Talk:HIV/AIDS in New York City

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Cpanett.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

NYC HRA HASA

I'm surprised there isn't any coverage of the city government's welfare program aimed at those "individuals living with AIDS". The oversight would be important to consider, if the article is to be submitted for GA status. Blurpeace 02:10, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY

I came to this article via a request to blind peer review a journal article that discussed (amongst other things) the production of this article. I believe that this article is flawed in ways that are not necessarily readily apparent and this statement is meant to shine some light on this and help build a consensus. I’ll not be releasing any more details of the article or journal because of WP: DOX, and I encourage other editors to respect that policy too.

To my eye there is a significant bending of WP: PRIMARY (which opens: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources.") and WP: QUOTE (which opens "While quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia, try not to overuse them."). HIV/AIDS in New York City has many quotes (and statistics) sourced to primary sources in the archive. The underlying issue is that archival materials are presumed to be primary sources and thus are not suitable as core encyclopedia-building material which must be secondary sources. Bear in mind too that at the time most of these sources were published AIDS was a much more polarising issue than it is today, making neutral POV harder and the use of “reliable, published secondary sources” over primary sources even more important.

To a lesser extent there is also a bending of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) --- while the title of the article mentions a medical condition, I see no sources in the entire article which meet the requirements for medical topics. While much of the focus is on the state’s handling of the medical issues rather than medical issues, per se, there needs to be at least some grounding in medicine.

My solution to these issues is to remove at least half of the material currently sourced to primary sources. I believe we should also consider renaming the article to make it clear that the content is of a historical rather than contemporary nature, maybe History of HIV/AIDS in New York City or similar. I plan to take no immediate edits, because it is clear that some editors appear to disagree with me.

Pinging recent editors of the article: @Jim.henderson, Becky Sayles, Mozucat, Pharos, Epicgenius, Rjwilmsi, BlueMoonset, SheridanFord, WereSpielChequers, Doc James, Graham Beards, Mr Stephen, BrillLyle, Huon, Another Believer, and Ortiz2028: Stuartyeates (talk) 05:04, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• I agree with you; I raised similar concerns here. Graham Beards (talk) 05:49, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks User:Graham Beards, a previous statement of the same issues. I might have found it but I was afraid of crossing the border into "opposition research". Based on that, I also have concerned that some accounts may be (or may have been) in breach of Wikipedia:Username_policy#Shared_accounts. Wikipedia accounts represent a single individual and not a group and should not speak for a group except in specific limited circumstances. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:37, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

• The article has now been published at [1] Stuartyeates (talk) 09:39, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
• I disagree with the wholesale removal of content drawn from primary sources. WP:PRIMARY is not a blanket rule against primary sources: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them". There hasn't been a suggestion that the primary sources are being used to forward a "original analysis" in the words of the policy - they are meant rather to illustrate the themes drawn from secondary sources. If they are being used at some point in the article to forward original research, that should of course be dealt with, but wholesale removal isn't appropriate.--Pharos (talk) 21:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• I can agree that the article needs copyediting. Why not start by correcting some inaccuracies for which a strong case may be made, then getting feedback and comment, the reiterating the process? I do not see any reason to begin with sudden large changes or for anyone to discuss blanket support for changes which have not yet been proposed. Of course everyone here supports the usual Wikipedia policies but there are the equivalent of 10 pages of text here and I do not see any obvious urgent difficulties with most of it. What specifically does anyone wish to do? Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• User:Bluerasberry and User talk:Pharos: The problem is that almost 1/3 of the article appeared to be supported solely by WP:PRIMARY sources. Worse, those sources all appeared to be from a single collection in a single archive, based on the career of a single politician; with no inclusion of contrasting sources. I know nothing about the politics of New York, now or in the past, but I'm guessing that on an issue as divisive as AIDS, there were opposing views. As for 'sudden changes' look at the timeline of my proposals for edits above. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:12, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Stuartyeates I fail to see the timeline. Leave the timeline aside, can you demonstrate a single change you wish to make? I will discuss specifics but I do not see much reason to discuss changes in general terms. Let's start with any use of a primary source which strikes you as problematic - what do you see? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Bluerasberry The page is in my preferred state currently. Look in the history before my edits for anything with "LaGuardia Community College/CUNY" in the sources. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:24, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: I disagree with your changes and would like a revert back to status quo until this is discussed on the talk page. Your note says, "Changes were made according tolong-running discussion on the talkpage". The discussion here is not long compared to the text you removed. I am not asking you to immediately explain every change, but you are making perhaps 20 changes each of which could be discussed individually and seem hesitant to talk about any one of them. I am reverting now. Can you please identify one of the proposed portions for deletion which you find problematic and tell me some more about it? I fail to see your perspective. If I can help you answer then please let me know how I can clarify my request, or otherwise let me know if you think my request for this information is misplaced. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:38, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Bluerasberry So a bunch of editors, with a WP:COI loudly proclaimed off-site, transform the article in large part by adding references to an institution they have a direct COI with. These are WP:PRIMARY sources about living people in relation to a recent highly-emotional political issue, all the sources appear to be from a single collection in a single archive, based on the career of a single recently deceased politician (who coincidentally comes out looking pretty good). This is exactly the kind of thing that WP:PRIMARY warns about. My first thought was to revert the whole article to before the editing started, but I decided to just remove the obvious COI references and supported content instead. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: Thanks, I know the situation. I live in NYC, I organize with Wikimedia LGBT+, and I facilitated with this project. I think that I understand the project background but I fail to understand what you are getting at. I am asking you what you do not like about the information shared and I am not following what you are saying. Here is your deletion. I am going to write a defense of the first section you deleted right at the top, and I am asking you to say why you want it deleted. I do not understand how you are connecting anything you are saying here to a rationale for deleting that text.

In the text, there is an oral history cited of a recognized expert on HIV. The issue being conveyed seems basic and critical to understanding to me - the person was a physician, and they say that his group saw the first cases of HIV in New York City and they did not know how to treat them. They consulted with other health departments and found other physicians seeing the same cases and being similarly confused. This is the information which you are proposing to delete.

In my understanding, a primary source for this information would be a 1980 medical textbook which does not mention HIV because it was not recognized at that time. A primary source would be a textbook like that, or lab results showing strange test results which needed interpretation. Instead, we have a secondary source in this interview in which an expert has synthesized the primary knowledge and interpreted in a published statement along the lines of "groups of physicians are chattering amongst themselves that none of them have seen this disease before".

Why do you want this deleted? Do you think this statement is too trite for inclusion? Do you think that a derivative source, like a newspaper or more recent book, is a stronger or more interesting source to cite as compared to the later reflection of a leading physician on the ground at the time? Do you think that either NYC's government or the public health office under the mayor of the time is inadequate as an authority to tell the story about HIV in NYC in a Wikipedia article focused on its early history in the city?

I am asking you to talk through this example with me, if you will agree to do so. I have trouble understanding where you are seeing anyone presenting primary data. I can agree that some oral histories do present primary data, as can some books, or some research papers, but this particular source to me seems strong and relevant. You say that it is biased for the mayor of NYC because it came from his archives, but I fail to see how anyone could argue that this kind of information is putting a bias in the article.

If you think this discussion on the talk page is going on too long then email me and I will talk to you by phone or video chat. The basis of my disagreement with you is my failure to understand you, and not that I understand you and am answering you directly. Do you feel like you understand me?

Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:20, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

OK, lets look at the first two references to things in the archive.

http://www.laguardiawagnerarchive.lagcc.cuny.edu/FILES_DOC/Koch_FILES/ORAL_HISTORY/08.100.0036V0036.PDF is the transcript of an oral-history interview the Koch. It's a politicians' recollections of things that happened more than a decade earlier on his watch. It's not a reliable source for the things except perhaps his strategy, or feelings. It's certainly not a suitable source for the passage:

The first drug used to treat HIV was called AZT which was later known as zidovudine. It was made by Burroughs Wellcome. The clinical trials of the drug were conducted at several VA hospitals, including those in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

There are good references for these things in the Zidovudine article. The first paragraph of the 'First response' section is also attribute to this source. I'm not sure how reliable this is, but none of it is mentioned or implied by History of HIV/AIDS.

http://www.laguardiawagnerarchive.lagcc.cuny.edu/FILES_DOC/Koch_FILES/HIGHLIGHTS/Koch_and_Aids.pdf is a compilation of dozens and dozens of documents. Some of those individual documents appear to be press clippings (and to be reliable as such), others appear to letters, memos and talking points (all WP:PRIMARY). The compilation as a whole is not reliable, and where a individual document with the compilation is being used as a source,it should be cited, not the compilation.

Bluerasberry: does this satisfy your demand for examples? Stuartyeates (talk) 07:28, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Stuartyeates Thanks for replying. You are correct to highlight problems, and I can confirm and agree with the existence of some problems, but I only disagree with the mass deletion without discussion.

About AZT I am not sure that we have the same view about the source you are presenting here. You seem to be communicating that the subject of this oral history is either Koch or a politician. It is not - it is a physician who worked under Koch to help New York City plan a public health response to HIV. I can agree that this person is not the best source to talk about the manufacture of the drug AZT or the details currently in the article, but I do think that he is an appropriate source to make the claim that the advent of AZT in treatment was a major change in how NYC responded to AZT. I am not sure if you already have some familiarity with HIV/AIDS, but for context, I think that almost anyone would say that the introduction of treatment with AZT is a necessary part of the telling of the story. AZT might have been the biggest media sensation in medicine since the polio vaccine. The sourcing and the wording might be incorrect here, and I could talk through more of this, but I think that a government-aligned physician in public health policy who is telling the story of early HIV treatments is a fair source to cite to establish that AZT ought to be in the timeline. Two of the details of AZT's introduction - who manufactured it and where it was first studied - I agree would be better in the article for that drug, except to confirm that NYC was one of the first study sites. There are other sources that could ensure that AZT was the first effective drug treatment but among good sources, I feel that an oral history from a physician who was there is an appropriate source to cite. Can you see any compromise, where we keep the fact of AZT treatment in the narrative, but move details about AZT which are not specific to NYC to the article on the drug itself?

About the clippings PDF I agree, the citation itself is inappropriate. The citation is to a collection of sources, and it would be appropriate to cite the individual sources which are part of the collection and not the compilation itself. As it is not, it is not possible for the reader to quickly find the source of various facts, because the pdf is image scans rather than searchable text. The quality of the sources in the collection varies. I checked the first citation of this collection. It is the sentence that says that the New York State AIDS institute, the New York Blood Center, and the Hemophilia Foundation created a program in the early 80s to provide counseling to people who were getting HIV tests. I looked in the collection and I see some sources within the collection talking about this counseling program. While I agree with you that the citation is currently problematic and that we need to match the information to their actual sources and not this compilation, I disagree that we should delete all of this text without discussion or a trace. For a compromise, how would you feel about moving all information back to this collection to this talk page, and making a note that we need individual citations for this to be in the article? I am not asking you to agree in advance that all the citations are appropriate, but I am looking at the sources in the collection and it seems to me that there are good sources here. Also, I feel that including the fact of the counseling program would be good to add to the article, if in fact, we have sources that discuss over time the existence of the program.

What do you think of what I am saying to this point? Thanks for pulling some examples. How do you feel about this conversation in general? Do you still feel that deletion now is the best answer, or do you feel that this discussion can go somewhere useful? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:15, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

(*) When you say a government-aligned physician in public health policy and an oral history from a physician who was there, you are relying on a primary source for these, and that's not appropriate. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

(*) Many of the official letters/memos compiled into the first references are still primary sources when taken by themselves and their direct use is not appropriate. Others are proper publications that are secondary sources and can be used (when cited as the original source, not the compilation). Stuartyeates (talk) 23:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

(*) Archival content is almost all primary sources, just as almost all library content is primary sources. Any content from archives needs to be looked at very carefully. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

junkie flu

Not mentioned here and so the wrong death figures are given (as in none before 1980 - when there would have been deaths, but they are probably not ascribed to the virus). The history of AIDS / HIV article explains in much more detail - so I summarized what was there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.249.23.158 (talk) 07:15, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Article Evaluation

The lead:

This lead in article feels like it could be worded better in many instances. The second sentence is a confusing run-on that tries to pull too many ideas together at the same time. The second paragraph needs a reference, as this information is not entirely obvious. It also does not mention all of the sections of the article as bringing them in to the summary. The sentences do not flow together, and the timeline of the article summary is also not clear.

Medical Research:

First Response:

Some of this could be worded better, such as "this group knew very little about and didn't know how to treat" could be revised to be more concise.

First Drug:

This does not really pertain to specifically New York City, so this could perhaps be removed, as it is no doubt covered in a more general HIV/AIDS article.

Gay Community Response:

There should be a heading for these first four paragraphs

In the first paragraph, while the content may be true, this sounds like a very biased view, and definitely needs a citation as the content is not obvious.

The third paragraph is a good summary of advocacy groups that arose from the 1980's epidemic and does its job to inform the reader.

The fourth paragraph needs a reference.

Education and support for Risk Prevention:

Other than grammar, this first paragraph seems informative and well-cited.

Government Response:

Funding:

This first paragraph seems informative at first, but then develops into a recounting of a political mud-slinging fest that feels misplaced. This paragraph could be easily shortened to something that states "when the health administrator for the city failed to increase funding in response to this health crisis, activist organizations were the major contributors to the medical research (reference)"

The second half of the second paragraph is well written, but the first half could be condensed into much more concise writing, and still comes off as biased.

Public Schools and Children with AIDS:

This is informative, but could also be more concise.

Needle Exchange Program:

Interesting back and forth which informs the reader about how this program came to be. The term "police harassment of drug users" seems like it could be worded better unless it is a quote from the primary source.

Comparison with San Francisco:

This section begins with an argument for why conclusions drawn from the section are invalid, this is quite odd. The second paragraph is unnecessary.

"Gay Disease":

This entire section does not have a source. How can one make statements about how a community of people feel without a credible source such as interviews or statements from advocacy groups?

New York Government Programs:

The opening sentence is written to flippantly, "Among all the debate..." could be entirely removed and not detract from the articles message at all.

Timeline:

May events in this timeline are not cited, and should probably run to modern-day, or at least to the end of events discussed within the article. For instance, the needle exchange program had to be re-vamped in 1992, but this timeline stops in 1989, so this section does not even include everything that is discussed in the article it is a part of.

References:

Many References cannot be checked by the reader. This may be too much to ask, as the article's topic is something that happened in the 80's, however it is important to be able to check references for some of these claims, especially ones about the Gay communities response as well as the failings of several politicians.

A question I have is: How was discrimination against homosexuals in New York City affected by this crisis? The article goes into some detail with its discussion of advocacy, however I think the addition of a section talking about discrimination of homosexuals was affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Cpanett (talk) 02:47, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Cpanett

New Jersey

1979 An early case of AIDS in the United States was in a female baby born in New Jersey in 1973 or 1974. She was born to a sixteen-year-old girl, an identified drug-injector, who had previously had multiple male sexual partners. The child died in 1979 at the age of five. Subsequent testing on her stored tissues confirmed that she had contracted HIV-1.

Oleske J, Minnefor A, Cooper R, Thomas K, dela Cruz A, Ahdieh H, et al. (May 1983). "Immune deficiency syndrome in children". JAMA. 249 (17): 2345–2349. doi:10.1001/jama.1983.03330410031024. PMID 6834633

there is an issue here with not including this case as it was NYC, yet undoubtedly so close that it should be connected. 91.154.169.156 (talk) 19:48, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Misattributed to 1980s when should be 1970s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemic suggests that the widespread prevalence of a disease makes an epidemic. AIDS/ HIV became an epidmic in the late 1970s in New York NOT the 1980s. The article should reflect this. 91.154.169.156 (talk) 19:55, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Do have a source to verify this claim? By timeline of HIV/AIDS there are not identified reports of HIV/AIDS being prevalent in the 70s/ Bluerasberry (talk) 19:59, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

CITATION

[257] from the main HIV aids article says 1978 had 5% HIV prevalence in New York in gay community. It also talks about 4H being used as an early term. 91.154.169.156 (talk) 20:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)