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Project coordinators

A suggestion has been put for us to consider project coordinators at WPMED similar to military history.

This would be a group of active respected medical editors who people who are having issues could turn to for guidance. They would be elected by those of us here. Peoples thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:15, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

MILHIST currently have 16, which if copied unfortunately would pretty much mean "all shall have prizes" for the regulars here! But I've no objection. Now, who could we nominate .....? Wiki CRUK John/Johnbod (talk) 19:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is not so much for the regulars. This is more for new editors so they know who to reach out to. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if conducted appropriately I could see this being a way of facilitating budding medical editors through the inevitable learning curve of our weird and wonderful wpmed ways... I've often felt that one of the pieces missing from the Wikipedia jigsaw is genuine mentoring without any of the remedial associations the word has accrued here. (For example, although I don't generally edit military history topics I'm always grateful to have the opinion of HJ Mitchell, one of the project coordinators.) At the same time I do think it would be important to avoid creating ingroups and outgroups. 86.157.144.73 (talk) 20:30, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for contacting me about this, James. For transparency, this was something I proposed informally a couple of months ago, and I hope that the community gives this idea some thought. I think having coordinators is useful, because they act as a central contact point for new users, users who want to become more involved and want to know what's going on, cross-project, cross-wiki and professional collaborations, and media/signpost enquiries. I think it also recognizes the efforts of some of the long-term users here, and perhaps will empower them to think about the project more generally. It's also useful to have some people as contact points who are aware of the full extend of WPMED's activities, and most likely have external contacts they are liasing with. I think that having coordinators listed more-or-less recognises the existing situation anyway. @Johnbod, if we had as many as 16 long-term, active and regular users to become coordinators, I think that'd be wonderful. As per the MILHIST example, a coordinator doesn't actually have any authority, and my ideal approach (this is just an idea) would be that a few coordinators would be elected yearly by affirmative vote (ie most 'yesses', representing someone who has the respect and approval of the local community). I wish you all well and can confirm I'll be returning at some point. Kind regards, --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:16, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

LT910001 I am glad to see you around.
The Wikipedia Education Program has discussed having a vetting and confirmation program. Their need is that they encourage Wikipedians and professors to meet to do classroom Wikipedia stuff, but since people on the outside tend to trust anyone on Wikipedia who says that they are a community representative, there is danger that in outreach some troublemaker impersonating a Wikipedian could tell the professor anything. There is also a vetting system for WP:OTRS, in which people who answer email going to "Wikipedia" get confirmed by the community.
An election process could be one model for "project coordinators", but mere community confirmation and certification could work too. We could press the Wiki Ed Foundation to step up their certification process then adapt and adopt whatever they make, because they actually have funding to address these kinds of problems. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:56, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A massive step forwards in copyright!

Example of a disputed image

While it is still in draft form this document has dramatically improved my day. The copyright office has stated on page 300 "the Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author" this includes "Medical imaging produced by x-rays, ultrasounds, magnetic resonance imaging, or other diagnostic equipment."[1] This means that if this passes we can gather X-rays to our hearts content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:55, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So that presumably means goodbye to the monkey in the room? 86.157.144.73 (talk) 21:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Selfies by Monkeys shall be allowed as well as pictures painted by elephants. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 21:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is certainly good news, but it shouldn't be over-interpreted. According to US law, copyright is automatic and doesn't require explicit registration. The fact that the copyright office won't register things is good, but it doesn't alter the law and doesn't prevent people from claiming that something is copyrighted. Looie496 (talk) 12:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Looie, I believe that registration is a necessary prerequisite for enforcing your rights as the copyright holder.
I wish that this section mentioned video footage from surveillance cameras. That sounds like works that are automatically produced with even less human intervention than a diagnostic image to me, and it would be convenient to have the status on that clarified, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:49, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think Looie has it right. Not being able to register a copyright might be some sort of an indication as to whether you have one, but it doesn't mean you don't and it doesn't prevent you from enforcing it. It isn't any sort of pre-requisite. It might normally be considered good enough for WP, but I have no idea.
Seems not unlikely to me that this decision would indeed cover, for example, CCTV and webcam footage, in most cases. Formerip (talk) 17:47, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The rules may be different in the UK, but, in the US, registration is an absolute prerequisite for making a claim of infringement. (See this lawsuit, for example.) You can file after you discover that your work has been infringed, and you can send letters requesting cooperation without registering (and you do actually own the copyright), but you cannot enforce it in court unless and until you've filed for registration. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's not quite how it is. Think about it. Why do we not consider anything unregistered to be fair game.
In fact, yes, it's true that you do need to file a registration before suing for infringement (which is not what matters for our purposes), although not in order to hold a copyright (which is). You can still sue if you file after the alleged infringement has occurred and (something the statute is explicit about) if your application is rejected. Formerip (talk) 22:27, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably "imaging" includes move moving and still images? (Interesting to see that other "uncopyrightable" items include: "Bridges, canals, dams, tents, mobile homes, and other uncopyrightable structures (Section 923.2)." and "Useful articles (Section 924)". So useless articles will be still be copyrighted, I guess!) Martinevans123 (talk) 17:27, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Useless articles" are usually called "fine art" in copyright-land.  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why thanks! Yes, I should know, with the useless articles I've written. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:39, 24 August 2014 (UTC) [reply]
Fwiw there is no register of copyrights under English or Scottish law. Johnbod (talk) 13:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Figured I'd just throw this out there and hope someone takes pity on me...

Now 8 months and counting: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Amphetamine/archive4
Need reviewers! Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 22:18, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Still need more input. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 23:21, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Images such as this Template:Psychostimulant_addiction are a little too large for my screen. Would decrease from 600 to 400 px Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I can probably do 500px, but smaller than that will make them hard to view on larger screens. I haven't seen a notable problems mentioned on talkpages or when viewed on mobile devices though. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 02:49, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I wish that we could specify image sizes more helpfully for the desktop site, like "80% of screen width" or "up to 50%, maximum 800px".
You don't need to worry about image sizes on Mobile; they normally re-size automagically to whatever the screen size is on small devices.
Finally, for all of you who aren't subscribing to m:Tech/News, the default image size is scheduled to increase to 300px this coming Monday. Any logged-in user can re-set the size in Special:Preferences. Usually, this sort of change produces a few surprised complaints for a few days, and about two weeks later, most people don't really care any longer. (This is generally true for all websites, not just the Wikipedias.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This change to image sizes has been postponed (current best guess: October, and in conjunction with some other changes to image presentation). Anyone who would like a different size now can go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering and pick whatever you like from the list. The non-default setting is 220px, and the most popular non-default setting is 300px (which is what they are changing the default to). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. Do you happen to know if they will now increase the manual options in Preferences with some larger sizes? Otherwise, since the default has now caught up with the maximum option (unchanged for what, 8 years?) you can only opt to size down, not up. Which would be a bit odd. Is there a page for this? Johnbod (talk) 23:08, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've suggested 360px, which is already available at sv.wp. It's been requested repeatedly by people with limited vision and/or high-resolution screens. I don't know if it will happen. The last discussion I saw was on wikitech-l, and it was not very encouraging. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:04, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Featured picture nominations for technical diagrams

Cross-posted on WT:MED, WT:PHARM, WT:MCB, and WT:NEURO

I nominated two technical diagrams (the signaling cascade involved in psychostimulant addiction and amphetamine pharmacodynamics in dopamine neurons) for featured picture.
I spent about 30 hours making the ΔFosB diagram alone, so I'd really appreciate it if anyone is willing to contribute an image review! These are both used in the amphetamine article.

Regards, Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 21:31, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One doctor's fight to correct errors in WP

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did a story on James-- it can be found here (Wikipedia's medical errors and one doctor's fight to correct them). It is always good to get the word out that physician-Wikipedians are welcome. Beyond that, I think it is important to explain the process-- I am amazed again and again how few people know that all the changes to an article are tracked and any version can be compared to any other version. Personally, I think this is one of the key elements of what makes WP work. In any case, great stuff James! Nephron  T|C 04:46, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He isn't very photogenic though, is he? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 07:23, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yup thankfully I do not make a living on my looks. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:31, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How nicely you respond to a hurtful statement, Jmh! I'd have deleted it. From WP:NPA "Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done." (Emphasis in the original.) --Hordaland (talk) 20:19, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
James looks fine in the photograph, certainly better looking than many men out there. I don't know if Roxy the dog™ was expecting a model or what. Flyer22 (talk) 04:01, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Unbelievable ! -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 06:32, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Roxy the dog™, we've established that your original comment in this section was unbelievable...and not in a good way. Flyer22 (talk) 11:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Loosen up for godsake, try some AGF. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 12:49, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding your question, yes, I'm serious. That you can't see how your "isn't very photogenic though, is he?" comment can be hurtful and is therefore inappropriate is something that you need reanalyze, whether you meant harm by it or not. It's common sense that if someone looks at a person's photograph and comments that the person is not photogenic, especially in the way you did, the commentator is acknowledging that he or she does not find the other person's looks appealing. James even stated above, "Yup thankfully I do not make a living on my looks." And comments on James's looks are not needed on Wikipedia. It would be different if it's clear that you think James looks better in person or on video and was simply making an "Oh, you look so much better in person or on video" type of comment, but that was/is not clear. Flyer22 (talk) 13:35, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Roxy.., to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, "I look forward to the day when [our editors] are judged by the character [of their edits]", not by their outward appearance. How about a retraction, for starters. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 14:53, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Meh -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 17:34, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have added the reference to his bio. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The translation work mentioned in the article is very commendable, but I am not completely convinced by this statement: "We're creating some of the first medical content to ever exist in some languages." What are those languages?
—Wavelength (talk) 16:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
K'iche would be one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 20:36, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that would be K'iche' language. Axl ¤ [Talk] 22:49, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. 2.3 million speakers maybe. Not much medical content in their language. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:59, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Quiche text at http://wol.jw.org/quc/wol/d/r156/lp-qc/1102008086 is equivalent to the English text at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102008086, but it might not meet your criteria for being medical content. I found it quickly, but my longer search for Quiche medical text outside that website has been unsuccessful.
—Wavelength (talk) 03:52, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
[More accurately, "has been unsuccessful" should be "has not been successful".
—Wavelength (talk) 19:17, 26 August 2014 (UTC)][reply]

The statement is "some of the first medical content to ever exist in some languages" It is not controversial that their is little medical content in many languages. The content you give is religious content not medical and yes religious content exists in every language as lots of people work on that. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:06, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Apropos of nothing really, I was a resident on a cardiothoracic team once and we had patients from the Solomon Islands at our hospital, and hearing a cardiothoracic surgical procedure translated into Pidgin English was interesting indeed. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:22, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Cas Liber, I'm curious, how was a subjunctive mood statement translated? Were there any such statements? No worries, were none occurred (I provide a sample clause for those who don't speak in subjunctive). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 16:32, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No idea, the interpreter was pretty quick and it was hard to follow - the bit that most caught my attention was describing the cutting of the sternum as "snip snip snip 'um" Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:43, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for emphasizing the word "some". I should have been more attentive.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:40, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hormone in pretty sad shape

the Hormone article could use some TLC from experts before people get misinformation. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:23, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify what sort of misinformation you see there? Looie496 (talk) 17:46, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about any blatant errors, but the article is poorly organized and lack sources. User:TylerDurden8823, User:CFCF, and myself have made some recent edits and I think the article is moving in the right direction. There is a lot more work remaining however. Boghog (talk) 18:07, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well I added two {{dubious}} claim tags in the lede.
  1. All receptors do not elicit a response - see scavenger receptors
  2. All responses are not transcription related
...so that is missinformation in the lede. (I will give you that these points are also slightly pedantic) -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 18:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed that all responses are not transcription related. I included a quick fix (change "cause" to "may cause"). Boghog (talk) 18:37, 23 August 2014 (UTC) Now added "rapid non-genomic effects". Boghog (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The statements that you tagged as "dubious":-

  • "Cells respond to a hormone when they express a receptor for that hormone."
  • " When a hormone binds to the receptor, it results in the activation of a signal transduction mechanism. This ultimately leads to cell type-specific genomic responses that cause the hormone to activate genes that regulate protein synthesis (e.g., up-regulation: synthesis of a receptor for that hormone)."

The first statement seems to be poorly worded rather than "dubious". The intended implication is that cells that express a hormone's receptor will respond to that hormone.

I believe that the second statement is correct (although the example chosen might be odd). Scavenger receptors are not activated by hormones, and they certainly do undergo a response. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:38, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I think there has been some form of miscommunication - we seem to be on different terminologies. I did not mean scavenger receptor as in the article I linked to, but rather as; for example IGF-IIR, which upon binding to IGF will internalize and metabolize both receptor and hormone - not what I feel is the type of response implied in the lede. Referred to as scavenger receptors in this paper. (Don't know if this is widely used.)
As for the second sentence - while not necessarily wrong I feel the inclusion of genomic implies that responses are only tied to gene regulation, something that often is too slow for many of the immediate responses of certain hormones, e.g. many releasing hormones. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 16:31, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, Boghog's edits leave this discussion moot anyway. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:06, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Such misunderstandings are always good, now I know Scavenger receptor (endocrinology) & Scavenger receptor (immunology) need to be created. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 05:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you mean that the correction of misunderstandings is always good? :-) Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Or that the exposure of them is always good. --Hordaland (talk) 09:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Copy and paste detection bot

The bot is up and running and returning helpful results. There is still a relatively high rate of false positives that we are working to reduce. These fixes should be fairly easy. False positives to true positives is about 1 to 3. It is definitely worthwhile as I have been able to provide feedback to a number of users. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:33, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hey All. I need to know if you support or oppose this bot running on medical content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this is a fabulous idea. There's been a number of recent high-profile users whose edit count was largely based on difficult-to-detect plagiarism. JFW | T@lk 13:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Still requires work but it is a start. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like running this bot to detect copy and paste. I looked through the list and it seems that the results (both true and false positive) are doable to manage. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 16:08, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's clearly a useful step forward, James. The false/true positive ratio is not bad for such early results - and there is little harm done when a false positive is reported, other than the time taken to check it out. Keep it going! --RexxS (talk) 17:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fully support trying it out. It's so very annoying how many sites copy Wikipedia content to try to drive search results their direction, resulting in false positives! Zad68 20:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • A step in the right direction, but we need to consider in a systematic fashion how WP should respond when we find our content mirrored, or even reverse copyvio'd in low-quality journals or even republished, as by Books, Inc. and its ilk. It's become far too common an occurence that threatens to undermine wp:V. There are a number of existing tools that should be made to play together better. The subpages of Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks and talkpage transclusions of Template:reverse copyvio could be part of the picture, but we really need a database tool that can track such instances with little or no human intervention, and an easy way to respond. WP:REUSE for free purposes is one thing, but this is something else, being exploited by AOL, Google, and other major corporations to the detriment of WP's quality and reputation. In some (or possible even most) cases what is going on amounts verges on clickfraud, with a reader driven to a google advert-laden page that only slightly resembles the WP page it was based on. In many cases the fraudsters hijack all the wikilinks except those for images, leaving the bandwidth burden on WP. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:47, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Great idea using Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. We will need to speak to Turnitin about this. User:Ocaasi? With respect to others copying from use, agree that is an issue but one this effort does not yet address. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 21:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hey folks. Great work James taking this project through to an actual working product!! I spent many days compiling a list of over 3000 mirrors and forks that we could 'whitelist' as non-infringing. There were two issues with this approach. One, the list of mirrors is ever-growing and changing. Two, Turnitin did not have a way for us to mass-add the sites on the whitelist. They would have to be entered literally one by one. It would take them a development cycle to prioritize this and it wasn't a high priority for them as it distracted their core developers. With Andrew and Madman, we pretty much decided that we should be doing the screening for mirrors. Turnitin gives us a list of 'positives' and then we remove any from our known whitelist during bot post-processing. That is something which we can certainly discuss with Eran or other coders involved. Turnitin, btw, whom I spoke with this afternoon, is very excited to see their software out in the wild on Wikipedia. Thanks again for the sustained effort and focus to make it happen :) Ocaasi t | c 22:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good work. We need more bots to help out. I support the bot reviewing on medical content. QuackGuru (talk) 02:26, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Listing a link to "authors" in the by-line

Have done some more work on an example of this on the heart failure article. Wondering what people think for punctuation? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:50, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway proposed here Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Adding_a_link_to_.22authors.22_in_Wikipedia.27s_by-line Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I kinda like it. At first I was opposed but compact and as a byline is makes sense and doesn't clutter the article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:41, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Diet and cancer

The article Diet and cancer starts with, "Almost all cancers (80–90%) are caused by environmental factors,[1] and of these, 30–40% of cancers are directly linked to the diet.[2] By far, the most significant dietary cause of cancer is overnutrition (eating too much).[3]" Ref 1 is 14 years old. Ref 2 is 5 years old and is to a general page not a specific source supporting the content. I am not sure this information is really correct or that such overarching statements are supported by current medical consensus. As there are a number of editors here with extensive knowledge I thought someone might take a look. - - MrBill3 (talk) 11:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a 2008 review [2] that supports. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:47, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The most recent UK data has [attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors] "an estimated 43% of all new cases of cancer in the UK (approximately 134 000 new cases in 2010), and about 50% of all cancer deaths." "The fraction of cancer attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors in the UK in 2010". Click Table of contents on the left for the whole thing, which is free access. You can't just say "100% minus (heritable) genetic = environmentally caused", there's a sizeable "don't know/just happened" as well. The CRUK pages, on a quick look, say "diet" "nearly one in ten UK cancer cases are caused by unhealthy diets.", "obesity" "more than one in 20 cancers in the UK are linked to being overweight or obese." and alchohol "causes 4% of cancers in the UK", see menu at here. Another one for the list. And 80% isn't "almost all" anyway. The detail of the article is poor too - no sections on red/processed meats or salt, for example. Wiki CRUK John/Johnbod (talk) 12:35, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes different sources give different estimates. In such a situation it is best to use a range like 40 to 80%. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:12, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

2014 World Cancer Report has a section on diet. It states that excess weight is responsible for 4.2% of cancer in men and 14.3% of cancer in women in the USA. Among non smokers this is an even greater proportion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Reference 2 goes to the main page of the huge section at the AIRC/WCRF site, dated 2009. This seems the current equivalent, with figures about 50% of those quoted. For now I'll just remove these first two sentences, which clearly are not "supported by current medical consensus". Johnbod (talk) 16:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We go through this every year or two. You can 'just say "100% minus (heritable) genetic = environmentally caused"', because that's exactly how the specialists define it: in this worldview, the only options are genotype and phenotype, and if it's not the one, then it is (by definition) the other.
The description of the Nature paper is incorrect. It does not describe "The most recent UK data has [attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors]". It describes "The most recent UK data has [attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors] mostly choosing only things that that we, the researchers, have decided are both within the control of UK residents and not culturally inappropriate, and only as applies to 18 out of a couple hundred types of cancer." That's seriously different: They have excluded certain causes, like the number of breast cancer deaths that could be prevented if women chose to have more children, because it would not be socially "acceptable", not because choosing to have zero children is not a scientifically accepted cause of breast and ovarian cancer.
They did not look at all environmental causes, and therefore their numbers are automatically an under-representation. They claim to have looked at exactly 14:
  1. tobacco,
  2. alcohol,
  3. consumption of meat,
  4. consumption of fruit and vegetables,
  5. consumption of fibre
  6. consumption of salt
  7. being overweight or obese,
  8. lack of physical exercise,
  9. occupation,
  10. infections (hardly any in the UK, but about a quarter of cancer deaths worldwide),
  11. ionizing radiation from (only) medical sources and two natural (radon and cosmic background) sources
  12. UV exposure (which they calculate against people born in 1903, some of whom also got UV-induced melanoma),
  13. use of "female" hormones (only as it affects "female" cancers), and
  14. breast feeding.
At a glance, these controllable things appear to have been ignored: pesticides, smog and other forms of air pollution (except tobacco smoke and what you inhale at work), water pollution, number of children, age at which a first child is born, and your choice to take (or not) some drugs to reduce cancer risk. I'm sure there are more. They also omit non-controllable factors, like age at menarche (which at least gets mentioned) and menopause.
They also looked at only 18 of the most common cancers in the UK, and they only looked at specific factors for some of these cancers. This is mostly sensible, since we want them to be working with respectable data, but it systematically underestimates effects. For example, obesity increases the risk for many cancers, but they only looked at its effect on seven, so the cancers caused by obesity in another dozen cases (or more?) are omitted.
In other words, this paper does nothing to change the fact that worldwide nearly all causes of cancer are non-hereditary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So this ref says 20-30% are preventable [3] which is close to 30-40%. Agree it needs updating. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:59, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"You can 'just say "100% minus (heritable) genetic = environmentally caused"', because that's exactly how the specialists define it: in this worldview, the only options are genotype and phenotype, and if it's not the one, then it is (by definition) the other." – This isn't quite my field, but I'd have thought it should actually go something like risk of getting cancer = genetic contribution + environmental contribution + interaction of genetic and environmental contributions. The final term is needed because genetic and environmental contributions to cancer susceptibility are not strictly additive. For example, particular genotypes might be more or less susceptible to particular environmental influences. Some genotypes might even be advantageous in one environment but disadvantageous in another – think skin pigmentation, UV levels, skin cancer risk, and vitamin D production. What I'm trying to say is, I wouldn't be comfortable with simply subtracting genetically caused cancers from 100% to get environmentally caused cancers. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 02:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is how the sources operate. The one that John notes above, for example, explicitly refuses to count UV exposure on the job as an occupational cause of cancer. In this area, every cancer gets assigned exactly one cause. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First thanks for devoting some attention to this article. While I agree (to some extent) with WhatamIdoing's analysis it runs up against OR and V. I think it is an important analysis of the quality of sources which is entirely appropriate. I'd like to see some sources that make the same sort of evaluation and address cancer epidemiology. Unfortunately (or fortunately in most cases) on WP we are bound to represent "how the specialist's define it" and the mainstream academic consensus per WP:DUE. I'd think there are significant viewpoints that raise the issues presented by WhatamIdoing and if identified they might be evaluated for due weight. I do think some of the major reliable sources do not calculate environmental level of cause by 100% - hereditary = environmental some I have read clearly identify an area of we don't know. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't want to see my comments in an article. However, I also wouldn't want to see "50% of all cancer deaths are caused by environmental factors" in an article when what the source actually says is that 50% of all cancer deaths in the UK and for only 18 types of cancer are caused by fourteen selected environmental (including lifestyle) factors.
There are a lot of cancers for which the cause is unknown. However, there are almost none for which the hereditary vs not issue is unknown. For example, with breast cancer, there is a sizable fraction of "unknown", but it is known (using US stats) it's about 10% hereditary and 90% environmental. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No one has suggested putting a 50% figure in. Instead a first sentence that was not sourced to MEDRS standards, was by no means necessary for the topic, and actually meant something a very long way from what the average reader was likely to think it meant, was removed. It should not be replaced with any alternative figure at all. There are too many such over-simple unexplained statements that are likely to mislead (even if up to date) in medical articles. The 2nd sentence has now been replaced, although its reference seems now unverifiable. Johnbod (talk) 20:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that a lot and maybe most cancer is "enviromental" (not inherited from one's parents) is excellent as that means that it can potentially be prevented. This means not smoking, improving chimneys, immunization against certain infections, improving ventilation in underground living spaces, covering ones skin from the sun, etc. All measure that are well in the means of most people globally.

If most cancer was "not environmental" (in other words inherited from one's parents) than gene therapy / after the fact treatment would be the only option. Something which is very expensive and out of the possible range of most people globally. The War Against Cancer concentrated mostly on treatment rather than prevention unfortunately for whatever reasons. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:02, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article is "Diet and cancer" and there is no need to widen beyond that topic in the first sentence, especially in a severely under-explained fashion. Johnbod (talk) 01:17, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not to be flippant, but two issues that I think are worth making explicit:
  • The most important cause of cancer is not dying of something else. The risk doubles wtih every decade of life, and as recently as 50 years ago the number living into the highest risk decades was quite small.
  • By this reasoning, statins inevitably "cause" cancer as do antibiotics. When the rate of cardiovascular deaths fall, the rate of other causes of death must go up, because everyone dies of something.
Also, while I don't have the references at hand, I don't think cancer has to be either "genetic" or "environmental" unless you consider your own body part of the environment. Any good molecular bio text will tell you than every cell replication is accompanied by transcrption errors, and normal metabolism produces a plethora of electrophiles such as formaldehyde and unsaturated ketones that are able to alkylate DNA. If "chemical" exposure where responsible for a large percentage of cancers, we should have seen a precipitous drop since the bad old days of the 1950s and 1960s when a large percentage of the population had occupational exposure in manufacturing jobs that where performed in the near complete absence of any sort of chemical hygiene measures. It hasn't really happened. Formerly 98 (talk) 19:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gluten

Some changes recently have been made in the "Adverse reactions" section, and I think some subject-matter experts need to review the article. Coretheapple (talk) 17:20, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Transcranial direct-current stimulation needs trimming

Read [4] and thought - "this is the type of thing to have a poorly sourced Wikipedia article". Couldn't believe how right I was.

It's 11:30 and I have work tomorrow, so throwing this out there if anyone wants to do some trimming - otherwise this is only a note for me to remember to do it. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 21:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New attempt at RFC on medical articles disclaimer

An earlier RFC on medical disclaimer failed, but I and a couple of others believe we have a strategy to start a new one that would help prevent a repeat of the same problems. That discussion is here: User talk:SandyGeorgia#Any new developments in the medical disclaimer initiative? The main proposals are summarized at the bottom of that discussion. We would welcome anyone in the Medicine WikiProject to weigh in before we start the drafting process. --Holdek (talk) 16:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This was proposed not that long ago. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:52, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
About eight months ago. --Holdek (talk) 12:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Autism cure movement

Template:Autism cure movement has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 22:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome

I just came across Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome, and it could use some attention. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata project to associate drugs with interactions

To have conversations about Wikidata, learn this diagram!

A new Wikipedian, Alepfu, is a researcher who would like to make a database connecting information about drug interactions to Wikidata items for drugs. This would mean that for Wikidata items like (RS)-warfarin (Q407431), there would be a Wikidata property, drug action altered by, which makes a claim that some other drug interacts with Warfarin. This user also has a collection of sources to back those claims. For those who do not know, on Wikidata, (Item + Property Value = Claim), and (Claim + Source = Statement), which I think is a lot like English Wikipedia's policy of backing statements with sources. This process itself is interesting, and this user is seeking community feedback on their proposal to run a bot which will make these kinds of statements.

Also interesting is that when backing a claim with a source, it could be that this process creates a Wikidata item for every source, then uses that Wikidata item for the citation rather than having a freeform citation as has always been used before. High-priority drug–drug interactions for use in electronic health records (Q17505343) is one such source. Wikidata only has a few hundred academic papers stored in this way, but potentially, all academic papers cited in a Wikimedia project could be stored here and called from Wikidata as a central source. This citation project is not necessarily tied to the drug interaction project, but the original project could be a place to explore options for automating the import of citations and immediately using them in a practical way.

For those of you who have not met this person, I would like to introduce Tobias1984. He is the most active participant of WikiProject Medicine on Wikidata, which anyone can visit at d:Wikidata:WikiProject Medicine. Anyone who would like to get pings for medical information assistance on Wikidata should put their name at d:Wikidata:WikiProject_Medicine/Participants, and then when someone seeks comment you would get notice.

Alepfu's project is still running test edits, but comments would be welcome now on the concept at d:Wikidata:Requests for permissions/Bot/AlepfuBot. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like an interesting concept. will look into it.Docsim (talk) 06:20, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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