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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

May 2014 discussion on how to update sales, and drugs in production

Hi Formerly 98 i agree that one cannot talk about a drug company without their drugs. your edit "added legacy products" But a portfolio of drugs is company speak, and in the lede direct copy from gsk is unacceptable, I hope we agree on that. (I think you may not understand what I meant by ad). Also, there is a list of GSK products. You could have inserted the names of the legacy drugs (good idea of you) under products and with secondary source.

the other edit was described as updated badly outdated list? you actually removed: anti-depressant Paxil, which by 2012 had attracted $11.6 billion in sales, the diabetes drug Avandia at $10.4 billion, the anti-depressant Wellbutrin at $5.9 billion. strange. which was informative and sourced. I object to that. you added without new source: asthma drugs Advair, Flovent and Ventolin, and an H2 antagonist, Zantac, the epilepsy drug Lamictal, the benign prostatic hypertrophy drug Avodart, the anti-hyperlipidemic Lovasza, and its line of vaccines for the prevention of diptheria, pertussis, tetanus, pneumococcus infections, and rotavirus infections.

lede follows body, so this should nt be in the lede in all this detail, but below, ok?--Wuerzele (talk) 09:33, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi Wuerzele:
Thanks for your note.
Glaxo is a mixed bag and the lede and the document should both address that. They've done terrible things. They've also developed some medically important drugs that continue to save/improve lives long after going off patent and ceasing to make money for the company, and have made some real contributions to health in the developing world.
I think the article and the lede each to capture both of these things in a balanced way.
To address your individual points.
  • "Portfolio" is defined by the Oxford dictionary as "A range of products or services offered by an organization, especially when considered as a business asset". I don't understand why you would consider this "company speak", but I have no objection to modifying the language.
  • I described the list as outdated because the language of the sentences was "Its top-selling prescription drugs include..." As of the 2013 annual report, neither Wellbutrin, Paxil, nor Avandia are among the company's top selling products. If you want to note that the company made large amounts of money selling Paxil and Avandia, why not just describe that in the section about the controversies around those drugs? There should be a list somewhere in the article about the company's current best selling products.
  • If you like, I'll go to the FDA website and specifically add a reference for each of the legacy drugs stating that it is a GSK drug. But most of those drugs are hyperlinked to articles that provide those refs. I considered this to be uncontroversial and common knowledge, no one is going to seriously argue that amoxacillin was developed by Merck.
You are correct that the lede should reflect the body of the article. I'll add some text to the body about legacy products before adding this material back to the lede.
thanksFormerly 98 (talk) 13:02, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Formerly 98 thanks for the response- i see we agree.

as far as "referencing for each of the legacy drugs stating that it is a GSK drug": i thought about this too. its going to prove difficult, because of the many mergers, but if you have time, this would be good work, doubtlessly adding value. as it stands, most drug articles look extremely shallow and have no history section, which are often so fascinating, and can be stand alone articles by themselves if growing big enough, think streptomycin etc. btw "no one is going to seriously argue that amoxacillin was developed by Merck." -i do. it was Beecham, ie gsk.
re "most of those generic drugs are hyperlinked to articles that provide those refs."actually no - check it out , thats why I wrote what I wrote.
"There should be a list somewhere in the article about the company's current best selling products"- agree. maybe start smaller with a couple sentences as we have now (cut-paste); lists can get too long, tables make sense if the same drugs reappear over years. who knows if you're still editing this 5 yrs from now?
as far as "best selling drugs outdated": you are right 2012 is theoretically outdated. but removing sourced, relevant info is taking away from the article. if your interested in updating i suggest to add (also less edit warring). the article is a stub for such a giant as gsk. could also pack sales as subsection overtime in a new section called history. it is useful info to see how sales change over years.
you may have felt i was POV pushing, when i pasted sales info back in, as your response suggests ("They've done terrible things") but i daresay it is not. good WP articles show as many sides of a subject as possible("mixed bag.) i wrote you, to open the discussion- by WP:BRD policy should be done by the one who reverted the status quo. i wrote to discuss how to edit this encyclopedia article, not personal opinions.
2 small things: plse use neutral terms, language, punctuation in edit summaries, without exclamation marks etc. re presenting an explanation of the word 'portfolio', you missed my (maybe poorly expressed) point.--Wuerzele (talk) 16:50, 14 May 2014 (UTC)


Ok, thanks for you note. Frankly the anger at this industry is so intense in some quarters I never know in advance if I'm dealing with someone I'm going to be able to find common ground with.
The first point I'd like to address in the aftermath of your edits (which I have not reverted or otherwise modified at this point) is the lede. Recognizing that the lede should be representative of the article, it should also give an evenhanded and representative view of the company. Currently this is how the lede summarizes GSK:
1. Its a really big pharmaceutical company that was formed by a series of mergers. It is headquartered in London.
2. It sells drugs for several major therapeutic areas that overlap heavily the sort of list one would generate for almost any major pharma. It used to sell other drugs. No details of these are mentioned
3. It sells consumer products including Sensodyne, Boost and Horlicks
4. It pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the US, and paid the largest fine in U.S. history. The charges were related to Paxil, Wellbutrin, Avandia, and Advair. The charges included both off label marketig and covering up bad safety data.
5. It used to pay doctors for things it shouldn't, and now they say they are going to stop. It will continue to pay them for other things.
So from my POV,
  • Item # makes the unavoidable statement that its a big pharmaceutical company, formed by a series of mergers. The only statement that it makes that differentiates it from every other pharma company in existance is that it is headquartered in London.
  • tem #2 is basically redundant with #1 since the description of the current and former product lines has been reduced to something so vague and bland as to say nothing at all
  • Item #3 mentions three consumer products by name that generate 3% of company revenues in aggregate. This is more detail than is given the other 97%.
  • Items #4 and #5 are about misconduct. Now it suddenly becomes OK to mention details and the names of specific drugs.
  • Item #5 is in the lede though not discussed in the text. Positive remarks about the company were removed from the lede for this very reason.
So to me this is not a balanced view of the company. For all the shitty things this company has done, there are literally 10s of thousands if not hundreds of thousands alive today because of products the company makes or which it invented and are now sold as generics.
What can we do to reach a compromise here that addresses these concerns? The current lede is not even close to being balanced from my POV. It basically reads "Big pharma company, makes drugs (no details given), breaks laws (details provided), pays bribes to docs (details provided)".
I don't have a problem with mentioning the reveneue from Paxil. I think that can be done in one place and a list of the company's CURRENT revenue sources listed elsewhere.
I can easily cut and paste descriptions of the current drugs from the individual Wikipedia articles about them and paste them into the article to meet the standard that "the lede must reflect the text". But I think little purpose is served in doing so, the information is in the article by virtue of the hyperlinks.
Also I would add in response to your comment that seems to suggest I am edit-warring. My removal of your changes was not "changing the status quo", it was a revert your removal of material that had been there for a very long time. I feel the burden of proof is on you, and would argue that you have violated WP:BRD by undoing my reversion. But rather than get legalistic, lets focus on finding common ground.
Thanks Formerly 98 (talk) 18:24, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Formerly 98 again i agree with you the lede and article are imbalanced. Jytdog did some tweaking.
I wont argue with you about edit warring. i used neutral tone and started the discussion in the first place, which thankfully you are now too.
my suggestions are up there, not to remove sourced info. I preserved info that jytdog removed, as suggested above so it can grow in a history section. --Wuerzele (talk) 03:38, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
i tweaked the lead a bit. seems ok to me for now. let's work on improving the body of the article and consider the lead later... started finding sources for the legacy products (sorry for the intermediate error, btw!)Jytdog (talk) 02:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Wuerzele the source for the 2012 sales data is a dead link. If you can find a reliable source for those figures, please feel free to bring them back in. thanks. Everything must be verifiable, as you know. Jytdog (talk) 03:34, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:VERIFY is one of our foundational policies here, wuerzele. If the source is dead it can be deleted. Again, if you want this in, find a source. I see zero value to sales figures from 2012 but I will not oppose including them if they have a reliable source - I also hope that you provide some rationale as to why we should have some random year (what is so special about 2012?) Jytdog (talk) 03:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Jytdog,plse read the above thread before accusing, and acting irrationally ( repeat revert, excuse me I am no vandal). This is scaring contributors away. I EXPLAINED why I wanted to preserve this.
this could be beginning of a history of topselling drugs. Discuss if you delete. Also, I didnt add this sentence, merely defending it- check history. Furthermore, the usual way with dead links is inserting [citation needed] or [dead link] is one of our policies here.

i think your finding a pretext to revert me. this stuff was in there how long and you didnt care. Have you checked any other links?

Please discuss content, not contributors. The lead of VERIFY says " Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." Please explain how what I did, violates that policy. really - please do explain. If you look at the editing work I just did, I removed other content (in the history section) that had no source due to GSK changing its website. I am starting to go through this article to update it and flesh it out (the history section is really weak) and there will be a lot more of finding new sources, removing unsourced material.. this article needs a lot of work. Jytdog (talk) 04:12, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't see any consensus on this page that there is a POV issue. If there is one, it certainly wasn't created by deleting unsourced content. This should have been discussed before adding the tag, so I am removing it pending further discussion. Formerly 98 (talk) 05:06, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
I will abstain fom editing this article. You can do it alone. This is nuts.--Wuerzele (talk) 04:19, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

list of consumer products

Jackolees wants to add a big list of consumer products, first with no source (reverted b/c unsourced) and today, sourced from GSK's website. In my view we need some reliable source, ideally an independent one, that shows what important (big sales, were once game-changers... something) consumer products GSK has. A big list sourced from their website is just a contextless [[W{:LAUNDRYLIST]] and that is not what WP is for, in my view. Jytdog (talk) 02:27, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Removal of well sourced COI statement

@Formerly 98: I added a statement based on an article from the Washington Examiner on GSK's COI in lobbying for e-ciagerette regulation that competes against its products. Formally 98 removed it here diff citing notability concerrs. Please explain the reasoning behind this. I could have used quite a few sources. link1 link2 link3 AlbinoFerret 18:23, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

i have no idea what you are talking about with regard to COI. Jytdog (talk) 21:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
@Jytdog: The statement you removed, that was well sourced I might add to the NY Times and Bloomberg. It was about a COI on the part of GSK. Why did you remove it? AlbinoFerret 21:33, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
i repeat. i have no idea what you are talking about with regard to COI. Jytdog (talk) 22:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Did you read what you removed? It said GSK paid lobbyists to lobby against e-cigarettes that compete with its products. That is a clear COI. AlbinoFerret 22:16, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't matter. Its not material. Nobody broke the law. Nobody died. Its a footnote to a footnote to a footnote in the history of a $100B company. Keep your squabbles and edit wars on the E-cigarette page. We won't tolerate spreading it across Wikipedia. Formerly 98 (talk) 22:19, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
It was notable, it was controversial. It really doesnt matter how much the companies make. It was found in numerous reliable sources giving it weight. They are also not the only one with a COI. AlbinoFerret 22:23, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
how is that a COI? how is it controversial? companies, including e-cig companies, lobby all the time. the e-cig companies actually did it much better, astroturf and all, and won this round. i understand that in your close focus on e-cigs this is a HUGE DEAL but the reason I called it "trivia" is that nothing in what you wrote relates the content to GSK's bottom line or business nor gives any indication that the content should be given any WP:WEIGHT in this article. there is loads of loads of detail we could write about all kinds of things that GSK does and has done. (there is nothing in the article now, for instance about GSK's Ebola vaccine, and that has been much bigger news than this lobbying thing. But it is not important yet. so I haven't added it yet. See WP:TRIVIA I do get it that that for you it is a big deal. Why does this matter, in this article? That is the question. Jytdog (talk) 22:24, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Why its important is that its a notable situation, covered in multiple reliable sources. A one liner at the bottom of the page in a small list should not be an issue. I could ask the same question, why is it so important to remove it? AlbinoFerret 23:07, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Why does it matter? Every well sourced notable piece of information should be added. Its an encyclopedia. That something else isnt in the article is not an excuse to remove something else. AlbinoFerret 01:38, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Note about the trivia and weight violation: This has spilled over to another article. QuackGuru (talk) 23:14, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

If you think that a claim with 5 or so sources you are misapplying both of those policies. AlbinoFerret 01:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
i can come up with twenty sources for many things that are not in this article. we don't include everything under the sun in every article. you have not responded to the questions I asked you. Jytdog (talk) 01:23, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Yes I think I did, and I posted on my talk page. AlbinoFerret 01:38, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
see the questions above, about this article. and please see WP:INDISCRIMINATE. it is not true that we include every fact under the sun about every topic in Wikipedia. please address the question of why this matters in an article about GSK. You are a WP:SPA and I know it is hard to look past the single thing you care about in WP, but please answer. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
From my talk page, and please confine the discussion to one page as this is on one line pretty much added to all.

@Jytdog:I told you I wrote the line for the Washington Examiner source. What I forgot to mention is that Cloudjpk swapped out the source on the e-cig page, so I changed it on the others. I took it on faith it was ok, I shouldnt have

The story on the Examiner and the details are very interesting and dont look good for those lobbying. While it doesnt say COI it is one to target something your products compete against by trying to involve yourself in health regulations when you are in the pharmaceutical industry. If not its at least downright dirty. If not a controversy, at least notable by the amount of news stories on GSK and the lobbing against ecigarettes, not based on health concerns really, but with a profit motive. By the way, undo the revert of Leagal status of e-cigs please, its an offshoot page, what is in the snapshot on the main should be in the other. I will replace the original source. AlbinoFerret 02:24, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. I will say this one more time. This is the Talk page for the article about GSK. You made an edit to this article that was reverted by Formerly. You editwarred and added it back. I reverted. You then followed WP:BRD and opened a discussion about the edit. That is what we are discussing. Please deal with the facts that: 1) this is an article about GSK; 2) GSK does a million things every day; 3) WP is not an indiscriminate collection of factoids. You have been asked, several times, by me and others, why this topic deserves any WP:WEIGHT in this article. Please deal with the question, and with this actual article. Again, I know you are a SPA for e-cigs, and I think you know you are too. Your apparent inability to even see the WP:WEIGHT question is the exact reason why SPA users are disruptive. Please edit this article as though the subject of this article - GSK - matters to you. Thank you. Jytdog (talk) 02:37, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

It does matter to me that all the accurate information, that is notable is added to all articles within WP. Thats why when I find information that fits multiple articles I add it to all of them. I am not a SPA. I may have a liking for one topic. But by activities, while mostly on one article, are not all tied to one article or topic. The information can be found on more than one source, I have provided enough for that. It isnt an indiscriminate factoid that GSK played dirty and went after competition using the government to do its dirty work. It has weight enough for one line at the bottom of a page by the sources shown on this page. That GSK was mentioned in those articles makes its addition here appropriate. You even misapplied WP:TRIVA you should have hidden the whole section. I will say one thing your arguments have shown me a way to deal with another problem. AlbinoFerret 03:06, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
If I cant bring up the other articles in one place I know where I can. AlbinoFerret 03:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
i don't understand how anything above speaks to WP:WEIGHT. Your continued negative characterization of the lobbying by GSK is not in any of the reliable sources you brought and appears to be your own POV. Please see WP:NOTFORUM and WP:SOAPBOX. Thanks. And really, please just speak to WP:WEIGHT, in this article. (answering with "it is in plenty of RS" does not speak to WP:WEIGHT. If you do not understand WP:WEIGHT please read it. Thanks.) Jytdog (talk) 03:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC) (edit to include "reliable" Jytdog (talk) 04:24, 23 November 2014 (UTC))
  • Agree with the others, it hasn't been demonstrated that the proposed new content meets WP:WEIGHT for this general article about a very large company with a long history and many products and interests. Not to say there isn't a spot for it somewhere on Wikipedia, but not here. Zad68 04:03, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Directly copied from the source cited

Big Pharma is the real foe of e-cigs, and Big Government is their weapon of choice — on both sides of the pond. This fall, the European Parliament considered new rules regulating e-cigs. E-cigarette manufacturers, of course, lobbied like crazy to block the proposal, and it seems they won. But the drugmakers fought for stricter regulations, for obvious reasons: E-cigarettes compete with prescription drugs that are supposed to help people stop smoking. GlaxoSmithKline sells Nicorette gum and Johnson & Johnson manufactures nicotine patches. The New York Times reported these companies helped lead “strong opposition” to e-cigarettes. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration is about to announce new proposed rules on e-cigarettes. Big Pharma’s shadow hangs over the rule-making.

If you dont see the sentance I added in that, You may have a pov. AlbinoFerret 04:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Zad68 it is in the e-cig article. Albino added just the pharma part and i added the rest in this dif. Jytdog (talk) 04:20, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Albino, yes i know that GSK and J&J are the big ugly bears in the world of e-cigarettes; i get that, i really do. this article is not about e-cigarettes. btw, the examiner article you bring is not a news article; it is an opinion piece by their political columnist, and that not a reliable source for anything but the opinion of the columnist. the NY Times is a good, balanced news article. Jytdog (talk) 04:20, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
That GSK did the lobbying makes it applicable to this page. I can also use link I would have to take out the us and fda, but its a news story and says the same thing about GSK that they lobbied for regulations, and that their products compete with e-cigarettes. I could also attribute and do quotes with the Carney piece. I will be looking for more, I stopped at four sources, but there were quite a few more. AlbinoFerret 04:51, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
repeating "they actually did it" and "it is in sources" is not dealing with WP:WIEGHT.Jytdog (talk) 05:01, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Donations to SPN

The donations from GSK to the State Policy Network are notable for an article about SPN, but are not notable to GSK. The annual budget of SPN is about $8M. If we assume that GSK funded fully 10% of SPN's operating budget, this comes to $800K from a company with a charitable contribution budget that runs over $350M per year. Its difficult to see how this particular 0.2% of GSK's charitable giving deserves to be highlighted this way other than to WP:SOAPBOX. In contrast, the other programs discussed in this section run into the tens of millions of dollars annually. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 11:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The grant is highly noteworthy because it is referenced in a highly noteworthy and highly reliable, verifiable source, The Guardian. Inclusion of this grant is entirely appropriate under WP:DUE. Arguments against inclusion based on the % of the grantee's or grantor's total activity have no basis in policy or guideline. We are not required to find all grantees, and rank order them in descending order of dollar amount, and include only the top ones. Coverage in WP is proportional to coverage in reliable sources. Excluding this grant from this article would only be proportional to reliable sources if this grant were not in reliable sources. Excluding this grant is non-neutral WP:NPOV. Hugh (talk) 15:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
"Coverage in WP is proportional to coverage in reliable sources. Excluding this grant from this article would only be proportional to reliable sources if this grant were not in reliable sources."
Your first sentence is true but the second one does not follow. The NYTimes has contained over 500 articles about GSK since 2002. Fewer than 5% of these are discussed in this article. The sheer volume of article that exist about a company the size of GSK is such that many stories for which one can find evidence of news coverage will still not have sufficient weight to belong here.
The small contribution made by GSK to SPN does not seem to have ever been mentioned in any of the following sources:
  • The NYTimes
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • The Washington Post
  • Time Magazine
  • Newsweek
and those are just the first 5 than I searched. The sources you have found are articles about the State Policy Network and not about GSK. The donation is material and due weight to the SPN article, but not to this one given that GSK is many thousands of times larger than SPN.
The other activities in this section have been discussed in not just in a single major news outlet, but in virtually all of them. For example, Glaxo's malaria vaccine has been discussed in every one of the sources above (in addition to the Guardian), as has the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis and the distribution of drugs at reduced prices in developing countries.
WP:CONSENSUS states that
"In discussions of proposals to add, modify or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit."
Please don't edit war. You are welcome to hold an RFC if you like to try to gain support for this addition. But a one to one disagreement on the appropriateness of this addition does not represent consensus to add. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 18:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


These are still all minor sources or articles about SPN and not about GSK. Please stop edit warring, you don't have consensus for this addition. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 18:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones all agree this content is noteworthy. I'm sorry you do not. Most of the content in this article has less weight in reliable sources. Most of the content in this article is not from the five sources you mention for some reason. Excluding or including certain donors because of perceived positive or negative connotations is non-neutral. Sources for a WP article are not required to be primarily about the subject of the WP article. Much of the content in this article is from sources of which GSK is not the main subject. Hugh (talk) 19:08, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
A WP on article on the subject of this article that characterizes the philanthropy of the subject of this article as exclusively "Developing world access to medicines" is an indefensible gross misrepresentation of reliable sources. Hugh (talk) 19:18, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I added detail about what the donations actually were, and what they were for, as far as I could find that. Perhaps this will help resolve the question of whether this is UNDUE more concretely. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Formerly 98 i think you pulled the trigger a bit too fast on the RfC - do you mind pulling it while others weigh in here? thx Jytdog (talk) 21:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


Done. My point here is that if Bill Gates comes to my home, it is a notable event in my life but not in Bill's. You can't use articles written about SPN to establish weight in an article about GSK. There are only a few dozen articles in major media about SPN. There are thousannds about GSK, and this one is only on the list of top 500 GSK stories if you happen to be obsessed with SPN. It is certainly not one of the top 500 by prominence in RS.
Including a $20k donation to the Heartland Institute is a similarly pointy detail. GSK has a scholarship progrsm that gives larger amounts than this to individual students. Its not material to a $35B company.
As for Hughs assertion that "GSK is not the main topic of most of the sources cited in this article", this is readily refuted by a glance at the reference section. Most of the sources have GSK in the title. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 21:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
hugh, i am willing to compromise on keeping this if that is where consensus takes us, but this was not a good edit. We have the detail, well sourced, and there is no reason not to use it if we keep this. Jytdog (talk) 22:15, 2 April 2015 (UTC) (add note about consensus and a conditional Jytdog (talk) 22:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC))
Good morning. "We have the detail, well sourced, and there is no reason not to use it" Is that your experience with that source? I agree it is juicy, chuck full of fascinating well-referenced, accurate facts and figures. You would think it would be used all over! Are you aware of one article where it was used and stuck? Thanks in advance for your reply. Hugh (talk) 16:09, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

== RFC - Donations to State Policy Network - Is including this WP:UNDUE? ==


Hugh and I have a disagreement about whether contributions to this organization should be included in the article. The discussion of the issues can be found above.

I really just can't see that this information is important enough to note in this article. I'm not going to get into a long-winded argument about it. Many large corporations donate to conservative think tanks, but it's not worth a mention at all of their articles, IMO. Gandydancer (talk) 22:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
If you were notable enough to have your own WP page (I dunno maybe you are), and Bill Gates stopped by, and it was written up in The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones, I would include the event in both your articles. Hugh (talk) 05:20, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
HughD please self revert this, or I will bring you to 3RR. You are arguing against 3 editors here. Jytdog (talk) 11:06, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. The edit you diff is changing a subsection title from "Lobbying and political activities" to "Other philanthropic, lobbying and political activities," a short subsection including grants in Europe and the US. I am not so familiar with Europe, but here in the US the grantees mentioned are technically public charities performing social welfare missions by educating the public, and largely prohibited from political activity. So when we include these grant activities in a subsection entitled "Lobbying and political activities" it is actually a mild form of accusing the subject of an article of an illegal activity. We have no evidence of illegal activity. In fact, the section admits a quote attributed to the subject of the article that the activities were a health care initiative which if memory serves you added. Now maybe you & I & most clear-thinking persons know it is political activity but friend someone IS going to come up behind us and notice this and delete the whole section, is my experience, what's yours? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 16:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

− This is a joke. This editor has a a problem with rightiwing think tanks, who doesn't ? But you don't disrupt other articles to make a point. This is undue (Hugh can look it up) and a Coatrack. Sorry 140.239.47.1 (talk) 16:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)  

Coatrack? Is it your perception that the largess of the the subject of this article toward the Heartland Institute and the State Policy Network, the mere mention, reflects poorly on the the subject of this article? Is there something wrong or negative about the subject of this article granting funds to the Heartland Institute and the State Policy Network? In my perception the content is neutral. What do you think? Hugh (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Too big for detail? The subject of this article is SO big, and SO much as been written about it, that detail becomes irrelevant? Seems like that line of reasoning could apply to any editor trying to add anything to this article about anything in any level of detail more detailed than is already there, regardless of reliable sources. Hugh (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC) (edit conflict)
(edit conflict)the section header is not such a big deal to me. what is bugging me is your (Hugh's) dragging whatever ax you have to grind about these two organizations, into an article about another one. GSK's donations to Heritage are for the newsletter - that is what the fund-raising document itself says with HCN code, and what other sources say the code means, and what GSK itself said. your putting quotes around that was tendentious. We don't know what the donations to the conservative network are for, but the amounts are a drop in the bucket. and larding content about those organizations, with the scare-headlines sourcing, into an article about this organization, is just more ax-grinding. Just stop. you have no consensus for the edits you want. (btw, some IP address has deleted the content. Could be you, could be anybody. wasn't me. Please don't add it back until we have consensus for the exact language. I really mean it on the edit-warring thing. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 16:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, I did not address the quotes. Yes, I put quotes around "healthcare initiative," a quote attributed in text to the subject of this article. I was not being clever, cute, or ironic. It is a phrase direct from a source. The quotes are not such a big deal to me. What is a big deal to me is finding a few sentences that reasonably summarize reliable sources and has a shot at not being reverted so our encyclopedia presents a balanced view of the subject of this article's philanthropy, lobbying, and political activity. When I came here it was all about bringing drugs to the world. Will you help? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
"When I came here it was all about bringing drugs to the world." I think that if you Google GSK, you will generally find it described as a Pharmaceutical Company. So yes, the article should be overwhelming about the drug business. That would be due weight.
I will reiterate that I don't think it is appropriate to use articles that are primarily about a different subject that mention GSK in passing to establish due weight/notability for the purposes of this article. There are literally scores of GSK donations and non- or minimal profit internal research activities directed toward world health issues that have received greater press coverage than the ones Hugh is attempting to edit war into this article.
I could go on, but all of these are the subject of articles written by third party sources and all are articles written ABOUT GSK. In order for a $20K donation mentioned only in articles about the recipient to fit into this article with Due Weight, we'd have to include all of the above and many many more donations of equal notablity. At that point we'd have to rename Wikipedia "GSKs donations and other miscellany."
Hugh, your edits are opposed by four other editors. It is really time to stop Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 17:28, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
We agree the philanthropic activities of the subject of this article are under represented with respect to reliable sources. May I respectfully suggest I think you may be focussing too much on the dollar amount at the exclusion of the criteria in our policy, which is proportionality to reliable sources. And may I observe from your reply that it appears to me you are agreeing that yes, you DO think so much has been written about the subject of this article that no additional detail of any kind is warranted. In my travels in WP I have seen a similar line of reasoning, it goes like this: run the article up to 110% of page size guidelines, fork out some subtopics, run it up again - then if anyone tries to contribute, ask them what they want to take out. Have you considered that approach here? May I respectfully make a suggestion, please spend a few minutes with the sources, The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones (magazine), currently available only in history, and propose an alternative summarization? I mean other than nothing of course. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
no one is buying your arguments here. reviewed your edits. you have thing about these two organizations. i was willing to try to compromise with you and include something short, but you blew my sympathy. Listen - no one is denying that RS mention these donations. but that is not What It Is All About. There is all WP:WEIGHT and four editors are here telling you that this deserves none. (like i said, i would have been willing to support some small mention, but you blew that) Please stop beating the horse. I will not be responding further to your repeating the same argument. Jytdog (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Hugh, I"m not saying it should be expanded. I'm providing these examples to show how the charitable contribution section would explode and overwhelm the article if we included everything with the same level of notablity as your SPN and Heartland Foundation additions. We can't cover EVERYTHING in an encyclopedia article, and in the case of a multibillion dollar corporation, we can't even include every news story that was notable to get near universal coverage across all major media outlets. So including information that was 1) covered only in a handful of major sources, and 2) that was a minor part of a story about another entity pretty much defines WP:UNDUE in such a situation. But I think we are already deep in WP:IDHT territory here, so I'm not clear what good further explanations will accomplish.Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 19:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
"I'm providing these examples to show how the charitable contribution section would explode and overwhelm the article..." Don't be afraid! The Wikimedia Foundation will help us. They will get us whatever resources we need, disk space, memory, computer power, to accommodate us. Our job is to fairly summarize reliable sources. We have procedures for splitting. Maybe someday "Charitable activities of GlaxoSmithKline" will have its own article, summarized here. Wouldn't that be grand? I'm very sure nothing will explode. This is not the end of the world. It's an article growing. Let's work together. Hugh (talk) 15:27, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Here's where we're at:

  • Document statistics: (See here for details.)
  • Prose size (including all HTML code): 40 kB
  • References (including all HTML code): 6052 B
  • Wiki text: 54 kB
  • Prose size (text only): 24 kB (3727 words) "readable prose size"
  • References (text only): 385 B

I think we have room for a little more detail. Don't you agree? What is your opinion of the coverage of the philanthropic and other grant-making activities of the subject of this article, with respect to what you know of reliable sources? Over-represented, under, just right? So much has been written about the subject of this article, would you support deleting all content which is not in consensus in at least 5 reliable source references? May I ask, is it the level of detail as you say that is your issue, or the specific content? May I respectfully ask, would you support adding any other grantee, or is it just the Heartland Institute and the State Policy Network you object to? How did the writers at the The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones (magazine), get this grantee passed their editors? Didn't those editors understand how insignificant the grants were in relation to all the fine work the subject of this article is doing? Hugh (talk) 21:09, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

No one agrees with you. Drop it. 140.239.47.1 (talk) 00:40, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes you see a green star up top and you know you're looking at a good article. Other times, you try to contribute, and someone steps up and explains to you the article is perfect, just the way it is. 01:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Neutrality of grant-making

Multiple highly noteworthy, neutral, reliable sources document the subject of this article's grantmaking to grass-roots lobbying efforts in the form of donations to public charities involved in public education. The article presents a philanthropic portrait that is exclusively concerned with access to drugs. The article is non-neutral with respect to reliable sources. Hugh (talk) 14:33, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

You have raised this subject previously and your addition of this material has not gained consensus, being opposed by four other editors. It is not appropriate to use the POV template as a "badge of shame" or to tendentiously argue a position that has been resoundindly rejected by other editors.
This moving rapidly into edit warring behavior. I urge you to self revert and abide by consensus. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 14:36, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
agree with Formerly. Tags are not to be used in a POINTy way with regard to content that there is no consensus to add. Jytdog (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Multiple highly noteworthy, neutral, highly reliable sources ignored in this article, in non-neutral fashion:

  • Pilkington, Ed; Goldenberg, Suzanne (December 5, 2013). "State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax". The Guardian. London. Retrieved January 12, 2013. The State Policy Network (SPN) has members in each of the 50 states and an annual warchest of $83m drawn from major corporate donors that include the energy tycoons the Koch brothers, the tobacco company Philip Morris, food giant Kraft and the multinational drugs company GlaxoSmithKline.
  • Mayer, Jane (November 14, 2013). "Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 2, 2015. In addition, according to the Center for Media and Democracy study, corporate donors to the S.P.N. have included many of America's largest companies, such as Facebook, Microsoft, A.T. & T., Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Philip Morris and Altria Client Services (both subsidiaries of Altria), GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft, and funds from various entities linked to the fossil-fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch.
  • Gillis, Justin; Kaufman, Leslie (February 16, 2012). "Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science". New York Times. Retrieved April 2, 2015. "We absolutely do not endorse or support their views on the environment or climate change," said Sarah Alspach, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, a multinational drug company shown in the documents as contributing $50,000 in the past two years to support a medical newsletter.
  • Loftus, Peter (December 23, 2008). "Glaxo Plans to End Political Donations". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 6, 2015. pharmaceutical industry workers and their PACs have been big contributors to U.S. congressional and presidential candidates...Glaxo employees and affiliated PACs gave $1.1 million in the 2008 election cycle, ranking third behind Pfizer Inc. and Amgen Inc.


This has already been discussed and we are definitely deep in WP:IDHT territory. As has been repeated many, many times before, these are all articles about SPN, not GSK. When Bill Gates schedules a business meeting at one of Stone Brewing Co.'s microbreweries, it will be notable for Stone Brewery Co. and will be written up in San Diego papers as an article about Stone Brewery. It will not show up in national media articles as an article about Bill Gates, and adding it to the Bill Gates article would not be due weight. That's it, I will not continue to repeat myself, you are not bringing any new arguments to the table. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 15:34, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
So. Formerly. I have of late been encourage to engage on the talk page. I was glad you withdrew your RfC at the time, thinking there was nothing here we could not work out on the talk page, but now I regret it. There was wisdom in that RfC. I hope you have some time. I have some questions. I hope you will respond. Are you the owner of this article? Is it a good article? Have you considered a GA nomination? Do you believe the article fairly summarizes reliable sources? Is your understanding of WP:DUE infallible, or is it possible you may have something to learn about WP:DUE, perhaps even from one such as me? You keep bring up Gates, maybe there is an analogy, I will honor you and go with it. Stipulate, Gates does a bunch of good in the world. Let's say for the sake of argument he gave $40b to his charity in one swell foop. In so doing has he immunized himself from scrutiny for million dollar grants? Now suppose he gave $100 to ISIS, factually incontrovertible, and it was covered in Mother Jones, would you say it passes WP:DUE? What if it were covered in the NYT and WaPo? See where I am going? The dollar amount literally does not matter. Coverage in reliable sources matters. We as WP editors are asked make judgements, and form consensus on those judgements, all over, all the time, but this is not one of those times. WP:DUE is clear, unambiguous, quantitative, and objective. Thank you in advance for your time and commitment to building consensus. Hugh (talk) 15:40, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
HughD you are not trying to reach consensus here, you are beating a dead horse, not just to death, but to a pulp. Jytdog (talk) 16:16, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment. Please I would like to hear from my colleague @Formerly 98:. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
Hugh you are repeating your self. Please stop beating the horse. not responding further. Jytdog (talk) 15:38, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

re-arrangement

hughD did a big re-arrangement this morning in this set of diffs, under the rationale of WP:CRITS. I am generally a big fan of that and was curious to see how it worked out, and waited til this evening to look in.

this big re-arrangement was not effective. we still end up with out-of-chronological order subsections on larger issues like SB Pharmco Puerto Rico. so i reverted. happy to discuss.Jytdog (talk) 23:05, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

did you try fixing? are you familiar with WP:ROWN? Hugh (talk)
and am taking you to 3RR in 15 minutes unless you self revert. am teeing up diffs now. Jytdog (talk) 23:15, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Please, may I ask, I would like to know what WP:ROWN means to you, in your own words, briefly. Thank you in advance for your reply. Hugh (talk) 15:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
sure i will answer if you will tell me in what your own words what WP:Civil POV pushing and WP:Edit warring are.Jytdog (talk) 16:15, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
The reason I asked after WP:ROWN is that above, you mentioned that the attempted resolution of the WP:CRITS left a few sentences out of chronological order, yet you reverted, with no attempt to fix the issue. Your revert re-instated the WP:CRITS noncompliance. It seemed to me that with just a little more effort someone might have fixed the chronology and resolved the WP:CRITS issue. So I raised WP:ROWN. I meant no disrespect. It was a sincere question with context. I know different editors have different values. We have not collaborated before to my knowledge. Please I would like to know your thoughts. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
  • HughD you were blocked for edit warring once already. You came back and are doing the exact same edits which still have no consensus. Are we going to have to back to 3RR? Jytdog (talk) 20:42, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Jytdog, I'd appreciate it if you would stop reverting. There has been some deterioration (e.g. a return to one-sentence paragraphs) that I would like to fix, and whole sections removed. I'd appreciate time to restore some of it (some, but not all), and do a brief copy edit. Sarah (SV) (talk) 20:56, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
SlimVirgin Do you realize that there are now 2 sections discussing Ribena? Jytdog (talk) 21:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Ribena

SlimVirgin raised a question about this dif where Formerly 98 removed content about Ribena. Edit note was: "Ribena" - 7 year old incident involving a $217K fine on a $130B company isn't material, and certainly doesn't merit a Level 2 heading, 10 lines of text, and a supporting illustration". In my view that was a reasonable WP:UNDUE argument - not a thing to do with MEDRS. Issues of WEIGHT are always debatable and key information (like the status of a brand in markets where you don't live) can effect decisions about weight. Reasonable people, acting in good faith, can differ on questions of WEIGHT. Nobody objected on Talk to that. SlimVirgin has now.

This prompted me to go read about Ribena and it turns out we have an article on Ribena and if you read it (and i'll note that i just worked it over as it was full of unsourced content; version prior to my edits is here), it becomes pretty clear that the brand is a big deal in commonwealth countries, which is context i didn't have - i had never heard of Ribena. So now i have learned that the original Ribena ( blackcurrant syrup) is rich in Vitamin C, and was given out by the UK government in WWII to kids to help prevent scurvy, which gave the brand a "healthy" aura, that they played on over the years, even as they developed all kinds of soft drinks under the brand, and one of them in Aus/NZ, "ready to drink ribena" , was diluted so much that it had no vitamin C. here is an analysis of what happened and GSK's reactions, most of which were bad. sugary drinks were developed as well, that also have been problematic.

Given the status of the brand, i restored that content and copyedited it, in WP:SUMMARY style based on the lead of Ribena article, which I just worked over, and keeping mind of WEIGHT in the GSK article.

Subsquentlly, SV added a 2nd section on Ribena restored from the deleted content, which I reverted, since there was already content in the article on Ribena and this created 2 sections on it. SC reverted without acknowledging that she had created duplicate content. I took out the duplicate content. That is where we stand now. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

You removed the section I had added, and you've violated 3RR. The problem with the constant reverting is that it becomes impossible to fix mistakes. I would have removed the duplicate section myself. I'd appreciate it if you would restore the updated section, and move it higher, so that it's not after "other," which looks odd. Sarah (SV) (talk) 21:37, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
i self-reverted and I removed the updated content. do what you want with it. i am stepping away from this article for a while - i am not tangling with you on this. Jytdog (talk) 21:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)


I guess I have no real objection to re-adding this content. I had no idea it was such a major brand. I do feel that, like many of Wikipedia's pharmaceutical industry articles, this one has the shortcoming that the only products discussed in detail are ones that have been associated with scandal. Do none of the products below deserve the same number of inches of text as Ribena?

  • Augmentin, which combines the world's first beta lactamase inhibitor with one of the world's first penicillins with activity against Gram-(-) pathogens? Its combination of broad spectrum activity and exceptional safety have made it the most widely used antibiotic in the world
  • The world's first malaria vaccine?
  • Imitrex, which established 5-HT1 agonists as the new standard of care in migraine?
  • Tagamet, which ended the era of surgical treatment of gastric ulcer?
  • AZT, the first approved drug for HIV?
  • Ceftazidime, one of the mainstays of treatment in hosptial acquired pneumonia and other serious Gram-(-) infections?
  • Albendazole, an antiparasitic drug that is first line for the treatment of lymphatic filiarisis? GSK has committed to donating sufficient amounts of this drug to elimiate lymphatic filiarsis by 2020.

The problem here is probably better seen not as a problem of excessive inclusion, but one of neglect. The article is not unbalanced because GSK's sins are described in detail, but because its accomplishments are casually passed over and individual products are discussed in detail only if they are associated with scandal. I will look into fixing this in coming weeks. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 23:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

We are not asked to present a neutral treatment of the subject. We are asked to summarize reliable sources. Hugh (talk)

Malaria vaccine in lead

I think the malaria vaccine very clearly belongs in the lead. It is hard for me to understand how the rosiglitazone fine remained in the edited lead but the malaria vaccine and the committment to provide it at 5% above cost was removed.

  • Half a million children die of malaria each year, and the vaccine has the potential to reduce this by a third or more.
  • It is an extraoridinary technological achievement that has been the subject of unsuccessful prior research efforts going back to at least 1925
  • It has been extremely well covered in reliable sources, including
  • Reuters
  • Fortune
  • WSJ
  • The Telegraph
  • The BBC
  • Bloomberg
  • The Times
  • the NYTimes
  • The NEJM
  • Nature Medicine
  • PLoS
  • Scienbtific American
  • Forbes
  • NPR
  • The Guardian
  • The Economist
  • The Washington Post
  • The Houston Chronicle
  • The SF Chronicile
  • Newsweek
  • CBS
  • NBC
  • CNN

I think this development is at least as important as other items that were kept in the lead, and I was frankly surprised by this choice. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 01:30, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

For one, it hasn't actually been launched or been found to be effective. Faceless Enemy (talk) 12:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
The media coverage was based on a company press release, so it's not ideal for the lead, especially in its own paragraph. I've moved it for now into the lead paragraph that discusses drugs and vaccines. Sarah (SV) (talk) 03:03, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
That's not even remotely true Slim. , and I don't know how it would be relevant if it were. I count at least 7 full articles in the NYTimes and at least four in the Guardian over the last 5 years, all of which included interviews and other in depth coverage beyond simply repeating what was in a press release. There were four articles in Time magazine, which were short but included expert interviews and clearly based on more than Glaxo's press releases. Ditto the coverage by CBS, at least some of the articles by NBC, and CNN. Its been the subject of at least half a dozen in depth news articles in the BMJ, There were two full papers in the NEJM, several in PLOS, and two in the Lancet.
A quick Google search suggests that the vaccine has recieved coverage in reliable sources roughly equal to that of the $3B fine described in the lead. I've reverted this back, and would like an RFC to be conducted prior to any further attempts to eliminate it. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 07:38, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Citations

It would be good to get the writing and citations in this article sorted, as it has been problematic for a long time. One thing that would help is if the citations could be written out in full, with or without templates. Author, title, publisher, date, page number, is the usual format. Sarah (SV) (talk) 06:08, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

SFO

Jytdog, where does the source say that the SFO is investigating GSK in relation to Syria? [1] Sarah (SV) (talk) 05:55, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

you fixed it, thx Jytdog (talk) 06:09, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Question about Rosiglitazone (Avandia) section

Formerly98 added [2][3] this to the section about Avandia:

In 2013 the FDA held a joint meeting of the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee to discuss the results of RECORD, an open label, randomized trial comparing rosiglitazone to the combination of a sulfonylurea with metformin.[1] In contrast to the mostly short term trials included in the Nissen meta analysis, RECORD was specifically designed specifically to examine cardiovascular safety in a trial of 14,000 people observed over 3 years or more. An independent analysis of the data from this trial conducted at the Duke Clinical Research Institute found a non-statistically significant reduction in all-cause mortality, for rosiglitazone compared to the combination of metformin with a sulfonylurea (hazard ratio 0.86) and a non-statistically significant increase in the risk of myocardial infarction (hazard ratio 1.15)

The reliability of the conclusions of the RECORD trial has been criticized based on its open label design and the low rate of cardiovascular events observed, which limits its statistical power.[2]

In November 2013, the US FDA lifted restrictions on the sale of Avandia, stating that the results of the RECORD trial had failed to confirm Nissen's analysis.[3]

  1. ^ "www.fda.gov" (PDF).
  2. ^ Nissen SE, Wolski K (2010). "Rosiglitazone revisited: an updated meta-analysis of risk for myocardial infarction and cardiovascular mortality". Arch. Intern. Med. 170 (14): 1191–1201. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2010.207. PMID 20656674. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  3. ^ "F.D.A. Lifts Some Restrictions on Avandia - NYTimes.com".

Should we add that the RECORD trial was funded by GlaxoSmithKline? Formerly argued recently that "multiple studies have shown that conclusions are strongly affected by the source of funding," and it seems to me good practice to add that as a matter of routine when it might be relevant. Formerly added it here when a patient group partly funded some research. The NYT mentions the GSK funding of the RECORD research. Sarah (SV) (talk) 02:08, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Slim,
I think that the key here is to work with secondary sources. We then let the secondary source interpret the data and trust them to take into account the source of funding while interpreting the primary data.
In the case of the Finasteride meta analysis that I suggested that the funding source should be mentioned, we were directly citing a study funded by a COI organization. In the case of rosigilitazone, we are quoting an FDA advisory committee briefing that evaluated the RECORD trial and which explicitly took the fact that RECORD was GSK funded into account. It is appropriate for us to take the funding of a secondary study into account (as we do at the Atrazine article) but it is not appropriate for us to question a secondary source's assessment that a trial supports a certain conclusion in spite of its funding source.
You have removed the statement that "Studies of the cardioivascular safety of rosiglitazone have yielded inconsistent results" which was properly sourced and which is supported by the FDA's decision to return the drug to full marketing approval without labeling restrictions. Could you provide some additional explanation for why you made this edit? Thanks. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 02:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
You wrote that: "multiple studies have shown that conclusions are strongly affected by the source of funding." That obviously has to apply across the board. We have a secondary source, as I said above (NYT):
"Some researchers had criticized the original trial as flawed and argued that re-evaluating an old trial amounted to relitigating a case that had already been closed. Others questioned its independence, as Glaxo paid for it."
That was the first I knew that the trial was an old one paid for by GSK. I didn't get that information from this article.
As for the sentence you added at the top of the section, I couldn't see what it added, especially not in that position. Sarah (SV) (talk) 02:46, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
The NYTimes source is not relevant to the issue of interpreting the RECORD results, as it is not WP:MEDRS compliant. I have noted your support of MEDRS in the recent "COI duck" debate, and have appreciated your recognition of MEDRS' importance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Formerly 98 (talk • contribs)
I didn't say it was relevant to questioning anything. I said we should add the funding because the NYT discusses it. Sarah (SV) (talk) 02:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Slim, we have very different world views, but I am sure we can work together here to make the article as good as it can be.
Why would we add the information that the trial was GSK funded except to raise questions about the reliability of its conclusions. Wouldn't that be second guessing the MEDRS compliant sources that took the fact that the trial was GSK funded in forming their conclusions? Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 02:55, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I have to go out but will pick up this convo later :>) Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 02:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Can you say what you meant when you posted that multiple studies have shown conclusions are strongly affected by the source of funding? You seemed to be arguing that we should include funding info. In any event, we have secondary sources that discuss it precisely for this reason. We don't need a medical source for that, but we do have several (of course).
You omitted it from your edit, so that when I read that paragraph I gained the impression that this was a new independent trial, not an independent review of an old GSK trial. It's a question of precision. Sarah (SV) (talk) 03:04, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
I made that edit over a year ago, and I don't remember my state of mind. But you're right the text should make it clear that this was a new analysis of an old trial. My belief is that we should note any COI funding of a secondary source that we cite (I rarely cite meta analyses conducted by industry authors because of this COI issue), but that when a primary study is cited by a secondary source, we should trust the secondary source to have taken the funding of the primary study into account. In this view, adding the fact that the primary study is industry funded would be second guessing the secondary source and a form of OR. I can understand that not everyone would agree with this interpretation, and it might be a good question to take over to the MEDRS or RS board if you would like to do that. It would be very reasonable to get community input. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 03:37, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
"...we should add the funding because the NYT discusses it." Around here you have to do a lot better than the NYT if you want get content in. Hugh (talk) 16:14, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

On the issue of the opening sentence about conflicting data on the RECORD trial, I think what was there before your edit was appropriate and reasonable. There clearly is conflicting data, or at least conflicting interpretations as shown by the FDA's decision to restore the original broad label. The opening sentence of the paragraph should be a "summary" sentence that states that this disagreement exists and then describes the two sides of the controversy. Dropping that sentence and starting the paragraph with a description of one sided of the controversy is to my mind both less effective writing and a little bit Non-NPOV. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 04:24, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

The section mentions the recording of the discussion; doesn't mention that GSK reportedly tried to persuade the author during that discussion not to publish. It mentions the attempt to stop another paper; doesn't explain what happened. It says the Congressional report was released in 2007, but it was completed in 2010. It mentions the RECORD trial; doesn't explain it was an old GSK study. A lot of the second para is devoted to describing the study without mentioning people's concerns about it. Opening the section with that article makes it even more confusing.
I'll try to rewrite it to make the chronology clearer, but I'd like to do more reading first. Sarah (SV) (talk) 19:10, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
By the way, I should make clear that these are legacy issues. That paragraph has been in the article for years. Sarah (SV) (talk) 20:01, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
OK, I don't know all the details of the story myself. My edit, which did not "mention people's concerns" in detail was based on my perception that expert opinion was about equally divided, in which case writing extensively about the concerns without giving equal weight to the opinions of those who think those concerns are unfounded would be inappropriate. But I am not really an expert on the story, and it is possible that the FDA and its advisory committee represent a minority opinion. It looks to me on a quick first pass that the ADA and the ACC have taken a position of agnosticism with respect to the issue. If this is true, between the ADA, the ACC, the FDA and its Advisory committee, its seems like its going to be hard to make a case that my introductory paragraph was inappropriate. Nonetheless, I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with and will try to keep an open mind.
Overall my approach here is to reach agreement if possible, and to go to RfC if not. Edit warring, multiple reverts and speculating on editor motivations are quite tiresome. I'm sure you feel the same way, so lets do our best. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 20:36, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
@Formerly 98: I'd like to incorporate some of the text you added into the new draft I've written, but I can't find it in the source. Would you mind pointing me to it?

In contrast to the mostly short-term trials included in the Nissen meta analysis, RECORD was designed to examine cardiovascular safety in a trial of 14,000 people observed over three years or more. An independent analysis of the data from this trial conducted at the Duke Clinical Research Institute found a non-statistically significant reduction in all-cause mortality, for rosiglitazone compared to the combination of metformin with a sulfonylurea (hazard ratio 0.86), and a non-statistically significant increase in the risk of myocardial infarction (hazard ratio 1.15). The reliability of the conclusions of the RECORD trial has been criticized based on its open-label design and the low rate of cardiovascular events observed, which limits its statistical power.[1]

  1. ^ Nissen SE, Wolski K; Wolski (July 2010). "Rosiglitazone revisited: an updated meta-analysis of risk for myocardial infarction and cardiovascular mortality". Arch. Intern. Med. 170 (14): 1191–1201. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2010.207. PMID 20656674.
It could be that the source is for the final paragraph sentence only (Nissen's criticism). Sarah (SV) (talk) 23:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
The source is the FDA briefing doc that is cited immediately prior to your excerpt. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 04:21, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Can you post the source here, please? I don't know what "immediately prior to your excerpt" means. Sarah (SV) (talk) 05:48, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:MEDDATE and rosiglitazone

The rosi section had serious problems throughout with WP:MEDDATE issues. I've attempted to begin addressing this by

  • restoring a 2012 review that had been deleted. This was the most up-to-date review article cited in the section with the exception of the 2013 FDA review, and WP:MEDDATE does not support removing this material while retaining sources from 2007.
  • Adding the information that the black box warning for MI was removed in 2014
  • Removing a sensationalistic quote from the FDA's 2009 analysis of the available data suggesting 83K deaths attributable to rosi-induced MI. MEDRS requires that we use up-to-date sources. This quote, which was based on a risk analysis that the FDA itself later rejected, would be an excellent example to add to the MEDRS document to show why WP:MEDDATE is needed. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 11:48, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

There are people (very few, admittedly) who take this drug today. They absolutely deserve to hear the most accurate statement of the current state of the science that we can put together. Extensively quoting from 8 year old studies does not in my opinion help achieve these goals, particularly when using quotes that no longer represent the opinion of the group the quotes are taken from. Showing GSK's malfeasance and illegal behavior is important, but I think our priority needs to be being very clear on what CURRENT medical opinion is on the CV risk of this drug, which is clearly that there is no solid consensus on whether there is excess risk or not. Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 12:59, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Formerly, the section isn't about the drug. It's about the history of the controversy. It's relevant that the FDA made that statement at that time. If you have a source showing they later repudiated the figure, we can add it after the sentence.
Can you please post your source, along with a page number if appropriate, for this edit?

In contrast to the mostly short-term trials included in the Nissen meta analysis, RECORD was designed to examine cardiovascular safety in a trial of 14,000 people observed over three years or more. An independent analysis of the data from this trial conducted at the Duke Clinical Research Institute found a non-statistically significant reduction in all-cause mortality, for rosiglitazone compared to the combination of metformin with a sulfonylurea (hazard ratio 0.86), and a non-statistically significant increase in the risk of myocardial infarction (hazard ratio 1.15).

As for starting with that paper, it disturbs the flow. The previous section is a general one about the criminal case. We then move into specifics. It's a question of the writing. Also, why that paper making that point? The rest of the section makes clear that there are inconsistent views.
Re: your moving the malaria vaccine into its own lead paragraph, the lead can't single out one product for its own paragraph; it looks like PR, especially with the addition of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If the vaccine stays in the lead, it should be placed with the other drugs and vaccines. Also, see WP:LEAD#Length: four paragraphs is the usual maximum. Exceptions are fine when there's no clear way to write the material in four, but here there is. Sarah (SV) (talk) 15:38, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree the article is non-neutral, in a number of areas. I tried to indicate this with section hats and the tags were removed by one of the owners. In particular, the treatment of giving/philanthropy/politics is grossly non-neutral. Highlighting the coverage of the Gates Foundation and worldwide distribution of drugs at length in the body and in the lede is used by the owner/editors to deny inclusion of other content based on a local theory of magnitude ratios, while ignoring policy regarding coverage in reliable sources. It seems on Wikipedia a large corporation can immunize itself against fair coverage with one, huge good deed. Hugh (talk) 15:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Agree that the malaria para in the lead was far from appropriate. As for the FDA's quote re the deaths, I agree with Sarah that that is history info and not related to updating old med info with newer info. Gandydancer (talk) 16:21, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
I've added that the FDA later rejected the estimate, so that should deal with any concerns. It now reads: "In July that year FDA scientists suggested that rosiglitazone had caused 83,000 excess heart attacks between 1999 and 2007,[76] an estimate the FDA rejected in 2013.[77]" Sarah (SV) (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
"...the section isn't about the drug. It's about the history of the controversy." I begin to better understand why pharmaceutical companies have relatively short history sections, and litigation is pushed to the end. Guideline MEDRS calls for favoring more recent sources, but has an exception of course for history; so the advantage of discussing a product outside a history section is MEDRS is handy in excluding historical content. Hugh (talk) 16:50, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

ribena?

SV what is your objection to "over soft drinks that GSK and its predecessors introduced under the brand" with regard to Ribena. it seems to have started out as an actually healthy syrup {no MEDRS source for that :)} and they developed all these sugary drinks that still had the healthy "aura" but no longer were. ( see here, and the "brand" article i added) For me, not being from the commonwealth, the story made no sense without that. that's why i added it back. so what is the beef? thx Jytdog (talk) 06:21, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what a healthy syrup is. It always had a lot of sugar in it, and increasingly that became an issue. Lucozade had the same issue. You've gone from wanting that section removed to wanting to make it longer. I think it's a good length at the moment. Sarah (SV) (talk) 06:42, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
that does not speak to what i am saying, and it is about 6 words and makes sense out of the story. i really had no idea what the ribena thing was about until i went and read about it b/c you made a big deal over this. on your experience - were you around in WWII? (i have no idea how old you are) do you think the british govt gave it free to pregnant women and kids for vitamin c b/c it was bad? or do you think it was actually too sugary back them and they didn't know it? Jytdog (talk) 06:56, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't know what your point is Jytdog. Ribena is a syrup and it contains a lot of sugar, then and now. Before sugar became such a concern, it was marketed as a health drink. That increasingly became a problem as consumers (and dentists) began to check claims about fruit content, sugar content and vitamin content, so it can't be sold that way anymore.
In general, what I'm trying to do with the article is fix the writing, which is laboured, the sources, as there are bits that are unsourced or poorly sourced, and the citations; in some cases all that has been added is a bare URL or a template with almost no parameters filled in. I'd also like to restore some of the material that was recently removed. Ribena was one of those sections, and while I agree that it should be here, it doesn't need to be any longer. Sarah (SV) (talk) 07:33, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
my point is very clear - i am sorry you are ignoring it. we all want to improve the article. i'll go ahead and repeat myself - to me the story doesn't make sense without saying how ribena went from being something seen as healthy to something seen as unhealthy. you seem to be convinced that it never was healthy - that the scientist who created it and the original company were liars and the british government was hoodwinked and the pregnant women and kids who were given ribena actually got no vitamin c. is that correct? Jytdog (talk) 13:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
went ahead and added this back. Jytdog (talk) 16:40, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
For someone who regularly requests MEDRS sources, you have an astonishing faith in the view that this very sugary syrup was good for children. It was viewed that way by its customers as part of the drink's branding, and the section makes that clear. Do we even know that it was distributed by the government as a source of vitamin C? The sourcing for that is poor, and probably originates with the company, but even if true, it doesn't mean that it really was a good thing for children to drink. It didn't jump from healthy to unhealthy because different versions were introduced. The Toothkind has less sugar and is arguably less bad for teeth than the original. The diluted version in cartons means the company has added the water than you would normally add yourself to the syrup. The change is that consumers no longer accept whatever they are told, so the claims made for the drink have had to be modified. Sarah (SV) (talk) 22:55, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

investigations

let's talk about this. SV you did 2 things there. You removed an update on the German story that had been provided, and you added content about an investigation in Italy. I don't know why this is, but some people in WIkipedia love to rush to add news to WP when investigations are opened against people, companies whatever. And they never come back and update. Jytdog (talk) 13:06, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

italy

In May 2014 I updated the story on Italy:

*In 2004 Italian police asked to proceed with charges for bribery against almost 5000 people, including 273 GSK employees.[1] By 2008, charges against all but 142 had been dropped, and in May 2008 the Italian Supreme Court upheld the acquittals of all but 42 people.[2] The remaining 42 were acquitted in February 2009.[3]

References

  1. ^ John Hooper and Heather Stewart, "Over 4,000 doctors face charges in Italian drugs scandal", The Guardian, 27 May 2004.
  2. ^ GSK Press Release. 16 May 2008 If Glaxo: acquittal confirmed and reinforced by the Supreme Court
  3. ^ Eurispes: Italia Prima in Europa per Numero Forze Ordine - Inchiesta Glaxo: Verona; Assolti Ultimi 42 Imputati

Later in October, formerly removed that. i don't care if it is in or out, but if it is in, it should be up-to-date. Jytdog (talk) 13:06, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

i restored the update above to avoid misunderstandings in the future. Jytdog (talk) 13:18, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Germany

In this dif i showed my work when i tried to follow up on the bavaria story:

A similar investigation was opened in Bavaria, Germany in 1999, with thousands of doctors and nearly all of SmithKline Beecham's sales force under investigation; by 2004, 71 doctors and dozens of employees were still under investigation.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ BBC News, 12 March 2002 "Glaxo probed over doctor freebies"
  2. ^ Jane Burgermeister for BMJ News. 5 June 2004 German prosecutors probe again into bribes by drug companies

I looked and looked and couldn't find anything after that, so I did this, which left the content as:

A similar investigation was opened in Bavaria, Germany in 1999, with thousands of doctors and nearly all of SmithKline Beecham's sales force under investigation; by 2004, only 71 doctors and dozens of employees remained under investigation.[1][2] As of 2014, further information on the outcome of the German investigations was not available.

References

  1. ^ BBC News, 12 March 2002 "Glaxo probed over doctor freebies"
  2. ^ Jane Burgermeister for BMJ News. 5 June 2004 German prosecutors probe again into bribes by drug companies

I realize well that the last line is OR. My edit note read "copyedit. I looked and looked and could find no discussion on the outcome of the German investigations." I looked again this morning and I still couldn't find any further discussion of this. I chose to leave this, as well as they other thing, because i know there are people who go all crazy about investigations/scandal, even if they turn out to be nothing, and if there is not content here, they will do what you have done, SV. So if we are going to retain this content, let's at least have it be up to date and as well sourced as we can. I cannot object if someone wants to remove the last line there, about "further information" but i also ask - what do you all think we should do to round out content about an investigation started 16 years ago that seems to have dried up? Jytdog (talk) 13:06, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog, I'm going through the article carefully and finding all kinds of problems, including very close paraphrasing, unsourced and poorly sourced, so I'm rewriting as I go along, and I'm about to do some more. I'd appreciate it if you would let that process continue, then once it's done we can discuss details. Re: updating, it just means we don't know what happened. That's no reason to remove that these inquiries took place. Sarah (SV) (talk) 21:12, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
every article needs improvement. that's great that you are working on it. Jytdog (talk) 22:56, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
It seems fairly obvious that any investigation that began in 2004 would now be complete. And if no information can be found in reliable sources about the outcome of that investigation, then by definition the outcome was not notable. It seems to me very hard to argue that an investigation whose outcome was not notable, is in itself notable. I think it should be deleted per wikipedia's notablity requirements.

Formerly 98 talk|contribs|COI statement 22:50, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

F98, please gain consensus for anything else you'd like to remove. I'm going through previous versions and see that quite a bit has been removed for no obvious reason. Sarah (SV) (talk) 22:58, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Removal of sourced material by Jytdog

I reverted the removal of sourced material by Jytdog. While secondary sources are preferred, primary sources are permitted by WP:PSTS. You can't use them for BLPs, but both the policy mentioned, previous discussions on the WP:RSN, and at WP:MOSLAW show the use of court opinions as references in articles. GregJackP Boomer! 08:49, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for adding sources. Jytdog (talk) 12:53, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
i'm looking for sources on what happened next. did the govt continue challenging the patent? were mandatory licenses/royalties imposed? Jytdog (talk) 13:15, 19 June 2015 (UTC)::
See if you can source this, jyt. (Good luck!) This is what happened: Counsel for Glaxo (the late Henry Sailer) really did not want to continue litigating the case, particularly patent validity (Sailer was not a patent lawyer). So he dedicated the patent(s) to the public. That pretty much made it impossible for our side to continue the invalidation suit. Also, you can't get a compulsory licensing decree on a Dead Parrot patent. The case was then settled. Presumably, you can find the settlement decree in CCH Trade Cases, since they print them there.
PraeceptorIP (talk) 20:15, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
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