical fact. Thoughts? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 02:07, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

remember that Roosevelt passed away in 1945, and it was not until 1957 that trials began for Sabin's oral polio vaccine. (produces immunity to all three poliovirus serotypes in about 50% of recipients. Three doses of live-attenuated OPV produce protective antibody to all three poliovirus types in more than 95% of recipients[17].) So, at that time Polio was devastating physically(and took a toll psychologically [18] ).--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:56, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Orthodeoxia

Not quite sure what to do with this, was thinking it should be redirected to platypnea but wanted to know what others thought. Everymorning talk 20:21, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree (per [19] [20] and [21] )--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:56, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I have redirected it. Everymorning talk 11:18, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Orthodeoxia is not the same as platypnea. The redirect target ("Platypnea") does not define orthodeoxia. The current statement: "platypnea (sometimes referred to as Platypnea-Orthodeoxia syndrome)" is incorrect. The statement is not supported by either of the two references provided. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:21, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Platypnea-Orthodeoxia syndrome describes both dyspnea (platypnea) and arterial desaturation in the upright position with improvement of the supine position (orthodeoxia) . The mechanism of this syndrome is thought to be a distortion of the septal anatomy leading to preferential shunting of blood from right to left by stretching of a PFO in the supine position despite normal right-sided pressures. (Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine edited by Eric J. Topol, Robert M. Califf,.2007) [22]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:50, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Indeed! You have proven my point. Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:19, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

for clarity Platypnea-Orthodeoxia syndrome article? (in regards to the platypnea article the text should have been modified prior to the redirect...BTW, if you check the reference I cited for the redirect (at the top), its the same one you just agreed to )--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:03, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we need a separate article on the syndrome. We should just clarify that platypnea refers to a subjective sensation of shortness of breath, while orthodeoxia describes an objective, measurable decrease in arterial O2 saturation. They often co-exist but they are two different things. MastCell ^Talk 21:03, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

"if you check the reference I cited for the redirect (at the top)". Which reference? (I'm pretty sure that I checked all of the references provided.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:44, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

reference 31 (its the same as the one you indicated agreement with in the text in my second to last post)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:10, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I still don't understand your point. The reference supports my position, not yours. Did you read MastCell's statement? Do you agree or disagree with him?

To clarify my position: "platypnea" is the symptom of shortness of breath when upright, which is relieved by lying down. "Orthodeoxia" is the clinical finding where oxygen saturation is reduced in the upright position, and increases when lying down. "Platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome" is the combination of both platypnea and orthodeoxia. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:19, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

right...I agree with MastCell (I was simply pointing out the same reference had been used before, irrespective of that, and in the best interest of the article, I believe MastCell's solution is best!) thank you --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay. Please read my original statement again. Do you agree with it? Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

yes I concur, the article comes first--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:37, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. I feel that we are making progress. :-)

I am inclined to have separate articles for these three (related) conditions, but given that the amount of material is fairly low, this is not a strong opinion. In any case, I shall edit the article later today. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:52, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

thank you (yes the material is low in quantity)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:00, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Template:Google books

I oppose the addition of this template to medical articles. IMO the last thing we need is more complicated templates that work in no other language of Wikipedia other than English. We really need a base set of templates that the WMF gets working in all languages. I have removed it here [23]. By the way the cite templates work in nearly all languages due to the hard work of User:CFCF Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:32, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I use this app http://reftag.appspot.com/ to auto generate references from a google books url. Is this helpful/unhelpful>? Entirely support the presence of a link to google books when using textbooks, helps readers to see how accessible some of these sources are, however not sure of the best way to format this in the citation... Matthew Ferguson 57 (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

This particular template does work in many other languages and the underlying script is an order of magnitude less complicated than {{cite journal}}. Boghog (talk) 20:00, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Which style of source presentation should be use is a WP:CITEVAR matter. Decisions are made article-by-article. WPMED doesn't own the articles and can't dictate a blanket style for all of them.

Personally, I think that link looks more like an WP:External link formatting style than a bibliographic citation, but each article's editors get to set their own preferences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

that's right--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:05, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, we also have WP:MEDMOS which already mentions how to use references in medical articles. I don't see how ownership of articles is relevant, what we are doing here is holding a discussion aimed towards forming opinion and if needed suggesting amendments to relevant policies. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:37, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• "We" don't have MEDMOS; the whole community does. MEDMOS has never told editors to use or not use any particular templates.
• CITEVAR is a guideline, not a policy.
• There is no realistic chance of getting CITEVAR revoked or modified to give WikiProjects (or any group of people other than the editors active at each separate, individual article) the right to decide which citation templates should or shouldn't be used on groups of articles. My recommendation is that you not waste your (very valuable) time and energy on a proposal that is guaranteed to fail. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

We don't exclude this WikiProject from the community at large, thus "we" have MEDMOS. This WikiProject serves the sole function to centralize discussion about medical topics and any changes to either policy or guideline is per definition global, regardless where the topic was first raised. Can we stick to the topic of whether to use googlebooks links? -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 11:57, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Where there is a significant amount of relevant text available on google books, a link is very useful, but it should go straight to the relevant text, not the google books "title page" for the book, which the template does. Sometimes whole books are now available, and often say 50% - bearing in mind that what is visible changes around the world. I don't use that template style myself, in my non-medical writing, I just add a trimmed link to the start page for relevance in the book at the end of a bibliographic citation, looking like: *Ainsworth, Maryan Wynn, et al., German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350-1600, 2013, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), ISBN 1588394875, 9781588394873, google books

- note you go straight to the right page, using "https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MKkSBtJNBUwC&pg=PA59 " trimmed from the url in the search query result. That large book is 100% available on google books, btw. Johnbod (talk) 14:29, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes I add these google book urls as John mentions all the time. They are great and go write to the page in question. One can add it to the url= Maybe with tech support becoming available someone can drive forwards some universal templates that work across all Wikipedia's. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The template {{Google books}} relies in its code only on the #if: parser function and the urlenclode "magic word". These are standard features of every Wikimedia installation as far as I know, and the unmodified template should work on being imported into any language Wikipedia. --RexxS (talk) 15:42, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

By the way, contrary to what John suggests, the template can link right to the page required, not the title page, if desired: {{Google books|MKkSBtJNBUwC|German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350-1600|page=59}} gives German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350-1600, p. 59, at Google Books. For an experienced editor, it doesn't assist much, but it may be helpful to a new editor, as they can write page= or pg=, for example, and not have to worry about consistent formatting if used more than once. HTH, --RexxS (talk) 15:54, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

glutamine as treatment for intestinal permeability

would appreciate thoughts here: Talk:Intestinal_permeability#glutamine Jytdog (talk) 00:29, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

give your opinion (I gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:30, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Vitamin K₂

• Vitamin K2 (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Is in questionable shape. Currently we're saying supplementation is essential for the maintenance of bone strength in postmenopausal women, has a strongly protective effect on cardiovascular health, and is beneficial to children ... so far as I can see the evidence is a lot more tentative that this. The article gets ~250 views/day. Alexbrn (talk) 12:28, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

from a reference standpoint 1-5,7-15,18,19,21,23-33 are non-MEDRS compliant (due to 1. not being a review or 2. being much older than 5 years or so)...references 16,17,20,22 are MEDRS compliant...aside from this, as the poster indicated, the text is not supported by the sources. Having said that perhaps journal [24] and books [25] [26].thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:01, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Air pollution

The section "Health effects" has some stuff sourced to primary studies that don't meet MEDRS. Was bringing it to the attention of this WikiProject in case anyone wanted to try to address this issue. Everymorning talk 15:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

the references 20-23,25-29,31,32,33,35-40,45-50,52,53,54 are not MEDRS compliant and relate to the specific section mentioned Health effects --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Open Wikipedia ranking

Found this on Slashdot: The Open Wikipedia Ranking. Uses wikidata items to assess relative importance of articles. Wikidata's patchy coverage makes it more fun than you'd expect. (The most important member of occupation:chemist? Margaret Thatcher, apparently.) But it has a lot of potential for discovering under-developed important articles. Opabinia regalis (talk) 03:52, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

interesting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:19, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have previously expressed my surprise at seeing Margaret Thatcher in the category of women scientists. Of the two people who responded (one of whom was Wiki at Royal Society John/JohnBod), one editor was inclined to remove her from the category, while the other editor was not.

Ironically, Blurasberry's comment there was "Wikidata will settle this". Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Expert attention needed

I've tagged Macronutrient preload for expert attention. The particular issue of concern is the use of primary research for sources, rather than review articles as preferred by WP:MEDRS. Could someone knowledgable from this project have a look? WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 13:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

references 1-3 and 5-7 are non-MEDRS compliant, you might want to look here [27] and also books [28] [29] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Simple definition

Wondering if people understand "Aneuploidy is the presence in a cell of an abnormal number of chromosomes, with the exception of a difference of one or more complete sets of chromosomes" Discussed here [30] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:02, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

interesting discussion (give opinion, I did)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

X-ray computed tomography renamed to CT scan?

Discussion is here: Talk:X-ray_computed_tomography#reqmovetag, and would benefit from some more input. --Tom (LT) (talk) 13:46, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

give opinion--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:50, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

addiction research / federal privacy

[31] I believe this to be a good read.thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:36, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Americord Registry

Company, it appears, is attempting to write there own page. Wondering if protection would be useful? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:05, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

it could, yes--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:14, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

 Done Indef semi'd. Zad68 17:49, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

i tagged it for COI and listed at COIN. it needs review for NPOV etc.. thanks doc and zad. Jytdog (talk) 18:20, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Thrombocytopenia

Currently this article is called class B, but it needs attention. Sections tagged a year ago still need refs. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:13, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Looking for Help with Non-NPOV Content

Hi… My name is Vince Golla and I work with Kaiser Permanente. I’m trying to find a neutral party to take a look at the Kaiser Permanente page, particularly with regard to some serious non-NPOV content. You can find my related Talk page entry over at the article. Happy to answer any questions. Many thanks to anyone who is willing to help out. vggolla (talk) 00:31, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I think User:Jytdog is already looking into it--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:24, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Hypersexual disorder and sexual addiction

@James Cantor: here's your discussion, enjoy.

This issue is more or less summarized in these 2 edit summaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypersexual_disorder&type=revision&diff=660248201&oldid=660192485

I merged the former article to the latter because it's a stub article for a medical disorder which exists entirely as a MOS:MED diagnostics section (and in relation to only a single manual at that) and PMID 24001295, a current meta-analytic systematic review, asserts that they're synonyms.

Of the current refs on that page, the APA and DSM refs are obviously primary sources for coverage of the DSM, the news articles are simply inconsequential as they're not medical sources, and only one satisfies MEDRS as a medical review - Kafka, M. P. (2010). Hypersexual Disorder: A proposed diagnosis for DSM-V. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 377–400.. In the author's summary section, he wrote "Hypersexual Disorder has been primarily characterized as compulsive, impulsive, a behavioral addiction or a sexual desire disorder. Regarding the possible categorical placement in DSM-V, this author suggests that the term ‘‘compulsive,’’while apt in describing features of these conditions, is not consistent with prior DSM-based conceptualization of an obsessive–compulsiv?e spectrum disorder." As a sexual addiction is literally, by definition of an addiction, a "compulsive sexual behavior", this author does not differentiate the two concepts at all.

IDK about you all, but I don't think a rejected diagnostic model of a term for a disorder (which that page does't even define, mind you) from a single diagnostic manual is a notable enough topic to merit its own independent page, especially when medical reviews indicate that the term is synonymous with an existing well-defined disorder. Given the current page text and these two reviews, keeping this page is simply undue weight toward the DSM's nonexistent model for the term. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 15:02, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree they should be merged for the same reasons you outline. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:29, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

ill second that--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Sexual addiction is a hotly contested way of looking at hypersexuality and should not be used as the catch-all for every way of looking at it. Indeed, there exist very many RS's decrying the addiction model for sex (never mind the addiction model of very many other problems). Googling "hypersexual disorder" retrieves >100,000 hits and continues to be used in very many RS's. Schoalr.google retrieves >500 cites. To absorb what sex researchers use into what (many) sex researchers explicitly deny to be true is not helpful to readers. WP records all human knowledge, not just the human knowledge as it appears in the DSM. There exist other manuals (such as the ICD), and there exists the science itself, which of course predates what goes into whatever manual (years later). Whatever anyone feels is missing from the page can be added to the page. Indeed, I would be happy to help people find it.

That the proposal was rejected for inclusion in the DSM-5 is not an argument for not covering the material in WP. The debate was not only highly notable, it continues today, it continues to influence other discussions in RS's, and it is (unsurprisingly) guiding the research on the topic which continues to be going on. (With the DSM as with WP, consensus can change.)

And, FWIW, blanking pages with diff comments like "an obscenely retarded dependence model" is not how to win friends and influence people. Although I am not a fan of the DSM, such phrases suggest the deletion is part of an individual editor's philosophy.

— James Cantor (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I called it an obscenely retarded dependence model because addiction and dependence are a dichotomy of compulsion. Addiction involves pathological positive reinforcement, dependence involves pathological negative reinforcement, and compulsions simply involve pathological reinforcement (one or both forms). The DSM deviates the most from the underlying science of addiction in the way that it operationally defines their models, hence my annoyance with their stupidity. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 19:03, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, I wouldn't really have an issue with the existence of that page if it simply moved to hypersexuality (DSM) while hypersexuality linked to sexual addiction. Doing that would resolve the issue with that page giving the DSM the one-and-only word on the associated disorder/concept with the term; doing that would also conform to the description of the phrase as noted in both reviews. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 19:09, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Each classification of an underlying issue should not really get its own page. Thus happy with the merge. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:14, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Also, can I just point out that all the basic biochemical research in the field of sex addiction research was carried out in non-human animals? Perhaps we should add the word "in animal models" or, more specifically "in rats" (or whatever the appropriate model animal was) in all the appropriate places. You cannot just generalize from animal behavior to humans, and the fact that there is a biological model for hypersexuality in animals does not imply that people who are (to be blunt) getting more sex than their critics approve of exhibit the same behavior seen in lab animals. Perhaps all this material could be shunted out into a new article, sexual addiction in non-human animals, or animal models of sexual addiction? -- The Anome (talk) 14:54, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

You can go ahead, though I'd revert you and have MEDRS-support for my actions because...surprise...all the reviews are indicative of humans per mesh terms; WP:MEDANIMAL also has does not preclude the use of secondary sources which cite animal models, it literally SAYS to do that - I made that shortcut, so you'd think I'd know that policy.

Provided animal data meets specific conditions, genetic/epigenetic data can be and has been translated to human models and human database annotations. E.g., PMID 24174439 and PMID 24174444 cover specific cases. If you actually care that much, go read the relevant material on pubmed for other species. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 15:45, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Seppi333, at Talk:Hypersexuality you stated the following: Maladaptive non-drug-related behaviors, whether they be compulsive (i.e., addictive), obsessive, or otherwise excessive to the point of concern, aren't well characterized clinically yet. Consequently, there won't be any consensus on a precise medical statement in the literature as to what constitutes "hypersexuality". That said, it's certainly not a fringe concept, since maladaptive sexual behavior is well documented in humans (e.g., drug-induced and drug-unrelated compulsive sexual behavior, in both genders) - the term "hypersexuality" just doesn't have an clinical association with a specific/precise form or pattern of maladaptive sexual behavior yet (it differs from the term "sexual addiction" in this respect, since an addiction is a precisely-defined pattern of maladaptive [compulsive] behavior). At present, it's probably best to keep the scope of this article broad to account for the imprecise definition of the term.

Do you still feel that way? I ask because above you stated, "Frankly, I wouldn't really have an issue with the existence of that page if it simply moved to hypersexuality (DSM) while hypersexuality linked to sexual addiction." Did you mean that you want hypersexuality to redirect to the Sexual addiction article? Flyer22 (talk) 11:15, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I also see that hypersexuality is currently mentioned in the WP:Lead sentence of the Sexual addiction article as a WP:Alternative title even though it is yet to redirect there. Flyer22 (talk) 11:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

My opinion on the classifying the terminology involving sex-related compulsive disorders, like "hypersexuality", "hypersexual disorder", "sexual compulsion", "sexual addiction", etc, changed consequent to reading the 2014 systematic review that I noted above. More articles will likely need to be merged into the sexual addiction article in the future, although I'm not in any hurry to act on this. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit: one thing I haven't mentioned here which is particularly relevant to my decision to merge this is the advent of US government's (National Institute of Mental Health) development/backing of Research Domain Criteria for future editions of the DSM. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:23, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Other the Hypersexuality and Hypersexual disorder articles, what other merge options are there in this case? Sexual compulsion, for example, has redirected to the Hypersexuality article since 2005. Flyer22 (talk) 18:23, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Sexual dependence and sexual compulsion should redirect to sexual addiction due to the generic definitions (i.e., outside the context of sex) of those terms. Nymphomania, erotomania (article already exists), satyriasis, are context specific terms that for now should probably redirect to the current hypersexuality article. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:26, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

[ WP:Edit conflict ]: The reason that I didn't mention erotomania is because it's not the same thing as hypersexuality/sexual addiction. I see you struck through mention of that above. There is the Don Juanism article, but, to me, it doesn't seem that it should be merged with any of the above articles. Flyer22 (talk) 18:31, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

If there's already an article for such context-specific terms, they should just be left alone IMO. At least, they're not relevant to my argument above. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:34, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Salvia miltiorrhiza

Although the subject of Salvia miltiorrhiza is a plant, the majority of the content is about its medical use. Based on the massive cleanup tag and other issues noted in the text, I think it could use some serious attention from editors with medical knowledge and an eye for WP:MEDRS. Anyone willing to give it a look? Thank you. Deli nk (talk) 16:27, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

reference-wise 2,5,6,11,13-29,32,34 are not MEDRS compliant...the references 12 and 23 are not pubmed indexed--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:35, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Sialectasis

How is sialectasis different from salivary duct cyst? Been reworking template:oral pathology, and I feel wp is missing some content on this topic, but not sure what to call new article, or indeed if already covered (mucocele, mucous retention cyst). Thoughts? Matthew Ferguson (talk) 19:08, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

the former [32] and the latter [33] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:42, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Disagreement at Psychosurgery and History of psychosurgery

Two editors are vehemently disagreeing about the inclusion of some references (which to me at first sight look fine, but I don't know much about this stuff). Perhaps a knowledgeable editor here could have a look. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 19:10, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I have commented at both articles thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:50, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello Ozzie10aaaa (talk · contribs) Could you make a more direct statement on that page as to whether you think the Miguel Faria articles meet MEDRS; or, if they do, whether they are inferior publications to other MEDRS-compliant sources on the topic? FiachraByrne (talk) 22:08, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I will review both articles over the weekend (add- there are no inferior publications, there are primary sources, there are secondary (review) sources these plus books and position statements from recognized organizations CDC, WHO ,NIH,etc... are what we follow, as long as they are within a reasonable time...5 years or so.)[34]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks and point taken on my poor wording. FiachraByrne (talk) 23:23, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Secondary is not another way of spelling 'good source'. Some sources are better than others; therefore, some sources are inferior to others. And MEDRS may not apply, since the Faria articles are supporting statements like "This work in psychosurgery became highly controversial and as the debate on psychosurgery heated up in the 70s it was abandoned", which is not "biomedical". There's nothing "bio" in that sentence: whether a controversy existed, and what did or did not happen in the 1970s, are questions of history, not of biology. See plain old WP:RS for the basics, and then consider whether this dispute is actually about reliability or if it's really about WP:DUE (and therefore about POV pushing). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Ideal sources for such content includes literature reviews or systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant field and from a respected publisher, and medical guidelines or position statements from nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies. Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content. Many such sources represent unreliable information that has not been vetted in review articles, or present preliminary information that may not bear out when tested in clinical trials[35]... both articles have This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that this article follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine on the talk page?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:22, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Ozzie, I'm tolerably familiar with MEDRS's contents. What I'm telling you that what people believed in a given decade is not "biomedical" content (that's what "such content" refers to; it's in the previous sentence), and therefore it is not covered by MEDRS.

If we're going to continue quoting the {{WPMED}} banner, then perhaps we should adjust it to reflect the policies better. For example, we actually recommend that MEDRS be followed for biomedical information, not for whole articles (and not, say, for biographical information about the thousands of BLPs that tag is present on) and we also recommend that MEDMOS be followed for articles directly about medical topics (and not, again, for the thousands of BLPs that tag is present on). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

there seems to be ample new material on pubmed regarding the subject [36] (in any event I already commented on both article talk pages )--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:20, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

This is an interesting discussion but actual content has not been discussed. I read Faria's work on Psychosurgery and his stuff encompasses , not only some operations such as amygdalotomy and thalamotomy, but also the historic reasons for the emergence of psychosurgery, which was not really well covered in the articles. It's true Faria has suggestions towards the end of the article for the future that may be construed as POV, but I think this perspective is needed. Other authors and references cited in both of the articles, especially in the entry Psychosurgery, cover the full spectrum of the technical operations used in psychosurgery, so it does not bother me that Faria has less technical details in his articles and more historical and theoretical points. As it has been mentioned, DBS is considered by many authors as part of psychosurgery or closely connected, so that does not bother me either. The articles should be kept especially in the History of psychosurgery entry, where they are essential. I also read the article by Robison, RA; Taghva A; Liu CY; Apuzzo ML that has also been mentioned and I found it deficient. That is one article that probably should be omitted because the second half is virtually an infomercial for stereotactic equipment and it refers to a number of conditions that are not psychosurgery, such as treatment for Parkinson's Disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Perhaps I should post this under the article there. Philipegalite (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

your opinion is important and I appreciate any further advise you might have regarding these two articles, for as you can see we have had a long discussion on this matter... I read Faria's work on Psychosurgery and his stuff encompasses , not only some operations such as amygdalotomy and thalamotomy, but also the historic reasons for the emergence of psychosurgery, which was not really well covered in the articles. It's true Faria has suggestions towards the end of the article for the future that may be construed as POV, but I think this perspective is needed...your opinion is therefore valuable, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:44, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Obesogen

Obesogen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This is a neologism coined by Bruce Blumberg to describe the hypothesis that environmental pollutants cause obesity. It presents the hypothesis as fact and is largely dependent on two papers [37] [38] and mostly references which don't directly discuss the suject. Others researchers dispute the methodology and conclusions [39] [40] [41], although admittedly others have not questioned them [42]. It was written as a university assignment and is a good scholarly work, but not a neutral encyclopedia article. Something needs to be done, but I'm undecided as to what that is! SmartSE (talk) 20:46, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

you should start by making certain they are Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine) that is the references are reviews , books (5 years or so)...I noticed quite a few references in the article in question were not--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:02, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Even if the term is relatively new, the subject is almost certainly notable, since journal articles like this one are saying things like "The concept of obesogens has spread into the public awareness, too". If you want to make a "quick fix", then start by finding the other POV and add that per the WP:YESPOV policy. If you want to make a bigger change, then finding and reading a few good books or review articles should give you some ideas about how to improve it. It might also make it easier to upgrade some of the sources cited, since if the information is good, it will mostly be present in other good sources, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

There are at least 10 independent review articles (not authored by Felix Grün or Bruce Blumberg) that mention obesogen hence the subject by definition is notable. Even if the link between environmental estrogens and obesity has not been unequivocally established, the hypothesis has gained notice in both the scientific literature and popular press, and hence deserves a Wikipedia article. The article needs more balance (i.e., include sources that question the hypothesis). Boghog (talk) 05:32, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

my first new article - Botanical drug

came across Sinecatechins today while doing something else and realized we had nothing on the drug class. Jytdog (talk) 01:13, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

very good article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:DYK! Please! Let's have an important subject of interest to the whole world in the list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I generally don't do any of that GA/FA/DYK/ITN stuff but if somebody else wants to DYK it, fine by me. i posted it here b/c i am a little proud to have made my first article and also just to have it looked over for acceptability and anything bad fixed. no news is good news in that regard. Jytdog (talk) 17:36, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

you should be very proud (ive read thru it twice and this ref [43] once)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:35, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

thank you ozzie and you too waid.Jytdog (talk) 18:38, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

by the way, i am a bit stymied by what do with the relationship among Epigallocatechin gallate, green tea extract (which is horrible) and Sinecatechins... Jytdog (talk) 17:38, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

maybe [44] ? Mechanism of Action the exact mechanism of action of sinecatechins ointment is unknown, although epigallocatechin gallate (a major component of both green tea and sinecatechins ointment) has been shown to suppress the growth of...[45] first book on top, same reference --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:41, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Nice! I just did a very inadequate amount of cleanup of that awful green tea extract article. DYK is a maze of twisty templates all alike, but it'd be nice to see something like this on the main page. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Nicely done! What interesting to me is that people measure antioxidant potential of these polyphenols and think more is better. But another way of saying that these compounds are antioxidants is to say they are easily oxidized, and the oxidation products they form are not necessarily more innocuous than the ones they prevent. Epigallocatechin is not only cytotoxic, our article lists it as a carcinogen. For all the articles in the literature discussing its enzyme inhibition properties at high micromolar concentrations, I'd guess that it's oxidation product is a good old fashioned DNA alkylator. The tea drinking countries of the world also have the highest rates of liver cancer, though HBV is an obvious confounder, Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 23:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Antioxidants cure everything! Also, if you feel bad, you need more oxygen in your cells, and more antioxidants to soak up the oxygen! I had a friend who ran an ozone generator in her home because she actually thought it was healthful. (It was cheap enough that it probably didn't work.) There are a lot of myths out there.

I've sent the new article to DYK. One of the lovely things about DYK is that the cooperation of the original author is not required. If you're interested, then put Template:Did you know nominations/Botanical drug on your watchlist (and help out: medicine-related DYKs are rare, but good ones are even rarer). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Although oxidation reactions are crucial for life, they can also be damaging; plants and animals maintain complex systems of multiple types of antioxidants, such as glutathione, vitamin C, vitamin A, and vitamin E as well as enzymes such as catalase, superoxide dismutase and various peroxidases. Insufficient levels of antioxidants, or inhibition of the antioxidant enzymes, cause oxidative stress and may damage or kill cells. Oxidative stress is damage to cell structure and cell function by overly reactive oxygen-containing molecules and chronic excessive inflammation. Oxidative stress seems to play a significant role in many human diseases, including cancers. The use of antioxidants in pharmacology is intensively studied, particularly as treatments for stroke and neurodegenerative diseases. For these reasons, oxidative stress can be considered to be both the cause and the consequence of some diseases[46]...i agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

ozzie, the antioxidant hypothesis for neuroprotection or cancer treatment has been around for ages. every single clinical trial of an antioxidant has failed (with one exception that i know of) - the most dramatic being the SELECT trial. every one. the only exception to that, that i am aware of, is Biogen's recent FDA approval on Dimethyl fumarate for MS. that compound is ~thought~ to work by activating NRF2. and yes per Formerly people are realizing (especially following the SELECT trial, that oxidation serves some useful purposes in maintaining homeostasis and shutting it down is not necessarily a great thing Jytdog (talk) 13:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

[47] review article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:59, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I think the key point here is to avoid oversimplification. Yes, the body has and needs systems for preventing uncontrolled oxidation processes, and it uses anti-oxidants such as glutathione, vitamin E and vitamin C for this purpose. But:

• All anti-oxidants can be considered sacrificial substrates - e.g. they are easily oxidized substances that protect more valuable biochemicals by soaking up the pool of available oxidants
• Endogenous ("Natural"?) anti-oxidants such as glutathione, vitamin C, and vitamin D also have the property that they are oxidized to stable substances. Glutathione forms a stable dimer; vitamin C forms dehydroascorbic acid, and so on.
• But not all "antioxidants" (easily oxidized compounds) will have this latter property. Some will be oxidized to reactive substances that can alkylate DNA and do other bad things. Acetominophen is a classic example. It undergoes oxidation in the liver to form a quinone like compound that alkylates proteins and possibly DNA. Overdose causes hepatic failure.
• So for the most part, it is hard to look at the structure of a "dietary phenol" and say much other than that is it easily oxidized. Whether it will exert a protective or toxic effect due to its sacrificial oxidation depends on the strucutre of the product that is produced by that oxidation.
• Much of what is in the literature is bullshit, because it broadly hypothesizes beneficial systemic effects for oral intake of easily oxidized compounds ("antioxidants"). However, nothing taken by mouth sees systemic circulation until after it passes into the portal vein and through the liver. The liver is the most highly oxidizing environment in the body, and most of these easily oxidized substances never come out the other side. The oxidation process that occurs in the liver will in some specific cases produce electrophiles that can cause liver damage.

Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 13:52, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

story from april Wired: An Alternative-Medicine Believer’s Journey Back to Science

here. Written by a professor of religion and deals with big picture issues. (how do people in desperate situations cope?) At base a sad story - Yale husband and wife doctors have two sons who turn out to have autism. Go a bit nuts with desperation. Comes back to their senses. Some great headers: "So Open-Minded Your Brain Falls Out"; "Return from the Magic Kingdom". Also has some discussion with Steve Novella. Jytdog (talk) 22:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

"Written by a professor of religion" - What more is there to say? -A1candidate 22:47, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

you should read it A1. Jytdog (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

What does this have to do with WPMED? Matthew Ferguson (talk) 23:17, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

It shows that Alternative-Medicine is bad and Compulsory-Medicine is good? -A1candidate 23:21, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

A1 do you live in some kind of totalitarian state? really, "compulsory"? how conspiracy-y are you going to get? nut really i meant you should read it. it is a compassionate article. Jytdog (talk) 23:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I think that was a joke. Compulsory = no alternatives. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Matthew Ferguson 57 we at project medicine go round the block lots of times with WP:Lunatic charlatans (aka alt med advocates) who push and push to give more validity to alt med than the science can bear. Also articles by Steve Novella are often used in alt med/FRINGE articles. Jytdog (talk) 23:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

And with people who think that altmed users are stupid or deluded, rather than trying their best, and with people who think that altmed means "no evidence" rather than the mainstream definition, which is that altmed is any medical idea that is not currently mainstream. It's a flashpoint for us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

yes WAID that is true! part of why the wired article is great, is its compassion. i just got a little flamey at A1 there, bad on me. Jytdog (talk) 00:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

How ironic that A1candidate dismisses the article on the basis that it was written by a professor of religion. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:03, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Related discovery

Believe it or not, the American Medical Association's Journal of Ethics has just released a list of evidenced-based (PMID 25901707) and non-evidenced based (PMID 25901708) alternative treatments for autism. Perhaps the Laidlers would have been spared some degree of suffering if these articles were published earlier and cited by Wikipedia? I would certainly hope so. -A1candidate 23:48, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

if you actually read the wired article, you can see how even the most science-based people fall into the madness. the stuff published there is not new; it was all available to the ladlers. Jytdog (talk) 23:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I've taken a quick look at the article: The Laidlers went through a lot, Alternative-Medicine is largely a scam, and Novella is partly right. That still does not diminish my argument that the Laidlers might have been spared a lot of their suffering if PMID 25901707 and PMID 25901708 were published earlier and we had cited them immediately - so that the whole world knows what is real and what is fake. You're not going to argue against this, are you?-A1candidate 00:01, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

glad you took a look at it, thanks for that. our articles are already pretty clear on this stuff (see for example Autism_therapies#Chelation_therapy). i am not big believer in any one source being heroic nor the need to use it, urgent. we have no deadline. but i will say, that what you are saying, points up why it is good that we have a high bar for making positive statements about interventions in WikiProject Medicine. People don't get frustrated with that, but this is why we keep the bar high for making positive claims arethat way, steady on, steady on. Jytdog (talk) 00:14, 4 May 2015 (UTC) (delete "don't" that was a mistake Jytdog (talk) 23:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)}

I believe one of the reasons why we disagree on so many things, is due to the fact that we communicate very differently - I prefer straight and direct language, while you tend to use cryptic language that requires your listener to decipher its meaning. Let me be clear once again: I have no idea what you're talking about and how this relates to my comment above. Care to explain the point of your last sentence in more direct terms? -A1candidate 00:29, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

sorry had some garble there. fixed it. Jytdog (talk) 23:08, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

A1, if you think that anything this family was going through, at the time they were going through it, could have been addressed by anyone having access to good sources to write our articles then, well, you must not have been around then to deal with the walled and wacky POV garden that was our entire suite of autism articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:49, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I do not dispute the dedication that you and others put into this project. Since these articles were unavailable back then, they would not have helped the family at that time. The walled and wacky POV garden was obviously a great problem back then, and it still is a big problem now. Medicine is an ever changing science, however, and it is therefore important for us to keep up with current medical literature. The question is what should we do with ideas and treatments that move out of the POV walls and actually become mainstream? -A1candidate 01:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking that A1 must be fortunate enough to have all of his/her loved ones in good health, which is probably typical of our (mostly younger adults, mostly wealthy/industrialized countries) editors. I suspect that most people have to live through (or next door to) a similar situation to understand how little the statistics and evidence matters to most people while they're the middle of it.

I read up on this when I was writing Breast cancer awareness. When you think you're going to die, the fact that they've found "the secret cure" is very attractive. The 'thinking' (scare quotes intended) runs like this: Aaaiiiieeee, I'm going to die! Everybody with cancer dies!! Everyone with breast cancer does surgery and chemo. My doctor recommends surgery and chemo, but he's not looking happy, and he's making no promises. He's distinctly guarded about the prospects, and he looks kind of tired and discouraged. Hmm, maybe surgery and chemo doesn't work. If it did, he'd be happy, wouldn't he? Also, he gave me bad news, so he must not be a source of good information. I wonder what might work? Hey, this very friendly, very happy guy says that if you do this secret other thing, this thing that almost nobody knows about, then you're totally cured! Total cure is exactly what I want! No wonder everyone else dies; they don't know about the secret cure! Secret cure sounds great! Sign me up!!

It sounds stupid, and it is thoroughly illogical, but that's how humans seem to work. In fact, those of you who've read Ben Goldacre might recall that one of the things he wants to learn about homeopathy and similar altmed practitioners is how to extract the value of their placebo effect, and copy it over to the evidence-based parts of medicine. If oncologists met early-stage breast cancer patients (whose prognosis is really very good) with the same smile and enthusiasm and confidence and salesmanship as the sellers of snake oil, then we might see less interest in nonsense. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

A1, I was trying to say that back then it would not have mattered a bit what was written anywhere; the autism suite was controlled by POV pushers, and misinformation was status quo until Eubulides came along and rewrote the whole shebang. But the two or three editors who owned those articles before Eubulides came along were not about to be convinced by anything published anywhere that didn't agree with their alt-pov. In fact, a few of them periodically resurface, and they still aren't. Quite a few editors in here (me being the least of those) had to go through years of POV pushing in the autism suite, similar to what we see now in a few other suites of articles ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:25, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia - I understand your frustration. Nobody likes to repeat the same point over and over again and be confronted by people who are determined to push an unscientific POV over the course of many years, wasting the time of all editors involved. I am glad that someone came along to correct the misinformation in the end. I hope those few editors will stop doing that eventually. Perhaps I should put the autism article onto my Watchlist too, just to help you out. After all, I am going through the same as what you experienced, except this time, I find myself on the opposite side. What do you think are my best options? -A1candidate 01:56, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing - I mostly agree with what you say, and I do not doubt the ease with which patients can fall victim to these scams. Your input to the question I've posed to SandyGeorgia would be very much appreciated too. -A1candidate 01:43, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

at this point:

its time to stop

Jytdog (talk) 02:43, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the primary purpose of this wikiproject is to oppose alternative medicine, and I don't think this thread has anything to do with this wikiproject. This kind of post should be discouraged imo. I'm sure you can find more appropriate platforms for it off wp. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 05:00, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

ill second that--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:24, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Matthew Ferguson 57 the primary purpose of this wikiproject is not to oppose alt med - in my view its purpose is to build and maintain high quality, well-sourced content about health in Wikipedia. It the course of that, we have to deal with alt med advocates making unsupportable health claims all the time.' It would be much better if they never did that, but this being "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit," it is inevitable and we end up dealing with it and thus talking about it. Jytdog (talk) 09:58, 4 May 2015 (UTC) (yes, per Doc James below, add "high quality" Jytdog (talk) 11:28, 4 May 2015 (UTC))

The goal is to highlight high quality evidence and positions of major organizations. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:01, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree, User:Doc James. That is why I always use high quality sources including major medical textbooks, review articles, and guidelines of medical organizations. -A1candidate 16:34, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think "high-quality evidence and positions of major organizations" was meant to be an exclusive statement. The purpose is to write an encyclopedia. A good encyclopedia article about a medical subject will ideally include high-quality evidence for treatments and the positions of major organizations. It will also include a lot of other information. In fact, the "high-quality evidence and positions of major organizations" part of the information will probably amount to just a quarter of a well-written article. There's usually (with few exceptions) no current "evidence" or "position statements" for names, etymology, classification, causes, mechanisms, symptoms, prognosis, epidemiology, history, and research directions. There is often an appalling lack of attention to special populations. If you accept only "high-quality evidence and position statements", you'll typically be able to write articles that cover the diagnosis, screening, prevention, and treatment of common diseases—and almost nothing else. We just don't bother with testing whether measles might be caused by some other virus this year. There wasn't any "high-quality evidence" published about that non-question in the last five years or so. Since it's undisputed, you will also not find any major organization bothering with taking a position on whether the Measles virus causes measles. Unless you're working in an area of rapid change, or unless you only care about the parts of the article that amount to "What should a good doctor do in typical cases?", then limiting yourself to "evidence" and "positions" is going to miss three-quarters of the factual information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:14, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes my statement was just referring to the medical aspects / health claims of the article.

There are usually always high quality sources that discuss names, classification, causes, mechanisms, symptoms, prognosis, epidemiology, and research directions though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

For a common condition or treatment, I expect to find high-quality sources for everything. But your original comment said high-quality evidence, which is a significantly narrower set. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:57, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

ideally we present evidence and guidance especially when it comes to content relevant to the practice of medicine... most times they align. Jytdog (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• there is a possible ArbCom on this topic (a few posts down )--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:25, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Veterinary acupuncture

• Fry, Lindsey M.; Neary, Susan M.; Sharrock, Joseph; Rychel, Jessica K. (June 2014). "Acupuncture for Analgesia in Veterinary Medicine". Topics in Companion Animal Medicine. 29 (2): 35–42. doi:10.1053/j.tcam.2014.03.001.

Possible MEDRS violation. See Veterinary acupuncture#Mechanism. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Veterinary_acupuncture&type=revision&diff=660559487&oldid=660510952 QuackGuru (talk) 00:33, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

It is not a violation. The topic is about veterinary acupuncture, that is why we cite the review articles of verterinary medicine. -A1candidate 00:36, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

The text and other text is unreadable for the general reader. QuackGuru (talk) 00:40, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, then go to the talk page (not here) to voice your concerns -A1candidate 00:45, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

We need more editors to take a look. QuackGuru (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Recent (i.e. post-2011) reviews in both veterinary text books[2][17][18][19] and scientific journals[20][21][22][23][24] indicate that acupuncture can be used for therapeutic or homeostatic effects in animals, especially in the three areas of pain management, geriatric medicine and sports medicine. Conditions that have the best responses to veterinary acupuncture are considered to be pain, immune-related dysfunction and visceral dysfunction.[19] The text is a WP:SYN violation and is poorly written. See Veterinary acupuncture#Efficacy. QuackGuru (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

its an interesting topic QuackGuru and you did the right thing by asking for editorial help--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:27, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• When I lived in Seattle my hamsters seemed to respond positively to acupuncture, but it could have been the crystals in the room. I looked in the literature everywhere for rodent acupuncture sources and could not find anything. Watching the treatment is fun because typically clinics which do this have spectators seating and the hamsters seem to like the attention. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

When did you look at the literature? Which databases did you check? How did you come up with zero results? -A1candidate 16:40, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

There's stuff on rat acupuncture e.g. PMID 23386059. Rat/hamster, hamster/rat: bada bada bing, bada boom. Not sure if the crystal/acupuncture interaction effects have been explored for rats though. Alexbrn (talk) 16:46, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

rats are not hamsters! there are actual sources on hamster hypertension (PMID 6990216) and gallstones (that one in chinese though). Jytdog (talk) 17:22, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I thought that infertility was the big area for hamster research, not cardiovascular stuff. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

PURPOSE: Istaroxime is a new luso-inotropic compound. It exerts inotropic action by reducing Na+/K+-ATPase activity, and simultaneously it stimulates sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-ATPase function, thus also inducing lusitropic action. The aim of present study is to assess the effect of chronic istaroxime treatment on cardiac function and heart rate variability in Bio TO.2 Syrian hamster model of progressive heart failure.[48]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:03, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Do they have special hamster/rat sized needles? -Roxy the Viking dog™ (resonate) 17:08, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Obesophobia

Seriously? There aren't enough hours in a day ... amazing sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:28, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Maybe redirect to anorexia nervosa Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:24, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:21, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I meant it-- out of time and motivation for dealing with silliness like that. Someone else can have a go if interested. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:02, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

So, I cleaned it up. We have an article-- just not a medical article (there is exactly one dated mention of the term in PubMed, in Spanish). Reading the AFD is interesting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Found some interesting sources re "weight phobia", as discussed at talk:obesophobia, but not sure how to apply them. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

• The editor who introduced all those interesting sources is this one. That editor went on to add equally questionable sources to a variety of articles, but seems to have stopped editing as of a few months ago. Zad68 19:15, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Veganism and cancer risk

Following long discussions at:

• The article's talk page: e.g. Talk:Veganism#Veganism and cancer
• NPOV/N: WP:NPOV/N#Veganism and cancer risk

There seems no consensus on how the subject of cancer risk and vegan diets should be treated. Input from more MEDRS-savvy editors would help. This article receives ~2,000 views per day so it'd be a good one to get right. Alexbrn (talk) 14:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

give opinion, I gave mine--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:50, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

New article: Head and neck cancer VPH-positive

Head and neck cancer VPH-positive was recently created. I'm no expert, but not sure if it merits its own article, or could be perhaps merged with Head and neck cancer, or HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, or what have you. Cheers. --Animalparty-- (talk) 06:17, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

reference #4 is non MEDRS compliant, #5 and #6 are repeated from prior references cited...the bibliography is questionably presented (as are the external links ,which simply repeat the references)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:25, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Should likely be merged to Head and neck cancer Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:20, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

They've edited there too (only 2 pages). The highly variable quality of the English suggests copyvio may be an issue. Johnbod (talk) 16:00, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration case filing regarding complementary and alternative medicine

On a Wikipedia-wonkery note, there has been a request for Arbitration filed recently, under the topic heading of "Complementary and Alternative Medicine". See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Complementary and Alternative Medicine for the ongoing sausage-making.

For editors not familiar with Wikipedia's Arbitration process, note that this case has not yet been accepted for Arbitration, and may not be (see the voting section for the Arbitrators at the bottom). Note as well that the ArbCom (Arbitration Committee) generally avoids making specific rulings regarding content disputes. The ArbCom generally rules (with assorted loopholes and winks) on user conduct issues only. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:18, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

good information--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:54, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Board of Trustees

Hey All. I have decided to run for the Board of Trustees of the WMF. My hope is to improve relations / collaboration between the WMF and the editor community. Questions for the candidates are being accepted here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

great news (you have my vote)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:11, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello and an edit-a-thon invitation from User: Steelyskoal

Hello all, I wanted to stop by this page and introduce myself...my name is Katharine and I work at the Center for Women's Health at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon. We have been learning about the work of WikiProject Medicine over the last year and are hoping to be involved in this great project! To that end, my group is hosting an edit-a-thon next week on May 12, focusing on improving women's health-related articles identified by WikiProject Medicine as being of high importance and needing improvement. We are very excited! We've been working with Doc James, Anotherbeliever and Peaceray to get ready, and hope to be able to contribute a lot of high-quality edits during our event.

I was hoping that members of this group might want to be involved, either by contributing edits remotely, or by helping us with follow-up and suggestions during and after the edit-a-thon. We are almost all new users, and would appreciate any advice (and patience!) that you can send our way. This is our project page, if you'd like to take a look at some of the topics we hope to work on, or say hello.

We are very excited to be a part of this effort to provide accurate health information where the world knows to look for it! Steelyskoal (talk) 17:02, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

• we are excited to have you here!--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:26, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
• User:Steelyskoal thanks for providing this update. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:48, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
• I am very very very excited to see more people working on women's health!!!!! There are not enough exclamation points for how excited I am!!! :) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 19:53, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

If you'd like to involve other editors remotely, then either using an IRC channel or perhaps Mumble are reasonable means of allowing remote communication. We have use of a Mumble server (see Wikipedia:Mumble) and creating an IRC channel for an event is straightforward (see Wikipedia:IRC). I'd be happy to be online via either channel to help and advise as required if you would advertise the start and finish times for the event (in UTC preferably). --RexxS (talk) 20:40, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Katharine ... since you have been working with Doc James, can we assume that your group is well versed in WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:35, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit-a-thons are generally open to the public, meaning that most of the people doing the edits will not be familiar with any rules, even if the organizers are. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi SandyGeorgia, I am familiar with those standards, and we've asked Peaceray to join us to help reinforce Wikipedia's expectations for our editing. That being said, we will be hosting many brand-new users, and so there will likely be a learning curve to contend with. Please be patient with us! I will be letting attendees know that they will be expected to follow-up with suggestions made by other users regarding their edits, and hopefully we will be able to ensure everything is up to Wikipedia's standards. It's my intention to be good partners in this work.Steelyskoal (talk) 00:09, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Medical FA maintenance

@Boghog:, @Jfdwolff:, @MastCell:, @Graham Beards:

I'm here with a plea, wearing two different hats-- medical editor, as well as former Featured article candidates (FAC) delegate and active Featured article review (FAR) participant, who resigned from FAC to resume medical editing.

The FAR team is working now on developing the next phase of review of older Featured articles. As we have begun to process through a sandbox listing of older FAs, I am consistently finding citation issues in the medical featured articles (FAs).

Some history: User:Diberri created the citation template filling tool that is now maintained by Boghog. It was for many years used by almost all medical editors, to the extent that it became the "house style" for most medical content. It uses a style that mimics author name formatting in PubMed, and avoids lots of template clutter with one author parameter; it also avoids clunky punctuation used by some other citation styles. It also avoided lengthy citations in our densely-cited medical articles by listing all authors if there were five or less, while truncating the authors to the first three with an et al when there were six or more authors. I just cleaned up Alzheimer's disease, so an (almost) clean sample can be seen there.

On any article, we should avoid altering citation style, per WP:CITEVAR. But with Featured articles, a consistent citation style is a requirement for FA status; when adding or updating citations, the established style must be maintained.

As I'm processing through the medical FAs, I'm finding that almost all of them used the Diberri format, but they have deteriorated over the years into a mess of citation styles-- some of them now having five or six different styles of citation! Some of this is because editors aren't aware they need to maintain consistency, and some is because there is apparently a tool in the edit window that uses some other style than we have always used. And some of it may be because Boghog made subtle changes to the Diberri tool; I'm not sure I follow all of that.

Could we please be aware of what the Diberri style is, and take care to maintain a consistent citation style in our medical Featured articles? I don't believe (not sure) that a consistent style is a requirement for Good articles, as it is for FA, but it makes sense to use one style on medical content, particularly since we historically had a house style, and we have a tool that generates it.

As we get further along on processing through old FAs, I will separately bring in WP:MED for whichever medical FAs appear to need updates other than in this area of citation consistency. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:59, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I believe there's also a bot or script that goes around and "fixes" (read: screws up) Diberri formatting, e.g., by adding all of the authors' names. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Correct. I am able to revert them on the FAs I have watchlisted, but I can't stop them from changing thousands of other medical articles (they chunk up the citation parameters, making editing around the templates harder). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:18, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

ive seen those errors too --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:32, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I like the house style. I hate these bots that go around and make unneeded changes to reference style and clutter up my watch list / hide prior vandalism from my watch list.

I often use the style that the tool in the edit box provides because it is easier. I am supportive of changing that tool to follow the Dibierri style or at least allow users to set that style as their preference. User:Boghog what would be require to do this?

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:54, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Doc! Two followup items:

1. I have never known where to find this "tool in the edit box" you reference. I looked for it yesterday, and didn't find a tool that produces the output you often use for citation templates. Can someone point me towards it? Sorry, techno-dumbie here.
2. On questions for Boghog (to whom we should all express immense gratitude!!!!), I am unclear on just what the tool is currently doing. I don't really know why it's using vcite2, or vauthors, or what it's doing with et al, and how I can convince the new tool to just return a cite journal template that matches the older Diberri style used on most FAs, or even if I should be doing that. In other words, until I understand what the current version of the tool is doing, I'm not sure what our "house style" is any more ... I know what it was years ago ... and if we are now changing our "house style", then we've got quite a task ahead of us on FA maintenance.

Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It may be browser dependent. On Firefox, at the top of the edit window in edit mode you get a bunch of mysterious "icons". The open book does a fairly straightforward ref ref & is useful. The {{ }} opens a line of tabs below for Cite web, cite book etc. When you click on one a form thing opens up, which takes PMID & will fill in the rest, but not in Dubarri style. I should add that (having done several FAs with no citation templates), when I came to do Pancreatic cancer I tried to follow Med house style, but could never exactly work out how to do so, & all the citations were worked over (unasked for by me, & by an editor who I think is highly medically qualified & arguably would be better employed writing text). Johnbod (talk) 15:43, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Seen here WP:MEDHOW Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:53, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah, ha! I see the key words are "By using the toolbar (nb: this doesn't work in Internet Explorer) ... ". I will look later today from another computer. Thanks both! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Nothing works in IE :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

OK ... I went to Firefox, found that tool (and the difference vs. IE), and see where some of our issues are coming from. On IE, for example, that tool is adding the awful cite|pmid (which is known to return errors). On Firefox, I don't understand the duplicate punctuation it returns; continued below with samples for discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:45, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that we have the following competing priorities:

1. compact Diberri style citation templates whose continued use is supported by WP:CITEVAR (note: CITEVAR applies both to the rendered citation as well as the raw citation wikitext)
2. the defacto {{cite journal}} metadata driven first1, last1, ... ad nauseam house style that is reinforced by RefToolbar
3. medical translation project which is facilitated by seamless transfer of citation templates between languages

{{vcite2 journal}} was designed to be both compact (addresses priority #1) and generate clean metadata (priority #2). The reason that I modified the Template Filling Tool to generate {{vcite2 journal}} instead of {{cite journal}} is (1) as a deterrence to bots that try to substitute |author= with first1, last1, ... parameter bloat, (2) suppress citation error messages, and (3) generate clean metadata. Personally I think the value of citation metadata is grossly overrated, but some editors insist on it. I also changed the Template Filling Tool default to not use "et al." (i.e., include all authors) to prevent citation errors from being generated. My short term plan is to (1) add "et al." support to {{vcite2 journal}} and then (2) change the Filling Tool default back to "et al.". Hopefully this will address the FA related issues. Longer term, if |vauthors= support were added directly to {{cite journal}} and RefToolbar, this would also address priority #3. Then everyone should be happy. Note that I am really busy in real life and will try to implement some improvements mentioned above this weekend when I have more time. Boghog (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes we do need a templates that work in all other languages which cite journal more or less does. Thus I am not a big fan of vcite2 journal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:43, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

No one is willing to compromise around here. Seriously, you can't be bothered to substitute "vcite2"/"vauthors" with "cite"/"author"? It is a trivial search and replace. We can port {{vcite2 journal}} to all other languages. It is already ported to six languages. I am really tired hearing about this complaint to the point where I am seriously considering porting to this template to all other languages which will completely nullify this objection. Boghog (talk) 20:06, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yup if you port it to all other languages I will be happy with this template being used :-) I have struggled with porting templates. We currently have nearly 200 articles we are translating from. From time to time I update them to a newer version. Updating all the content to a newer version requires multiple steps and takes me many hours. So I appreciate people working with me on this.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia Thanks for the heads up. I am finding very little time to edit but I will see if I can clean up the FAs that I was involved in (coeliac disease, thyrotoxic periodic paralysis, meningitis). JFW | T@lk 20:29, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Also: write good WP:TemplateData first, before porting anything. The basic structure won't change between wikis. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Trappist the monk has now added |vauthors= support to the Module:Citation/CS1 sandbox (see discussion). |vauthors= has also been extended to accept "et al" in the author list. In a few weeks when this goes live, {{cite journal}}, {{cite book}}, etc. templates will all support |vauthors=. I will then change the Wikipedia template filling tool back to its previous defaults, except of course that the name of the author parameter will be |vauthors= instead of |author=. The only remaining issues are (1) convince the maintainers of RefToolbar to add the option of outputting |vauthors= instead of "first1, last1, ..." parameters and (2) convince the maintainer of Citation Bot not to add "first1, last1, ..." parameters to citations that contain |vauthors=. Finally there will no longer be a need for {{vcite2 journal}} since the same functionality will be found in the standard {{cite journal}} template.

I think this is fantastic news that should solve a large number of problems. We should thank Trappist the monk for doing this. Boghog (talk) 06:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Boghog, I hope you understand how seriously I appreciate your work (and the fact that you communicate your work in English), but I am still struggling. I tried to put together some samples for discussion (see my sandbox), but they don't even render as I type them, so I don't know what to do next to try to sort out the remaining issues/confusion I still have. The bottom line for me is that I'm not complaining about anything you do, but I don't know yet a) if we still have a house style, b) what it is, and c) what to do about citation consistency in our old FAs. And I owe LeadSongDog an answer on my talk, which I thought I was going to sort with samples, that I can't even make work. I know you are busy, but if you have a moment, could you help me sort the problems with the citations rendering in my sandbox different than they are typed? I am just trying to figure out how to get our FAs to have consistent citations for FAR review ... and Trappist doesn't communicate in English. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:18, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

You know, the more I look at this, the more I'm confused. Why do we even care which format is rendered, if the template is only going to change next week or next month anyhow? We should just focus on the values. Sooner or later it'll all wind up on wikidata anyhow. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Don't count on that last bit. Johnbod (talk) 19:42, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• There are two separate issues here. The first is the output of the Template Filling Tool which I have control over. As I stated above, once the changes in {{cite journal}} go live, I will change the default output of the tool back to its original defaults. The second issue is how {{cite journal}} render citations which I have no control over. In the first example in the sandbox, the last comma as well as the italics and period after "et al." is stripped from the author list. In the Vancouver guideline examples, a comma should be included between the last displayed author name and "et al." and the final period should be included. Therefore I would support modifying {{cite journal}} so that the final comma and period are displayed. The italics is not part of the standard Vancouver style and most journal do not include it. So, in summary, would it be acceptable if {{cite journal}} were modified so that the final comma and period are displayed but not the italics? Boghog (talk) 20:12, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
• The "Diberri" citation style is a hybrid. It follows Vancouver style author format and relies on {{cite journal}} for everything else. The complication is that changes in how "et al" is rendered by {{cite journal}} have been made. While this could be considered a violation of CITEVAR, because the change was made in the template, the change is at least uniformly applied across all articles that use this template. The only way to insure that rendering of a citation will not change over time is to use non-templated citations. Boghog (talk) 21:16, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• The only way to insure that rendering of a citation will not change over time is to use non-templated citations. shhhhh ... one of us realized that almost ten years ago. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:21, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Reboot

OK, if I'm reading everything above correctly, our citations will be in flux until a) something that Trappist did somewhere goes live, and b) Boghog adapts the filling tool. If I am understanding everything (not likely!!!) so far, the filling tool will be adjusted to:

1. List all authors if there are five or less, and truncate to three plus et al if there are six or more.
2. No longer italicize et al.
3. Place a comma after the last author, before the et al.

Then, I still have the following questions:

1. Will/does this mean that the Diberri/Boghog tool will still output vcite2 and vauthors or does it go back to plain old cite journal and author? (I have been stripping the v and the 2 when articles don't use them.)
2. Will/does this mean we will need to retroactively switch old FAs that use either vcite to cite to one or the other? If so, can we get a bot to do that?

On top of those issues, we have other WP:CITEVAR issues. For example, to answer LeadSongDog's query, because I have since, like, forever HATED these eternal alterations in the citation templates (they are at the whim of these developers, and just when the FA author gets their ducks all in a row, some metadata person changes everything and citations go to heck, which is where we are now), I will always defend the right of the main/first developers of any article to maintain their original style (CITEVAR) if they disagree with what the rest of us decide. I think that's all of my questions and confusion, but don't count on it :) Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:59, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• (ec) The tool will return to its default (list all authors if there are five or less, and truncate to three plus et al if there are six or more). However additional changes to {{cite journal}} will be required to place a comma between the last displayed author and et al. After the changes, {{vcite2 journal}} will be replaced by {{cite journal}} but |vauthors= will be retained. Please note for all of this to work, it is essential that |vauthors= and not |author= be used. The format of the rendered citation and metadata are two completely different issues. Changes in one can be made that does not affect the other. The advantage of the |vauthors= parameter is that it will render the authors in Vancouver style and generate clean metadata without the need for explicit "first1, last1, ..." parameters. Boghog (talk) 21:36, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
• If there is consensus, a bot could easily replace {{vcite journal}}/|author= with {{cite journal}}/|vauthors= and replace {{vcite2 journal}} with {{cite journal}}. Boghog (talk) 21:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Being a stylistic pig, I have no strong opinions about any of this except to request that you please don't take Dberri offline again. I'm too stupid to learn any other way of doing references. thanks. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 21:33, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I will try my best keeping Dberri online. The only reason it went off-line is that Dberri no longer had time to support it. Boghog (talk) 21:39, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Your past and future efforts are hugely appreciated here! Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 21:42, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Please, do not have the template filler subset the authors. If an article's convention only wants 3 shown, that should be done using display-authors=3. LeadSongDog come howl! 23:30, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to Boghog and Trappist the monk for this change! (At the risk of being greedy... presumably Citoid should generate wikimarkup that's similar or identical to what the RefToolbar generates.)

I would agree with the above, annoying as it is to sometimes run into a lengthy author list in wikitext. Truncating the author list and thus dropping the senior authors would dilute the value of the metadata we're trying to generate. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:09, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

thanks for everything, Boghog ... you're a gem. Now, back to All About Me! And the work needed on our medical FAs and with Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles/sandbox. I can hold off on evaluation of medical FAs, but once everything is in place, can we then go through the FAs to determine which have issues with inconsistent citations, and how to fix them (that is, if we need to make any global changes, like author to vauthor)? Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

New course: Social Psychology at University of Detroit, Mercy

Hi WikiMed,

A new course signed up which will be working on mental health topics this summer: Template:Course link.

Thanks. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:03, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you so much for letting us know in advance, Ryan (Wiki Ed). Is there someway, anyway, we can encourage the prof to come up to speed on MEDRS and MEDMOS before they begin? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:17, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Prof is here User talk:Cboglarsky and I have left guidance on their talk page for their students. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Who got his welcome message yesterday! Gulp. Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Indeed. Though I've always sent the links to professors (as they express interest, when I create their course page, and, as practical and/or necessary, in follow-ups), the way I talk about MEDRS in particular has gotten progressively more direct/immediate over time. :) It's also Wiki Ed policy to send printed copies of the editing med/psych topics brochures to be distributed to the students. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:18, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Tagging anatomy and sexual talk pages with Template:Reliable sources for medical articles

Because of a recent past matter, I have avoided Bfpage. But since Bfpage still edits topics I edit even after that recent past matter, I have interacted with Bfpage lately when reverting Bfpage at different articles. It's because of this that I also decided to start this discussion. As noted here and seen here, Bfpage has added Template:Reliable sources for medical articles to an anatomy article talk page and to a sexual article talk page. And before that, as seen with this and this edit, Bfpage added the WP:Med WikiProject tag to one article talk page...and the WP:Med WikiProject tag and Template:Reliable sources for medical articles to another article talk page. But articles do not get tagged with the WP:Med banner simply because they include medical information; by this, I mean that WP:Med has generally restricted its WP:Med banner to articles that are mostly medical or are otherwise substantially medical. This doesn't mean that health content in an article should not be compliant with WP:MEDRS; it obviously should. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 28#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gynandromorphophilia and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 29#Template talk:Sexual orientation#Pansexuality and polysexuality for further detail. And this discussion and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 55#Anatomy pages with clinical content for even more detail.

So if WP:Med generally does not put anatomy or sexual articles within its scope (this sexual article that Bfpage also tagged with Template:Reliable sources for medical articles is an exception), does that mean that these articles should also not be tagged with Template:Reliable sources for medical articles? After all, Template:Reliable sources for medical articles states, "Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically review articles." and "Use this template at the top of a talk page for an article in the purview of WikiProject Medicine." Regarding the first quote, anatomy topics usually do not need review articles; the detail is usually covered in an anatomy book or other academic book. Obviously, a lot of medical topics are covered in academic books, and those books might be better than one or more review articles. WP:MEDRS currently states, "Ideal sources for biomedical content includes literature reviews or systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant field and from a respected publisher, and medical guidelines or position statements from nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies." So certain books can also be ideal medical sources. And as noted times before here and at WP:Anatomy, new sources are usually not needed for anatomical information because human anatomy and what scientists have learned about it usually has not significantly changed; there are exceptions, such as the human brain. And at that article's talk page, WeijiBaikeBianji added Template:Reliable sources for medical articles. In this discussion with Colin and SandyGeorgia at Talk:Ketogenic diet, Bfpage appears convinced that newer medical sources are necessarily better. Anyway, those are my thoughts on all of this. I will alert WP:Anatomy to this discussion I've started. Flyer22 (talk) 06:55, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

yes books (Google books) are excellent sources for that matter, your correct...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:38, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree that we should use the best possible medical sources possible and the most up-to-date sources possible. I it may be that new sources are usually not needed for anatomical information, but if physiology is included in an anatomical article, then of course, research is typically ongoing and relevant to the topic. Using the appendix as an example, old anatomical sources considered it a 'vestigal' organ when in fact, now, it is a very important part of the immune system and there is, undoubtedly, reliable information on that topic. I would like to initiate a discussion regarding the application of the medical references guidelines to anatomy articles simply because it would encourage higher quality articles sourced with the most up-to-date information possible and make the encyclopedia better.

I have just assumed that if an article contains medical or health information, then it should get tagged with the med refs template. I've been writing a few articles on bacteria in the genus Mycoplasma. Some are pathogenic some are not. The ones that cause disease get the med refs template on the talk page and the ones that do not, do not get the med refs template.

Why wouldn't we want anatomy articles brought up to as high a standard as health articles?

Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  12:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, this is a curious situation, and casts the article tagging at FA Ketogenic diet in a whole new light. Bfpage, even after multiple explanations from several editors, your post above doesn't seem to acknowledge that newer isn't always better. Could you please take greater care to actually identify a problem before tagging an article, and have a look at WP:OWN#Featured articles? At Ketogenic diet, you posted to talk, and then immediately began tagging the article, without waiting for any feedback, and adding to that the other issues raised by Flyer22 doesn't result in a good picture. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

yes--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:33, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I respectfully invite you to revisit the talk page on the Ketogenic diet where I will be working with Colin. I have found more recent and multiple references that he and I will be working on integrating into the article to improve the encyclopedia. I agree with your statement and acknowledge that newer isn't always better.

Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  12:54, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

No one is stating that "we [don't] want anatomy articles brought up to as high a standard as health articles." Anatomy articles are usually part health. I am asking, if WP:Med generally does not put anatomy or sexual articles within its scope, does that mean that these articles should also not be tagged with Template:Reliable sources for medical articles? I am stating that anatomy articles follow WP:MEDRS where reasonable (the well-taken-care-of anatomy articles, that is); read Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-09-03/WikiProject report. And editors, including here and here, are stating that newer is not automatically better. This factor has been made clear countless times at the WP:MEDRS talk page; for example, see Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)/Archive 10#Standardizing the five-year rule. Stop viewing WP:MEDDATE so strictly; it is not as strict as some editors make it out to be; for example, it clearly states, "These rules of thumb have several exceptions: History sections often cite older work for obvious reasons." The same usually applies to Society and culture sections as well. Flyer22 (talk) 12:56, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

And let's not forget that WP:MEDDATE also currently states, "While the most-recent reviews include later research results, do not automatically give more weight to the review that happens to have been published most recently, as this is recentism." Flyer22 (talk) 13:00, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

agree with Flyer22 (BfPage indent when replying. thank you)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:17, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It may be useful for someone uninvolved to date to give Bfpage some gentle (or firm) guidance. It has been pointed out to her by now that Colin is one of the main architects of MEDRS (he doesn't need to be pointed towards links to recent reviews), there is a link at the top of Talk:Ketogenic diet pointing to reliable sources, and yet, we see posts like this and this on article talk. Bfpage, please sign your posts, and please consider the flies-honey-vinegar principle and back off and let Colin do what he is quite capable of doing. Every time you make an unhelpful post on talk, people's watchlists go off, and no matter how many times you add the word respectfully to your posts, it is disrespectful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, thank you again for your comments and we will help make the encyclopedia better by working together to find good, reliable, relevant, informative references that will keep the article Ketogenic diet intact with its FA status. I again state that there is no harm into looking into locating updated information in recently published med journal review articles on the ketogenic diet. The article can only get better. I have a lot of respect for the contributing editors to the article and will continue to work with anyone who wants to see something good get even better. I have read every reference posted above this comment and appreciate the efforts to point me to the relevant information. If someone wants to give me firm or gentle guidance, I am very willing to listen and to read it. I acknowledge the possibility that all of the older references may be the best references but after my own cursory search of the recent literature this is probably unlikely.

I also apologize for neglecting to sign every post I make to every talk page and will make every effort to improve upon signing and indenting. If my posting has resulted in frustration over my lack of proper formatting and indenting, I would like to apologize for that also. Best Regards:

  Bfpage |leave a message  16:52, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Original question

Flyer asked a "yes or no" question: If WP:Med generally does not put anatomy or sexual articles within its scope, does that mean that these articles should also not be tagged with Template:Reliable sources for medical articles?

Direct answer: Whether the page is tagged with {{WPMED}} means nothing about whether it would also benefit from tagging with {{Reliable sources for medical articles}}. Add the former template whenever the article is one that this group of people wants to work together on. Add the latter template whenever the contents of the template would be useful to an editor of that article (even if this group wants nothing to do with the article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I was going to point out that I'd rather the original question I proposed be clarified. I appreciate that you did that. That the discussion got off track is partly my fault by addressing different matters in my original post. Flyer22 (talk) 07:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I often go to a talk page to where the {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} is posted and use it find information on another topic that I am researching, especially bacteria. It is a very helpful template. It certainly won't do harm to include the {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} template to anatomy articles. It will only provide tools for those who want to use it. Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  18:53, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Editors should make sure that they are not needlessly removing one template for another. Flyer22 (talk) 18:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

And the harm I was concerned with, as indicated above, is any editor interpreting WP:MEDRS and/or its WP:MEDDATE section too strictly or just plain inaccurately. Flyer22 (talk) 19:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Electrolyte exclusion effect

Hello again. Just reporting one more draft that may be of interest.—Anne Delong (talk) 12:14, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

the references are MEDRS compliant (though the article will need more references)...definitively save this article (it might get merged with the article on Electrolytes, as it currently does not offer such a section)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay, Ozzie10aaaa, it is in the encyclopedia now. If someone thinks it should be merged, the title can become a redirect.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Input on antidepressants and suicide among kids

Please comment here: Talk:Study_329#Anti-depressants_and_suicidality. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:33, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

give opinion,( i gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:18, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikiversity Journal of Medicine

I believe that this effort by User:Mikael Häggström has great potential if it can become pubmed indexed. This would allow our high quality articles to undergo formal peer review and be pubmed indexed / added to PMC. This could be a tipping point for increasing involvement of professionals in editing, increase our reputation among academia, and allow our content to research a whole new audience and be appropriately used as a reference. Others thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:44, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Images of Aerococcus urinae is very informative--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:14, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a really interesting idea. I have to admit I'm not clear on the intended scope from looking at the content of the existing issues, though. Some of the 'articles' are galleries of images with a DOI (analogous to something like a figshare or datadryad entry), and the peer review just looks like the process of image selection - certainly useful, but not much like a publication. Many of the others appear to be primarily didactic. The current usage seems to be collecting information and media that can be reused in Wikipedia articles, but it sounds from this post like you'd like to go the other way and publish specific versions of high-quality Wikipedia articles as WJM articles? How would the authorship/attribution for that work? Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Similar to as they did for the Dengue fever article.[49] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:16, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

That's interesting; I like the idea of enumerating each author's edits as well as describing their contributions. I see a link to the history of the article, but not one to the exact version that was reviewed or published (did I miss it?). Would a WJM article that consists of a specific revision link to that revision or replicate the text at wikiversity?

As for scope, I'm somewhat involved in OA publishing IRL and am trying to figure out what the niche would be for someone to send content to WJM as opposed to an existing compatibly licensed journal that accepts similar content (e.g., Frontiers in Medicine has an "Images in Medicine" section, F1000Research has "observation articles", etc.) It would be really great to see this get over the pubmed index hump. Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:33, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

The version of the dengue article is no one exact version of the Wikipedia article. The journal editors wanted changes that aligned with their manual of style but went against Wikipedia's manual of style. We each compromised on some.

WJM would have duplicated text from one specific version of Wikipedia and then have a link to that version. The benefit of this journal is that its manual of style is the same as ours here at WPMED. Additional benefit is that it is currently free to publish in it. F1000Research is $150 to $1000 per article [50]

If one is publishing a "review type" article based on work done to improve a Wikipedia article, the benefit is that not only will you likely have contributed to the most read article globally on the topic you will get academic credit. No other OA publisher can offer that. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree that this has a lot of potential. There have been other attempts at publishing high-quality wikipedia articles as reviews. The most successful one I know of is over at WP:COMPBIO, where "topic page" reviews have been published in PLoS. Examples are Flow cytometry bioinformatics and Multi-state modeling of biomolecules. I think Daniel_Mietchen has been heading the effort. --Mark viking (talk) 18:39, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Article about study

Their is a question regarding if an ongoing study is suitable for an independent article [51]. My thoughts is that it is not ready yet. Others? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:31, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

as you indicated there is nothing on PubMed...there is this [52]...it might be best to wait for something more substantial (in terms of PubMed)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:39, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with a short article about that project. I would view http://epistop.eu as a reasonably reliable source to document the existence of the project and its aims. Looie496 (talk) 13:58, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

The AIDS Support Organization

new article that might of interest to folks here. needs some work. Jytdog (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back, Helaine (Wiki Ed)

Hi WikiProject,

For the past few months I've had the pleasure of filling in as Wiki Ed's classroom program manager while Helaine Blumenthal has been away on maternity leave. I'm pleased to announce that Helaine is back and resuming her role as of the end of this week. She's up to date regarding the conversations between folks at WPMED and WikiEd in her absence, including the step in the onboarding process whereby we announce new classes working on medical/health topics on this page. Those announcements will be coming from her in the future and she'll be responding to questions/comments/concerns about classes (along with, of course, Ian (Wiki Ed) and Adam (Wiki Ed)). I will still be around, however, working with Wiki Ed in another capacity (and, of course, as a volunteer). --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:33, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

thank you for the update--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:38, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Ryan Looking forward to working with you all in the future. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Premarin

just re-ordered this per WP:MEDMOS but it needs sourcing and fixing. Jytdog (talk) 17:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:51, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

MedlinePlus

They have recently partly dumped ADAM and have more PD content such as [53]. It is good source if want simple wording for stuff. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

that's the key...simple wording and therefore not encyclopedic, --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Simple wording can still be encyclopedic. We need to make at least our leads easier to understand. We can have the body of the text more complicated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:16, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:36, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

New data

One question we were asked follow the publication of this paper [54] was would the size or composition of the core community change if we were to look at changes in bytes of content rather than more than 250 edits.

We have now mostly answered that question with the data here. Both the size and the composition of the community is very similar regardless if bytes or total edits are examined. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:16, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

very good data and study--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Can someone make that chart sortable? I am relieved to find that there are multiple editors who are removing as much crap as I am. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

i was thinking about the "builders" and "cleaners" dynamic too. Jytdog (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, I say that with some not-so-small-amount of resentment, since "adding to the sum of all human knowledge" in my case (that is, before the onset of the student phenom) used to mean ADDING not SUBTRACTING. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:11, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

i know... we all spend more time than we like on maintenance. part of the deal of this place. Jytdog (talk) 18:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, your wish is my command

James, User:CommonsDelinker is a bot. You've also got a "user" with no username in the table (search for "45151" to find the line). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

WaId, cool-- thanks! Doc, I have edits on TS etc in Spanish, but my English language percent shows at 1 ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:58, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

James, what did you measure there? WPMED-tagged articles? All articles? Talk pages? Is the percentage of edits per language a measurement of all edits or just WPMED articles—and if the latter, then how do you find the articles on other wikis? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Food fortification#Excess intake of micronutrients

Please have a look at this section. Hm... Jytdog (talk) 02:13, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

references 15 and 19 are not review articles, and references 17 and 18 (fall considerably outside) 5 years or so for a review article ...these references are from the section mentioned in the post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:04, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata study

Just posting a link to a discussion on Wikidata, about a study that investigates Wikidata's role in improving the quality of medical content on Wikipedia. Please reply on Wikidata for any questions: d:Wikidata:Project chat#Wikidata can improve the quality of medical information on Wikipedia. --Tobias1984 (talk) 09:49, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Another shortcoming of the current integration of Wikidata into Wikipedia that was uncovered by our prototype is the way in which literature citations/evidence is rendered. Although backing evidence from Wikidata can be displayed through endnote references in Wikipedia, the Wikipedia system currently does not recognize that multiple citations may point to a single reference, leading to the creation of redundant reference list entries...These current limitations reduce the ability of Wikipedia readers to efficiently check the evidence behind data from the Wikidata knowledge base[55]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Have looked at the paper which gives the example of interaction data being added to Ramelteon on En Wikipedia. But I am not seeing it there? I am happy to have what you appear to have build rolled out on En W based on Wikidata. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Drug marketing

Peripherally related to what we do here.. a company called Amarin Corporation is suing the FDA, "hoping to convince a federal court that the FDA prohibition on off-label promotion violates the company’s First Amendment rights, and that its reps should be able to convey truthful and 'non-misleading' information to doctors." See here. Has to do with marketing of their fish oil derivative, Ethyl eicosapentaenoic acid. Should drug companies be able to provide evidence to doctors, or will they just use that in a scammy way. History says the latter... Jytdog (talk) 18:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:57, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

This smells like a publicity stunt. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Wasn't there an earlier lawsuit along these lines from Allergan? I think they dropped it as one of the terms of some settlement with FDA. For some history, Amarin is pissed that the FDA gave them a Special Protocol Agreement stating that if they met certain endpoints (if memory serves these were surrogates), the FDA would approve for use in a broad patient population and not just in the extremely hyperlipidemic. They ran the trial, met the criteria, and FDA decided to retroactively withdraw the SPA. So this is Amarin's way of throwing a fit I guess. The company press release about the retroactive withdrawal of the SPA is here. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 22:20, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Editing human embryo DNA

The NIH has reacted to news about Chinese research in human embryo DNA editing by means of CRISPR/Cas9.

• NIH reiterates ban on editing human embryo DNA—Nature (April 29, 2015)

—Wavelength (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Practically, there are multiple existing legislative and regulatory prohibitions against this kind of work. The Dickey-Wicker amendment prohibits the use of appropriated funds for the creation of human embryos for research purposes or for research in which human embryos are destroyed (H.R. 2880, Sec. 128). Furthermore, the NIH Guidelines state that the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, “…will not at present entertain proposals for germ line alteration”.[56]...the problem with this theory is that some other country will (or has already)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:55, 8 May 2015 (UTC)