Talk:Miltenyi Biotec

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved as uncontroversial. --regentspark (comment) 15:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• The only reason for requested move is capitalization. The correct article title is Miltenyi Biotec, not Miltenyi biotec. User:Chewbaca1 10:57, 14 January 2013‎ (UTC) 37.1.207.52 (talk) 18:39, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Controversy Section

I manually reverted the controversy section. Was not written in an encyclopedic tone and couldn't find any mention of it in an RS. Noblet97 (talk) 14:14, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Change the tone instead of deleting. You're an editor, not a remover. Sources are present. The fact that they're Russian doesn't make them unreliable. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBK_Daily - present in Wikipedia. You should have checked that. 37.1.207.52 (talk) 18:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Added additional source: Kommersant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommersant). Kommersant is known in Wikipedia in 26 languages. 37.1.207.52 (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Added additional source: Gazeta.ru (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazeta.Ru). Gazeta.ru is known in Wikipedia in 9 languages. 37.1.207.52 (talk) 19:32, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Just marked 4 out of 6 previously present external links as dead. These didn't bother you? Reliability - top notch? 37.1.207.52 (talk) 19:46, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Added additional source: Izvestia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia). Izvestia is known in Wikipedia in 34 languages. 37.1.207.52 (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Notability check by SimilarWeb.com Global Website Rank:

1. No 90 The NY Times (the US)
2. No 285 RBC.ru (RBK)
3. No 702 Gazeta.ru
4. No 1,454 Kommersant.ru
5. No 1,743 The Times (Great Britain)
6. No 2,032 IZ.ru (Izvestiya)
7. No 5,950 Chicago Tribune (the US)

Closely related article from AP: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-health-business-moscow-europe-1e0c675d2e5dfe50665d97a379313aef 37.1.207.52 (talk) 21:50, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Rephrased the "Controversies" section for encyclopedic tone, added a quote in the sources: "The therapy is carried out in an experimental format: it is prescribed by the decision of the medical council to patients with incurable forms of the tumor, when all possibilities have been exhausted." "All possibilities exhausted" = "No other options left". 37.1.207.52 (talk) 16:23, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Good point - adding additional info from the Kommersant article (which mentions the "situation in Ukraine") to provide context for why supplies were suspended (it's pretty obvi now, but may not in the future) - also I think I am referring to the situation right, based on how is being referred to in other articles but pls change if its wrong Noblet97 (talk) 14:32, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Controversies section: Added hospital name. Changed phrasing. Provided additional sources (two non-Russian sources). Provided additional references and citations regarding certain death of the patients. Stilo72 (talk) 18:36, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

@MBq:: regarding your edit: You really want to soften it, don't you? You changed "supplies" to "donations" and removed "with death being the only possible outcome", but titled your edit "off-label in Russia". Nice try. However this is what sources say (we are interested in what sources say, not what we think, right?): https://www.biocentury.com/article/643564/russia-boycott-includes-car-t-therapies SAYS THIS: "Miltenyi Biotec’s decision to stop sales of vectors for CAR T therapy to Russia" - SALES, not "donations". This is an official article. You can register for free to read the full version. It also says: "Miltenyi Biotec GmbH has suspended shipments of viral vectors and equipment that Russian medical centers, including a pediatric cancer center". "Suspended shipments" is EXACTLY that I used in my section. Why change the official SOURCE's text to your own? Now about certain death. SOURCES SPECIFICALLY MENTION CERTAIN DEATH, who are you to argue with the sources? https://www.russiamatters.org/news/russia-review/russia-review-june-3-10-2022 : "Therefore, right now about 50 children with blood cancer—patients of the Rogachev Institute—are doomed to die." https://istories-media.translate.goog/opinions/2022/06/10/oni-umrut/?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp : "Therefore, right now, according to Important Stories, about 50 children with blood cancer - patients of the Rogachev Center - are doomed to die. “There are no alternative supplies and there will not be. This technology was provided by a single manufacturer. Some companies are working in the same direction, but so far there is nothing close, ” said Alexei Maschan, director of the Institute of Hematology, Immunology and Cell Technologies of the National Medical Research Center, to Vademecum. “The refusal of Miltenyi Biotec to supply consumables for patients means one thing - they will die." Why are you contradicting the sources? What are you doing? Your mention "troll armies" on your German page, and look at you - twisting the sources to make a German company look better. This needs to stop. For one reason, only to avoid being accused of an edit war, I am giving you one day to defend your changes if you can. After this, the text will be changed to what the sources say, not what you think. Stilo72 (talk) 14:58, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Í‘m not familiar with the regulations in Russia. In Germany companies are not allowed to sell remedies before they are approved. In trials and experimental settings the drugs are provided for free. Might be different in this case, of course. MBq (talk) 16:08, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@MBq: They were not donating them, either. It was a scientific cooperation. Miltenyi used Rogachev's facilities to develop and test their treatment methods. Comparisons were made between patients' reaction in Rogachev Centre and patients in a facility in Cleveland. Read more here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8664838/

In any case, the source clearly says "Suspended shipments"' and that is what we have to use here. We don't have any reason to use anything else.

You are glossing over how you twisted the sources. How could you do that? Changing the sources to make a company look better? If you want to continue to call yourself a Wikipedian, do not roll back when I will return the text to the condition where quotations from the sources are used, not your ideas. Stilo72 (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I‘m ok with that, thanks for the explanation and the PMC link. But I still feel uncomfortable with your text, which seems to be an one-sided accusation based on only one journalistic source (Biocentury, the others relay to it with no further info). There is not really a controversy. Probably you could rephrase it according to WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. MBq (talk) 05:40, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

This is not true. Again, you seem to have a problem reading the sources accurately. The Russian sources (their notability is discusses above on this page) cite Kommersant and iStories.media as primary sources, not the article by Biocentury, which appeared later. This journalistic source just confirms the news first published by Kommersant, and later discussed in more length by iStories.media. This is also not an accusation, this is a statement of a fact. I know why you feel uncomfortable - because what they did is a huge monstrosity, letting children sick with cancer die because someone felt the need to demonstrate their political stance. It makes me uncomfortable, too. Stilo72 (talk) 14:46, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Further defense of the Controversies section

It is clear that the Controversies section is warranted because of how much controversy it generates. People tend to delete it without even trying to discuss it.

Another claim (not an edit, a wholesale deletion with no prior discussion): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Miltenyi_Biotec&diff=1099368024&oldid=1098086731 131Platypi: "This is not a "controversy" but an accusal. Neither of the sources is reliable, the melodramatic style violates NPOV, fusing (as stated unreliable) information together violates NOR, there is no reference that any reliable source even discusses this. Editor is SPA with a clear agenda."

First of all, this is not an "accusal", but are statements of facts. The four facts that are mentioned do not constitute original research because all these facts are well-sourced. These are the four facts:

1. The invasion of Ukraine was the stated reason. Source: https://www.biocentury.com/article/643564/russia-boycott-includes-car-t-therapies (free registration).

2. Miltenyi Biotec suspended supplies of CAR-T therapy equipment to Russian Rogachev children's hospital. Sources: https://www.biocentury.com/article/643564/russia-boycott-includes-car-t-therapies (free registration) and https://www.russiamatters.org/news/russia-review/russia-review-june-3-10-2022

3. The outcome is death. Sources: Russia Matters and iStories.

4. While the treatment was available, 90% of child patients achieved remission (five Russian sources).

I have already defended the notability of the sources above on this page. Here is the new data: Notability check by SimilarWeb.com Global Website Rank as of 20th of July 2022 (UPDATED):

1. No 100 The NY Times (the US) (benchmark)

2. No 474 RBC.ru (RBK) - one of the sources for the "Controversies" section

3. No 1,096 Gazeta.ru - one of the sources for the "Controversies" section. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazeta.Ru). Gazeta.ru is known in Wikipedia in 9 languages.

4. No 1,907 The Times (Great Britain) (benchmark)

5. No 2,017 Kommersant.ru - one of the sources for the "Controversies" section. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommersant). Kommersant is known in Wikipedia in 26 languages.

6. No 2,506 IZ.ru (Izvestiya) - one of the sources for the "Controversies" section. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia). Izvestia is known in Wikipedia in 34 languages

7. No 6,869 Chicago Tribune (the US) (benchmark)

Other sources include Russia Matters, a project launched in 2016 by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and made possible with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Stanton Foundation, and BioCentury, "For three decades, BioCentury has given biopharma executives, investors and institutions the power to make business-critical decisions through independent, deep-dive analysis; high-quality data; industry-leading business intelligence; and global conferences. ... Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., BioCentury has offices throughout the U.S. and in the U.K."

There is also a purely scientific source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8664838/

These sources DO discuss the unavailability of the alternatives and Russia Matters specifically mentions deaths. For example, BioCentury says this: "The voluntary boycott will leave Russian children who would have received CAR T cancer therapy with no options, unless they can travel to another country." (register for free to read).

Regarding the style, I honestly tried to use as neutral a language as possible. I am open to suggestions on how to put it all in a more neutral way if it is possible. It is not, however, a reason to delete the entire section.

And the last, I'm not a "SPA" or any other abbreviation. I'm a human being who had only recently registered an account but was editing for years without one. Some of the latest examples, see my edits to the Siege of Budapest for one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/90.154.70.129

Personal attacks will get you nowhere. You have almost no presence here, on the English Wikipedia (talk page), but a huge presence on the German Wikipedia (talk page), and you obviously came here only because you want to defend the actions of a German company, or, even better, sweep them under the rug.

Stilo72 (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

You are defending this against a whole bunch of other users, yet fail to address the pertinent points.

First, the "accusal" is already clear from the phrasing itself. An encyclopedic report on the questions at hand would not use "The only outcome is death" as a statement of fact (which it isn't since medicine isn't entirely working like that) even if well sourced, but give a source like "which according to an assessment by XY will lead to death" or similar. But there are no numbers like the 90% to back that up so putting these two statements of completely different origin (in terms of method) is a clear version of OR.

The notability of the sources is not in question (which would refer to whether or not they are worth being written about), but whether they are useful as a source. And this is clearly not the case here in case of Russian sources which are very partial in this matter and not independent at all.

It also is not clear whether this is WP:UNDUE, meaning that there does not seem to be a major impact on the discussion of specifically this company.

And yes, in my eyes this is as of now a reason to delete the entire section which follows a clear agenda until something better is suggested. --131Platypi (talk) 07:26, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, I have defended the Controversies section before, and all the other editors have let the section stay as it is, which proves that my replies were actually meaningful and on-topic.

Phrasing has been changed for maximum possible neutrality, like you suggested ("according to ...", "...will lead to death").

90% is not the number of the dead, and the Controversies section does not say so. It is the percentage of child patients successfully treated since 2018. Read about it here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8664838/ (see the Abstract).

Six out of nine sources are from Russia. It is because the events have taken place in Russia. The other three are American (BioCentury, Russia Matters, U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM)).

It's really strange to even mention WP:UNDUE here. The section is literally three sentences supported by 9 sources from 2 countries. Russia is the largest country in Europe by population, and 4 out of 6 Russian sources represent the most major news sources for the country, on par with The New York Times and The Times of Great Britain, as shown above on this page. 145 million people use these sources daily for their news. As I said, they reported it because the events took place in Russia. But three American news sources confirm the events (eventually there will be more).

And this information does have "a major impact on the discussion of specifically this company". Actually, 50 children dying due to a voluntary boycott (1, 2, 3) is and should be a major impact for any business. What can be more important than ethics, especially in medicine? Ethical or unethical behavior of a company is a very major part of its image. I could go on, but just look at this huge "Controversies" section for Nestle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_criticisms

Stilo72 (talk) 15:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)