Talk:Weston A. Price/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

More on Weston Price

"Recently Dr. Weston Price of Cleveland has shifted his interest from focal infection to calcium metabolism and has only recently published a paper endorsing the views of Dr May Mellanby that bone growth and calcium metabolism metabolism depend on Vitamine D. and prevents tooth decay." ((1930) Dominion Dental Journal: Volume 42 pg 39.) A curious thing is on the same page is this: "Brekhus in the December number of the Journal of the American Dental Association says: "Caries and periodontoclasia are two diseases responsible (directly and indirectly) for 96.62% of extractions." (A little research showed this to be Dental disease and its relation to the loss of human teeth. JADA 14:2237 Dec. 1929.) In 1941 Brekhus published "Your teeth, their past, present, and probable future" The University of Minnesota press which talked at length on focal infection theory including a point about "abscess or chronic infection around a tooth". There is a review of this book in the Oct 25, 1941 British medical journal pg 582 states "In his chapter on the relation of dental to general health the author condemns the injudicious application of the truth embodied in the theory of focal infection, and says that this problem is one that must be solved by close co-operation between patient, doctors, and dentist."

From these we learn that somewhere before 1930 Price had "shifted his interest from focal infection to calcium metabolism" and that in 1941 the British medical journal was talking a "the truth embodied in the theory of focal infection" and that the problem was in how the theory was being applied citing a book published by the University of Minnesota press that same year. If anything this just make the whole issue of just what FIT was during Price's lifetime even more confusing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

White, J. D., John Hugh McQuillen, George Jacob Ziegler (1918) The Dental cosmos Volume 60; Page 1014 mentions focal infection with regards to tooth extraction and Weston Price is mentioned.

"The term dental infection is misleading, for there are no less than fourteen other structures in the body which may be responsible for focal infection in a given case, all of which would have to be excluded if we are to make the teeth..." (1926) International journal of orthodontia and oral surgery: Volume 12, Issues 7-12 pg 650--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes

BruceGrubb, this is getting very, very tiring. You have garnered no support for those changes you keep trying to put into the article after months of discussion here and on multiple noticeboard pages. Please refrain from from adding contested material from this article until you can get consensus to do so. Yobol (talk) 06:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually user:TimidGuy stated "I think I could support your revision. All of these sources appear to be reliable." The fact that I found sources both contemporary to Price and modern that give a totally different definition for Focal infection theory from Baumgartner including the author of the very book Baumgartner talks about throws the readability of this reference into question!--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:26, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

And he also later said "It looks as if the consensus is that the McGraw-Hill book is a reliable source. I guess I agree with others in the discussions elsewhere that you're conflating Price's applications with focal infection theory itself." More WP:IDHT. It really, really needs to stop. Yobol (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

When I point out all the errors in Ingels with regard to BOTH Price and the focal infection theory he stated "I don't have much time at the moment, so I can't give this material the attention it deserves. Apologies. The statements by Ingles seem to be more a matter of opinion." Also I pointed out the statement "These applications of focal infection theory fell out of favor in the 1930s and are not currently considered viable in the dental or medical communities." is NOT supported by the other sources and you have danced around it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I've tagged the section while it's under dispute. --Ronz (talk) 19:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I've added about three full sentences from the New York Academy of Dentistry review that stated that despite its flaws Price's 1923 work is "still to a great extent valid" and reorganized the legacy section in a chronological manner.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:08, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I have, once again, removed a bunch of coatrack/OR material. Yet again, this needs to stop. Yobol (talk) 01:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

<sigh...> I hate to suggest this, but I think it's about time we opened and RFC/U for Bruce - he's been acting like a juggernaut for months now, trying to push his way through to the result he wants on this article with no consideration for other positions, consensus, or (apparently) common sense. I'm not even going to bother to ask whther anyone would support that move - I think the real question is whether anyone at all has a reasonable opposition to it. If not, I'll start one in a couple of days. --Ludwigs2 02:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I also don't like it... Bruce is a great resource, and could be a phenomenal editor if he learned to take his historian hat off. It's hard, since many of us would like to share more of our expertise, but as I say all the time, Wikipedia is detached, boring, old, and dead. At least you have to approach it that way if you're personally inclined to be progressive, original, innovative, and lively. There are many like Bruce who don't transition well to this form, since in some ways it's just beneath them. I'd rather not see an RFC/U since they tend to get ugly, but maybe Bruce can get the gist just from discussing things here, that as good as his research is, it doesn't really fit well into our existing mechanisms for verification and sourcing. I'm going to encourage again that Bruce write a really thorough original article in userspace or paperspace, and then submit it somewhere so we can use it as a source later on. Until then, this approach probably won't work. Ocaasi (talk) 03:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Considering that Pallasch, Thomas J. DDS; MS, and Michael J. Wahl, (2003) [1] "Focal infection: new age or ancient history?" Endodontic Topics, 4, 32–45 munksgraard mentions Weston Price pg 34-35, states "The three most documented, publicized and litigated examples of focal infection are bacterial endocarditis, brain abscess and orthopedic prosthetic joint infections. Opinions abound on many aspects of these infections, but little attention has been paid to the absolute risk to the patient that these infections pose from dental-treatment-induced bacteremias", "Numerous studies have attempted to determine the significance of various microbial pathogens in pulpal and periapical infections ", and related it to the whole modern revival of focal infection theory concluding that "Once again it appears that the Focal Infection Theory fails to pass scientific scrutiny. While isolated reports of focal infections appear, there is no evidence that focal infections or even antigenicmimicry are responsible for anything other than sporadic abscesses/infections and possibly rare autoimmune disorders. this threat of a RFC/U has forced me to go to the Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents with this mess. Why ONE reference is being used over all the others in apparent violation of both WP:NPOV and WP:MEDRS will be addressed.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Removal of relevent material

Again we are seeing WP policies thrown out to remove material without any real explanation.

Removing "[t]he relationships between dental infections and degenerative diseases, if such exist, should be demonstrable by other means than the establishment of simply an association of the two in the same person, or the development of such lesions in experimental animals with cultures taken from focal infections."(Price, Weston A. (1925) "Dental Infection and related Degenerative Diseases" J Am Med Assoc 1925;84(4):254-261)) under the guise of "makes it appear Price didn't support FIT" is itself an apparent violation of WP:OR because that is an editor's interpretation of what that passage says.

Evidence has shown Price could reverse his position on a topic within a year and even if he was a strong supporter of focal infection theory in 1925 this shows that he did acknowledge that far more needed to be done. Instead of an editor trying to edit the problem to clean an up an "exact quote" we get the amazing revert-o-rama again.

This was removed under "coatrack/OR material":

While the mass extractions that resulted from focal infection had been criticized by C. Edmund Kells in 1920 it was not until the 1930s that the studies that supported the concept behind oral focal infection theory were reexamined and doubts about their validity were raised. However by 1930 Price had shifted his interest from focal infection to calcium metabolism and in his 1939 book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration stated "(i)t is very important that in the consideration of the dental caries problem it shall be kept in mind continually, that it is only one of a large group of symptoms of modern physical degeneration and when teeth are decaying other things are going wrong in the body. Fluorine treatment, like dental extractions, cannot be a panacea for dental caries."

First, I admit leaving out the doi:10.1016/0030-4220(72)90353-2 reference was a bit sloppy but labeling it OR is just as sloppy as the article is easily found especially as it doesn't address the other references.

Second, as far as coatrack is concerned this article has problems regarding Price's importance in the whole focal infection theory to begin with. Far more textbooks mention Price's dental furnace, and or x-ray techniques rather than his involvement in the whole Focal infection theory thing. Billings, Miller, and Hunter tend to get far more space than Price and it is clear from those texts that tooth extraction because of focal infection was already regarded as being out of control before Price wrote his books. In fact in 1922 Kells commented that he never did multiple tooth extractions.

Finally, Price may have believed in focal infection theory in 1923 but it is clear from his 1925 Journal of American Medical Association article that he realized that far more than what had been in his 1923 book was needed. The Dominion Dental Journal (publisher by the Canadian Dental Association) shows that by 1930 Price had turned his attention from focal infection to calcium metabolism. His comments in the 1939 book published by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers expressly talks about tooth decay as a symptom of overall poor over all health rather than a cause which when you think about it is nearly the opposite of oral focal infection theory.

While we can't say what these three things meant without going into WP:OR we can present them and let the reader make their own conclusions.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

You need to read WP:SYNTH again. This is the same argument that started in November, rehashed over and over and over again. It. Needs. To. Stop. Yobol (talk) 12:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad that at least no one is arguing for reintroduction of the material into the lede. --Ronz (talk) 17:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Claiming WP:SYNTH doesn't make it so. WP:SYNTH is about presenting in an article a conclusion not in the original material. What we have instead is a direct quote from Price in a peer reviewed journal that shows what his view regarding the evidence for FIT and Talk:Weston_Price/Archive_2#Weston_Price_cautious_about_focal_infection_theory.3F showed you didn't involve yourself in THAT point at all and Griswaldo felt it should go in the article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

You're taking the quote out of context. Just stop it. Yobol (talk) 01:47, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Bruce I agree with Yobol here, though I don't disagree with your sentiments. You are doing original research. I think its very good original research, and I think you're probably right about the fact that Price's connection to focal infection theory has at the very least been presented in a much too simplistic manner in secondary and tertiary sources. But our hands our tied here in that regard. You'll have to either publish your research or send it someone who will. Part of the problem is that nowhere does Price unequivocally reject focal infection theory, certainly not in the 1925 work you are quoting. One has to infer his perspective and that's OR in my view. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:40, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, we have to be careful when we talk about "focal infection theory" here. As I showed with sources from Price's time it was very broadly defined even in the dental community. Go back to the Billings, Frank ScD. (Harvard) MD (1916) Focal infection, Lane Medical Lectures (Delivered Sept 20-24, 1915 Stanford University Medical School) piece: "The necessity of cleansing the mouth, teeth and throat of all particles of food after eating should be taught as a prevention of local infection, decay of teeth and of general disease." I think you would be hard pressed to find any modern dentist who will say that part of focal infection was garbage.

Another issue Price raised was a focal infection resulting from failure to remove all or sterilize the root in a tooth ((1928) British journal of dental science: Volume 72 pg 17) repeated in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 21, Issues 7-12 pg 1480). This problem with root canals even today results in a 10% to 15% failure rate.

"Focal infection after the age of 45 years is usually located in the teeth and gums, whereas in adolescents and in young adults it is generally in the tonsils." ((1918) International journal of surgery Volume 31 - Page 71)

At least one holistic dentist (Dr. Robert Gammal) was making comparison between Price's 1920 work to the modern revival as early as 1998: "In 1996 the Journal of Periodontology devoted a whole issue to this subject relating periodontal disease to a variety of systemic diseases which included coronary heart disease, diabetes and low birth weight babies. (...) As is common in these sorts of debates the dental authorities will mention research which is 100 years old - in this case the work of people like Billings, Rosenow and Price - and claim that because it is old research it is no longer relevant. They completely ignore the research which is more current. Interestingly all of the research conducted by Dr Weston Price in the 1920's is fully supported by the recent literature."

The biggest problem with this article is focal infection even in dentistry covered an insanely huge range--untreated as well as endodonticly treated teeth, tonsils, and on the list goes.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So a mainstream medical textbook isn't reliable, but a WP:SPS from a possibly "holistic" dentist is? Sigh. Yobol (talk) 15:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yobol, have you ever considered discussing what Bruce is talking about with Bruce, instead of just hammering him with policy? Whether you are correct or not, doesn't seem to produce your desired outcome, even though you've been telling him this for months. I'm not saying I agree with you, but maybe you could hammer out a mutually acceptable solution to this matter by working with Bruce. Just a thought. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 19:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly what I, and others, have been trying to do for months. His responses are more often than not, ignoring the policy/guideline points brought up and spamming quotations from various primary sources. I think I've done my part to try to discuss this issue with Bruce, and I have already posted a message on his talk page what I think needs to happen to move forward. He is pushing material against consensus here, and I think it is not incumbent upon me to bend over backwards in the face of walls of text to accomodate one editor against consensus. Yobol (talk) 19:33, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you have, but I think a less confrontational approach might generate better dialogue. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 01:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Go back to Talk:Weston_Price/Archive_2 where Yabol stated "My main issue with that is as far as I can tell, Price's modern proponents don't try to link "modern" FIT with the discredited theory, they just say Price (was) and is right, all-stop" even after producing a source that showed that George Meinig was doing exactly that. When this was pointed out Yabol shifted gears saying "Says Meinig, the anti-root canal fringe author. If you think that the FIT that was being discussed in the late 1800s/early 1900s is the same as the one discussed today, you have no business editing this article." This was an article Yabol himself produced as evidence but when it was shown Meinig was making the connection Yabol couldn't drop it fast enough.

This was despite all the reliable sources that the idea of a "old" FIT and a "modern" FIT had no support in the majority of the WP:RS literature. The reality is that the people using Price are connecting what he did in the 1920 to what is going on now and were doing it as early as 1998. Remember that Stephen Barrett's article (still used as a reference) states "Much of "holistic dentistry" is rooted in the activities of Weston A. Price, D.D.S. (1870-1948) a dentist who maintained that sugar causes not only tooth decay but physical, mental, moral, and social decay as well." but here we have a holistic dentist citing Price's earlier FIT work.

The amount of WP:IDHT regarding the fact we have several WP:RS that show that Ingel's is misleading in some places and flat out wrong in others with regards to FIT is annoying especially as so many editors keep avoiding the issue of how can it be right regarding FIT when so many other reliable sources show it to be wrong. Adding to the fun is the fact I just found a 1957 article of the Journal of the American Medical Association that states "The factor of focal infection still seems to be a most important one in determining the type of treatment of infected tonsils." If focal infection was refuted in the 1930s per Ingels then how could the Journal of the American Medical Association publish an article in 1957 that said it still seemed to be an important factor regarding infected tonsils? One source I found stated "Dr Price also claimed that most focal infections started with teeth and tonsils" which would throw the entire endodontic tooth limitation out the window. A textbook of operative dentistry from 1950 by William Harper Owen McGehee, Harry A. True, E. Frank Inskipp also states that Price and Rosenow worked with samples from infected tonsils (pg 71)

The Annals of the Pickett-Thomson Research Laboratory, Volume 4 (1928) pg 351 supports this statement.

SOLIS-COHEN, MYER (1934) NECESSITY FOR REVISING THE COMMON CONCEPTION OF FOCAL INFECTION J Am Med Assoc. 1934;102(14):1128-1131.doi:10.1001/jama.1934.02750140014005 mentions tonsils as one of the sources of focal infection.

Furthermore, George Meinig himself in Root Canal Cover up 1994 states pg 108-109 "These numerous attributes of organisms which arise from focal infection sites, whether they be from teeth, tonsils, tonsil tags, sinuses, or any other focal infection source, do cause an infinite variety of local and systemic reactions and conditions." The very man Ingle's says is resurrecting FIT by his own words doesn't limit it to endodonticly treated teeth and furthermore mentions tonsils in regard to FIT on pages 54, 142, and 165!

Dental summary: Volume 45 pg 127 (1925) gives an interesting snapshot of Price's role in FIT.

Face it even the sources of Price's own time didn't limit FIT to just endodonticly treated teeth. Doing some more digging I found a 1946 Washington State dental journal article that states "Calcium Metabolism drew Dr. Price's attention in 1925, when he became active as a student of nutrition." I suspect that as usual Yabol will either ignore this or go off on some minor tangent.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

More from Price himself

The Journal of the American Dental Association, Volume 29 (1942) Page 219 has Price talking about his 1923 Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic book. This volume also has several other article covering focal infection as it was viewed in 1942 (such as Werstell Page 320). In fact Price's statement on his position is actually coming from his Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects:

"In my search for the cause of degeneration of the human face and the dental organs I have been unable to find an approach to the problem through the study of affected individuals and diseased tissues. In my two volume work on "Dental Infections," Volume I, entitled "Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic," and Volume II, entitled "Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases," (PRICE, W. A. Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic. Cleveland, Penton, 1923) I reviewed at length the researches that I had conducted to throw light on this problem. The evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something. This strongly indicated the need for finding groups of individuals so physically perfect that they could be used as controls. In order to discover them, I determined to search out primitive racial stocks that were free from the degenerative processes with which we are concerned in order to note what they have that we do not have." (Price, Weston (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers)

Here we have Weston Price himself in a medical book effectively stating his efforts at finding any evidence for FIT went nowhere and his own studies "indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues". So somewhere between 1923 and 1939 by his own words Price seems to have effectively abandoned FIT in favor of nutrition.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:50, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Controversy

Has anyone else notice the level of controversy created by an article about an almost unknown dentist? I find it fascinating. The only other article that beats this one in its level of controversy (that I've seen) is Thomas Jefferson. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 16:16, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

He's not an unknown dentist: he's either the 20th century's nutritional Charles Darwin, or the man around whom the 21st century's leading contrarian nutritional cult is basing their fraud. Or... he's a guy who was ahead of his time but not fully informed, whose legacy has been appropriated for a mix of well-intentioned, reactionary, and irrational ends. But the mix of these three options... wow... exciting. Ocaasi (talk) 01:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Forgotten might be a better term as Price certainly was very well known in his own time and his X-ray work and invention of the pyrometer dental furnace were major developments in dentistry that still play a role today.

As for the FIT and nutritional work as the insane about of information I have presented in these talk pages shows that at the time he did each of those studies there were strong supporters of each general idea: FIT in the 1920s and nutrition in the 1930s. Contrary to the picture both his modern supporters and detractors want to paint at the time Price presented them his views were more or less mainstream for the time. Heck, Edward Mellanby the discover of vitamin D said back in 1930 that a better diet was a major factor in developing cavity resistant teeth. Even today one of the markers archeologist use to denote change from hunter-gather to agriculture is how the teeth degrade.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Planned reworking of second paragraph of introduction

Price's Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic (1923) and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects (1939) have received recent public attention due to promotion by anti-root canal, anti-flouride, and paleo-diet supporters.

Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic was Price's research supporting the then prevalent concept of oral focal infection theory which had lead to extractions rather than endodontic therapy being the predominate method in dentistry. (1) However, research in the 1930s raised questions about the quality of this and similar evidence and in 1939 Price's himself stated "(t)he evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something."(2)

"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects detailed his global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures, coming to the conclusion that so-called Western diet was the cause of many diseases. This work received mixed reviews, and continues to be cited for controversial dentistry and nutritional theories.

(1) Pallasch, Thomas J. DDS; MS, and Michael J. Wahl, (2003) "Focal infection: new age or ancient history?" Endodontic Topics, 4, 32–45

(2) Price, Weston A. (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects . Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers.

This would fix the current problems the intro has now and addresses why Price is important now.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Once again we see the problem with using primary sources. Recent quote from Price's nutrition book was added to imply he repudiated focal infection; looking at the quote in context here (see last paragraph) and in context of the book, I don't know that I agree that he was necessarily speaking of FIT here. While he did reference his FIT work, he was speaking in terms of his FIT work being inadequate to explain the "degeneration" around him - this has included facial deformities as well, and could include the moral degeneration he speaks about. As a whole, he could still be a supporter of FIT (can't tell from just this paragraph) but thinks it is inadequate to explain other conditions FIT doesn't describe. Rather than use primary sources like this, do we have any secondary sources that say Price backed away from FIT in the 1930s? This seems the clearest way forward. Yobol (talk) 16:25, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

IMHO you are reading your POV into Price's statements. There is nothing in what he is saying that shows he "repudiated" FIT only that he could not find evidence of it being the primary cause. In fact in chapter 18, Price states "In my investigations regarding the types of individuals who develop rheumatic group lesions as a result of dental focal infections, (1) I found that individuals could be divided into very definite groups in which 15.05 per cent with severe lesions belonged to families in which similar disease symptoms had occurred. Evidence was disclosed of a systemic factor that played a controlling role in determining whether or not the individual would be seriously injured from dental focal infections. It became very clear that the soil was quite as important a determining factor as was the type of infection."

Later on Price reiterates "(i)t is very important that in the consideration of the dental caries problem it shall be kept in mind continually, that it is only one of a large group of symptoms of modern physical degeneration and when teeth are decaying other things are going wrong in the body. Fluorine treatment, like dental extractions, cannot be a panacea for dental caries."

On a related side note the 1930 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 23, Issue 2 pg 1184 which mentions Price's work states "dental sepsis is the commonest focus of infection in the body and must be garded as one of the most frequent sources of disease of adult life." Remember that Pallasch specifically mentioned untreated pulpless teeth as being one of the many foci of infection in his 2000 article and his 2003 article goes over oral FIT past and present commenting on Price's work and states "In the 1920s, the theory of focal infection was widely taught as the cause of a wide range of illnesses with infected teeth as the principal source". It certainly doesn't help that dental sepsis covers a lot of ground including Tooth abscess and by that standard FIT is anything but dead in the dental community.

Of course that goes back to the whole problem with FIT itself--even if you limit yourself to Billings the mechanism covers an insane range of modern diseases including ones recognized by modern dentistry. In that sense FIT itself never died--it just stopped being the be and end all as far as systemic disease was concerned.

There are some other points we still need to fix in there article. The fact that in 1918 there were issues regarding the FIT inspired extraction craze shows that Price's works didn't " led to the widespread acceptance of the practice of extracting" as the article currently claims. Furthermore if you actually go to the 2007 version of Ingle's the material does not support the claim it is being used to reference! In fact, Ingles states that is was the work of British physician William Hunter in 1910 that lead orgy of extractions and the 100 percenters and then it talks about Price beginning his 25-study regarding FIT. Which when you think about it doesn't make sense as Price's interest shifted from FIT to nutrition in 1925 only 15 years from when Hunter did his work.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:47, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Instead of trying to interpret Price for me, find a secondary source that says it. If a point is important enough to be in this WP article, someone has published it in a secondary source. More walls of text is not appropriate. Yobol (talk) 13:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

That is procedurally correct for Wikipedia, but it is not always true that "if a point is important enough to be in this WP article, someone has published it in a secondary source." But yes, we can't include it until it is so published.Griswaldo (talk) 13:27, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

In the case of Ingels it is stated by a secondary source! "In 1910, a British physician, William Hunter, presented a lecture on the role of sepsis and anisepsis in medicine tot he faculty of McGill University. (...) This lead to an "orgy of extractions" and the recommendation or extraction for all endodontical treated teeth by the "100 percenters"" Not Price's work as claimed by the article and Yobol but William Hunter in a secondary source!--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Why would a mention of Hunter be appropriate for the Weston Price biography article? You do realize that this isn't the FIT article right, and that they are supposed to describe two different things? The text you took out with your edit conveyed several points that are in the Ingle's paragraph that describes Price that you took out with your edit - 1) there was a wider body of research that supported FIT (not just Hunter, but all research), 2) these were based mainly on testimonials, 3) this practice of extraction was widely held, and 4) this occurred in the 1920s. All these points were removed with your edit, to add one point about one lecture by one researcher in 1910. If you can't see why this makes the article worse, I don't know what else to say. Yobol (talk) 22:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

"In 1910, a British physician, William Hunter, presented a lecture on the role of sepsis and anisepsis in medicine to the faculty of McGill University. (...) This lead to an "orgy of extractions" and the recommendation or extraction for all endodontical treated teeth by the "100 percenters"" Not Price's work as claimed by the article and Yobol but William Hunter in the very secondary source that he (Yobol) himself defended! Of course as seen before Yobol diverts attention to something else I pointed out to avoid the major issue and ignores the WP:peacocking that such a claim makes..

In this case the Pallasch (2000) article gives a more detailed picture then Ingles regarding FIT and he clarifies the timeline more in his 2003 article which shows Price's actual role to be relatively minimal. In these two article Pallasch reinforces Ingels statement that it was Hunter's work (and in Pallasch's case others) and not Price's that led to the "orgy of extractions". Pallasch also points to Reimann and Havens publisher work of 1940 as being the "most influential critique of focal infection theory". These are all secondary works that show that the extraction craze FIT caused was going full tilt long before Price's 1923 work.

In the interest of WP:NPOV Yobol has to stop depending on one source (Ingles) for his information especially when nearly every other source shows it to be at best misleading (The British journal of dental science, Volume 72 (1928) Page 17 points out Price's work also dealt with septic teeth) or flat out wrong (claiming FIT was disproved in the 1930s when works show it was still supported clear into the 1950s). If he can't see how this hurts the article there is no hope.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you seriously saying that the current text:

His research, based on case reports and animal studies performed on rabbits, claimed to show dramatic improvements after the extraction of teeth with non-vital pulps. Price's research fit into a wider body of testimonials in the dental literature of the 1920s, which led to the widespread acceptance of the practice of extracting, rather than endodontically treating, infected teeth.

is not supported by this text from Ingles found here:

Weston Price began a 25-year study of pulpless and endodontically treated teeth and their association with focal infection. He published a series of rabbit experiments and case reports purporting remarkable improvement after dental extraction of non-vital teeth (teeth with non-vital pulps). During that time frame, the dental literature contained numerous testimonials reporting cures of illnesses following tooth extraction. These reports were empirical and without adequate follow-up. However, they wrongfully supported the continued extraction of teeth without scientific reason. In many cases, diseases reoccurred, and the patients had to face the additional difficulty of living with mutilated dentitions. In the 1920s, the theory of focal infeciton was widely accepted and endodontic education was virtually eliminated from dental education.

Really? Really?? The consensus on WP:RSN was Ingles is reliable. Stop beating that dead horse. Yobol (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Again you miss the point being raised. By the logic you yourself have used the "Price's research fit into a wider body of testimonials in the dental literature of the 1920s, which led to the widespread acceptance of the practice of extracting, rather than endodontically treating, infected teeth." implies the dental literature of the 1920s lead to the widespread acceptance of the practice of extracting, rather than endodontically treating, infected teeth and Ingles does NOT say that.

The "Price's research fit with the 1910 lecture of British physician William Hunter which had already resulted in a "orgy of extractions" including all endodontically treated teeth ("100 percentors")..." bit may not be the best wording in the world but it far more accurately reflects what Ingles and Pallasch say.

In fact in the "PDQ Endodontics" (2009) Ingels states "And to former student and former colleague, Tom Pallasch, a well deserved thank you for his assistance in formulating the section on focal infection".

1) That work doesn't even mention Price and instead puts Hunter and Billings front and center as the main causes of the whole tooth extraction craze.

2) It does NOT continue to make the claims regarding FIT the 2002 and 2006 works did and now admits "And even today, cancer and neuroropsychiatric disorders are blamed on focal infection".

3) Ingels now states "In summary, nonsurgical endodontics may be the least likely of dental treatment procedure to produce significant bacteremias in either incidence or magnitude" (sic).

So here we have Ingels of 2009 effectively saying that the Ingels of 2002 and 2006 was using out of date information which has been my point all along! More to the point why doesn't Ingels here address the use of Price's work in conjunction with what is currently going on with FIT? As I have demonstrated above it certainly is happening and in 2002 and 2006 he thought it important to mention.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

One last time: this is an article on Weston Price. This is not the article on Focal Infection Theory. We summarize what reliable secondary sources say about Price and FIT here. You are trying to shoehorn in your own evaluations of FIT into this biographical article. Please stop. Yobol (talk) 23:25, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

BTW, you do realize that PDQ Endodontics (300 pages) is a completely different book than Ingle's Endodontics (>1500 pages) and that the first not having information doesn't make the second wrong to have that information, right? Yobol (talk) 23:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Yet you have kept out quotes by Price himself due to your own WP:OR of how those quotes might be read. We can't use the man's own words in a biography about him?!? Does this make a lick of sense?--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I have kept a number of out-of-context quotes from Price's works that you have been trying to shoe horn in your original research about FIT into the article. Big difference. Yobol (talk) 23:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Considering this is coming from someone who stated that there was a old and modern FIT despite reliable source after reliable source saying they were the same thing, saying "My main issue with that is as far as I can tell, Price's modern proponents don't try to link "modern" FIT with the discredited theory, they just say Price (was) and is right, all-stop (see this for example)." that when you actually read the thing Meinig was making just such a connection going as far as to claim "It's 100% accepted today", citing Pallasch's 2000 article while ignoring Pallasch using a source contemporary to Price that defined FIT in that very same article I find this position to be hysterical.

As I have stated before the Pallasch 2003 article is a better source regarding Price and how he fits into the whole tooth extraction craze that FIT caused. Here again Pallasch defines FIT: "A focus of infection is a confined area that: (1) contains pathogenicmicroorganisms, (2) can occur anywhere in the body and (3) usually causes no clinical manifestations. A focal infection is a localized or generalized infection caused by the dissemination of microorganisms or toxic products from a focus of infection (Easlick KA et al. An evaluation of the effect of dental foci of infection on health. J Amer Dent Assoc 1951: 42: 617–619.) These concepts have led to the Focal Theory of Infection (or Theory of Focal Infection) that postulates a myriad of diseases caused by microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses) that arise endogenously from a focus of infection. (...) Foci of infection have historically been postulated to arise from the tonsils, adenoids, sinuses and oral cavity with less common foci from the prostate, appendix, gall bladder and kidney Oral foci have traditionally been ascribed to pyorrhea alveolaris (periodontitis), alveolar abscesses and cellulitis, pulpless teeth, apical periodontitis, general oral sepsis and endodontically treated teeth with viridans group streptococci (VGS) being the principal metastatic microbial culprits." (Pallasch 2003)

Here we have an article that 1) defines FIT in general and oral FIT in particular, 2) talks extensively about Weston Price and his work with regards to dentistry, and 3) talks about the modern role of oral FIT and yet Yobol continues to claim this part of my "original research about FIT". Sheesh.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:05, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Another impenetrable wall o' quotes. How terribly predictable. Yobol (talk) 11:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Another 'I can't refute what this editor is saying regarding what the source material actually says rather than what I think it says so I will just hide behind a "wall o' quotes" claim so I won't have to address the actual point'. So predictable. The reality is Yobol's claim regarding Meinig's interview were not backed up by the interview itself, Pallasch has shown the idea of there being two FIT is not backed up in the literature, and Pallasch talks about Price's work.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:35, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

New York Times review and more from Price himself

Found a snippet of what looks like a book review of Price's book in the New York Times: Primative and Modern Diets Jan 14, 1940 pg 21 of Volume 1.

On a more interesting note the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene (1935) volume 43 pg 357 presents some interesting comments from Weston Price regarding how he has wondered why he saw a higher occurrence of pyorrhea among people who had cancer or tuberculosis: "Practically all patients who develop cancer develop pyorrhoea in the later stages. Practically all patients who have a predominating type of tuberculosis develop, either early or late, a very acute and aggravated form of pyorrhoea."--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:58, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Another lead in attempt

Price's Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic (1923) and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects (1939) have received recent public attention due to promotion by anti-root canal, anti-flouride, and paleo-diet supporters.

Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic was Price's research supporting the then prevalent concept of oral focal infection theory which had lead to extractions rather than endodontic therapy being the predominate method in dentistry. (1) However, research in the 1930s raised questions about the quality of this and similar evidence and despite a cautious resurgence in interest in oral FIT there is still no scientific evidence for it working to the degree supported by Price and his contemporaries.(1)

"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects detailed his global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures, coming to the conclusion that so-called Western diet was the cause of many diseases. This work received mixed reviews, and continues to be cited for controversial dentistry and nutritional theories.

(1) Pallasch, Thomas J. DDS; MS, and Michael J. Wahl, (2003) "Focal infection: new age or ancient history?" Endodontic Topics, 4, 32–45

I imagine Yobol will try to play his WP:OR card again but in this case I don't see how it will fly regarding this version and this is a reasonable accurate summation of Pallasch's 2003 article and it does talk about Price.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You realize that the review by Pallasch has exactly one sentence on Price and doesn't talk about him in context of the "resurgence" of FIT - and that to avoid OR you don't just need to have a secondary review that merely mentions Price and modern FIT at separate points in a 14 page article but actually discusses the context of Price's work with modern FIT, right? Yobol (talk) 12:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

This has to be the most desperate thing Yobol has put out to date and shows he needs to relearn basic paragraph structure as that sentence begins the paragraph ie it is a topic sentence.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:44, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, what part of the paragraph that mentions Price in Pallasch 2003 speaks to modern FIT? If it doesn't speak to modern FIT, what does your ridiculous claim about my understanding of paragraph structure have anything to do with the comment you are responding to? I expect a retraction of this personal attack - up until now, you have been civil, Bruce. Let's keep it that way. Yobol (talk) 13:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

"If it doesn't speak to modern FIT," ie Yobol clearly never read the article because it does' talk about modern types of FIT! Also Yobol has not explained how "The evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something." quote by Price himself does not fit into a change in position.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:47, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

More WP:IDHT. Yawn. Yobol (talk) 15:59, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, again, phenomenal research, please publish it somewhere. It's way too much a primary source issue, IMO, in which you are doing second-hand anthropological research. I don't think you can really make this case unless sources from between 1990-2011, and preferably the latter half have already done so, in which they reference these various 1900-1950 sources. It looks like Yobol is firm on this, and I can't make those kinds of determinations myself, since I'm not an expert or anthropologist. I really think you need to make this case yourself in a published article and not here. It is possible that there are no good sources which correctly contextualize Price. And it's possible that the sources which vilify him are actually over-reacting to a caricature about him created by his Foundation or others who misrepresent his legacy. Nonetheless, that's all way more complex and speculative than we're really able to address ourselves, at the very least in this case where there is disagreement about what these sources in fact mean. Ocaasi ^c 16:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

As I have pointed out before Yobol keeps pushing one source despite the fact nearly ever other source (including Ingels 2009) says differently regarding FIT. We keep getting WP:IDHT regarding a later version of Ingels that thanks Pallasch for his information regarding FIT both past and present and one of Pallasch's article mentions Price! More over finding a 1957 article by no less then the American Medical Association that says the "factor of focal infection still seems to be a most important one" proves the "In the 1930s, editorials and research refuted the theory of focal infection..." ) by the older Ingle's source to be factually wrong does it not?

More to the point PDQ Endodontics "is a condensed version of the mother text, Ingel's Endontics" with the current version being Ingle's Endodontics 7th edition; Elsevier, 2009. PDQ Endodontics quite clearly states "And even today, cancer and neuroropsychiatric disorders are blamed on focal infection". (The 7th edition is referenced in Wang (2010) "Accuracy of A Newapex Locator Apex Nrg Blue an In-Vitro Study" Annals and essences of dentistry Volume: 2 Issue: 3 so Yobol can't try to handwave it away) Since Ingle's Endodontics has been ruled a reliable textbook and the 7th edition overrules what the 6th edition says, Yobol is going to have to to fight the 7th edition says about Price and FIT in general.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The last part is correct, and NPOV is clear that we have to describe debates among reliable sources. Could you perhaps draft a section which describes this debate, rather than asserting one side as correct? No promise it won't violate OR, but I'd be at least interested to see it. Ocaasi ^c 07:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I have tried this several times including a version that uses a journal article but Yobol has thrown up WP:OR as a roadblock to all efforts in addressing the NPOV issues the FIT has in this article. Here is another rework for the second paragraph of the introduction:

Price's Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic (1923) and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects (1939) have received recent public attention due to promotion by anti-root canal, anti-flouride, and paleo-diet supporters.

Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic was Price's research supporting the then prevalent concept of oral focal infection theory which had lead to extractions rather than endodontic therapy being the predominate method in dentistry.(1) In a 1925 Journal American Medical Association article Price acknowledged that far more than the mere coexistence of dental infection and degenerative disease in the same person or the results of implanting cultures into test animals was needed and then presented his own research in support of oral FIT.(2)

However, research in the 1930s raised questions about the quality of this and similar evidence and in 1939 Price's himself stated "(t)he evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something."(2) Despite a cautious resurgence in interest in oral FIT there is still no scientific evidence for it working to the degree supported by Price and his contemporaries nor for nonsurgical endocontics being a major cause of focal infection.(1)(4)

"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects detailed his global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures, coming to the conclusion that so-called Western diet was the cause of many diseases. This work received mixed reviews, and continues to be cited for controversial dentistry and nutritional theories.

(1) Pallasch, Thomas J. DDS; MS, and Michael J. Wahl, (2003) "Focal infection: new age or ancient history?" Endodontic Topics, 4, 32–45

(2) Price, Weston A. (1925) "Dental Infection and related Degenerative Diseases" J Am Med Assoc 1925;84(4):254-261

(3) Price, Weston A. (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects. Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers.

(4) Ingle (2009) PDQ Endodontics pg xvii

Please note that Ingels 2009 states "Pallasch's treatise and references (Pallasch, Thomas J. DDS; MS, and Michael J. Wahl, (2003) "Focal infection: new age or ancient history?" Endodontic Topics, 4, 32–45) are recommenced for more detailed study." As I mentioned before the Pallasch 2003 article does mention Price and since this is the paper Ingels 2009 recommenced for "more detailed study" it superceeds what Ingels 2002/2007 said.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:17, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Unless Bruce can quote me where Pallasch or Ingle directly ties Price to a "resurgence" in FIT, I don't understand why any discussion of it belongs in this article, not to mention the lead of all places. Of course, this is the exact same argument I've had for over 6 months now, so you'll pardon me if I find this somewhat tiresome. Yobol (talk) 12:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yobol, we find your ignoring of the relevant WP:MEDRS issues regarding FIT under the guise of "it doesn't talk about Price" tiresome as well. You keep ignoring the FACT that Ingles 2009 states that today (ie 2009) Focal infection is presented as a cause of cancer and neuroropsychiatric disorders and that Pallasch and others talk about a resurgence of focal infection going beginning in the 1990s. The fact of the matter is Ingel 2002/2006 does NOT agree with Ingels 2009 with regards to the "are not currently considered viable in the dental or medical communities" as Pallasch in two separate papers shows.

Also as pointed out before Price himself in 1925 stated that more than simple association between a focal infection and a degenerative disease or the manifestation of a degenerative disease via transplanting said focal infections into test animals was needed and in 1939 admitted "I have been unable to find an approach to the problem through the study of affected individuals and diseased tissues" and that "the evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues"

To date all we have seen is a bunch of WP:OR nonsense to keep out the fact Price himself admitted that he could not find any proof of FIT and the evidence of his own research lead elsewhere. THESE ARE PRICE'S OWN WORDS ON THE SUBJECT. Sheesh.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Sigh. Yobol (talk) 11:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Yet another example of Yobol avoiding the actual issue. He can't refute Price's own words with anything but his own WP:OR and so doesn't even try.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

BruceGrubb what is the problem here? If you cannot convince Yobol, convince Ocaasi. Lambanog (talk) 18:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "convince Ocaasi" as I have already pointed to the Pallasch, T. J. and Wahl, M. J. (2003), Focal infection: new age or ancient history?. Endodontic Topics, 4: 32–45. doi: 10.1034/j.1601-1546.2003.00002.x article which 1) defines FIT using the 1951 Easlick paper, 2) talks about Price and his contemporaries, 3) talks about the connection between FIT and VGS, 4) talks aobut the modern resurgence, and 4) is presented by no less than Ingles itself (in the 2009 PDQ book) as recommended reading for "more detailed study" on the matter.

"Little attention then as now was paid to the observations that temporal associations are the weakest of epidemiological links and that many of its proponents were infected with the concept of ‘after it, therefore because of it’ for which even today there is no preventive vaccine. (...) "Dentists who are presently advising patients that various forms of dental treatment will reduce their risk for myocardial infarction and stroke (atherosclerotic disease) should refrain from this practice until there is substantial credible scientific evidence that such is the case. This unfortunate advice to patients is no more scientific today than the ‘100 percenters’, ‘therapeutic edentulism’ and ‘the clean sweep’ were in the heydays of The Theory of Focal Infection." (Pallasch 2003 pgs 35; 42)--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Banner

Is there anyone who believes that the banner asking for citation modifications at the top of this page is beneficial? If so please state support for it. Lambanog (talk) 17:32, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, as the citations are in poor condition. It would seem that it would be appropriate to remove the banner only after the citations are fixed. Yobol (talk) 20:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that the citation problem is more a Refimprove with NPOV than a Citation style. As a quick trip over to the focal infection theory article shows "these applications of focal infection theory fell out of favor in the 1930s and are not currently considered viable in the dental or medical communities." has NPOV issues regarding WP:MEDRS.

Carranza's Clinical Periodontology (2006) states "(t)he focal infection theory fell into disrepute in the 1940s and 1950s", Textbook of Endodontology (2009) states "dental focal infection theory never died", and Ingles of 2009 states "And even today, cancer and neuroropsychiatric disorders are blamed on focal infection." Yet because they don't mention Weston Price Yobol continues to ignore the NPOV issues regarding the WP:MEDRS claim regarding FIT being "not currently considered viable in the dental or medical communities".--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Price and FIT-inspired 'holistic dentistry'

Yobol made the claim at Project MED that only 3 sources link Price to FIT. This, I fear, is the insanity of MEDRS. Powerful as it is, it leaves a gaping chasm in the real world of sources, both the ones that people regularly consult but are not RS as well as the ones that are RS but not MEDRS. Suffice to say, as I'll show below, there are tens if not hundreds of sources that link Price to FIT. While these may not meet MEDRS for global health claims, and some of them are blatantly unreliable (except as sources for their own claims), they are definitely part of the narrative and part of the discourse. Some establish that skeptics have linked Price to FIT and anti-root canal dentistry. Others show that the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Price-Pottenger Foundation continue to make the link. The last group shows that scores of self-published blogs and articles which preach against conventional dentistry make the Price-FIT connection as well. We are not just here to document Scientific truth or Academic truth, but all of the interesting, real-world, sociological and cultural controversy that surrounds them.

These are selected from the first 10 pages of a google search for: weston price root canal dentist

RS (as skeptical evaluations)

• Stay Away from "Holistic" and "Biological" Dentists http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holisticdent.html
• Root Canal Myths (The idea that bacteria trapped inside an endodontically-treated tooth will cause illness, such as heart disease, kidney disease, or arthritis, stems from research conducted by Dr. Weston Price from 1910 to 1930 -- almost 100 years ago. Recent attempts to confirm Dr. Price's research has been unsuccessful in proving that root canal treatment causes illness.) http://dentistry.about.com/od/preventionandtreatment/tp/toprootcanalmyths.htm

RS (as evidence Price's legacy is now tied to holistic dentistry through the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Price-Pottenger Foundation)

• Root Canal Dangers http://www.westonaprice.org/dentistry/1957-root-canal-dangers.html
• The principles of holistic dentistry, based on the research of Weston A. Price, DDS are as follows: http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/price.htm
• Root Canal Cover-Up (Learn how Dr. George discovered that a meticulous 25 year research program conducted by WESTON A. PRICE, DDS, under the auspices of the AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION'S RESEARCH INSTITUTE, was buried by disbelievers of the focal infection theory. "Root Canal Cover-Up," is the layman's version of Dr. Price's, "Dental Infections Oral and Systemic and Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases.") http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=194 or http://www.amazon.com/Root-Canal-Cover-Up-George-Meinig/dp/0945196199
• Living Memorial for George E. Meinig, DDS (During Dr. Meinig’s association with PPNF, he spent 18 months of intensive study of the meticulous 25 year root canal research found in Dr. Weston A. Price’s Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic & Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases, Vol. I and II. Because of the many questions coming to PPNF from dentists worldwide regarding these books, Dr. Meinig realized the need for this information to be made public. The thought of the millions of chronic disease sufferers who could be helped was a powerful motivating force for him. In 1993, Dr. Meinig published Root Canal Cover Up.) http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/lmgm.htm

NRS (for those who wonder why this keeps coming up, there are hundreds of these, self-published screeds, all of which directly reference Price->nutrition and FIT->modern holistic or biologic, anti-root canal, dentistry)

• Should you have root canals? http://www.healingdaily.com/exercise/root-canals.htm
• What you need to know about root canals http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james34.htm
• Can root canals cause breast cancer? http://naturaldentistry.us/tag/weston-price/
• Root canals and jawbone cavitations http://www.biologicdentists.com/custom2.html
• Weston Price - That a Clean Tooth Does Not Decay and that Mouth Cleanliness Affords the Best Known Protection Against Dental Caries - It is not Nature's method http://www.curetoothdecay.com/Dentistry/weston-price-brushing-natures-method.htm
• Root Canals Can Cripple http://www.saveyourteeth.com/dr_jay_rowen.htm
• The Controversy about Root Canal Therapy (In the 1940’s, Dr. Weston Price performed a series of experiments whereby he showed that root canal treated teeth could cause other infections elsewhere in the body. This spawned the ‘Focal Infection Theory’ of disease which, among other things, traced many health problems back to tooth infections. In our day and age, modern science has confirmed some of Dr. Price’s findings. Within the past few years, health problems such as heart disease, low birth weight babies, and chronic lung infections have all been traced to dental infections. That being said, the techniques of root canal therapy have improved greatly in the past 60 years, so that in most cases (though not all) root canal therapy can be preformed successfully, without leaving behind infections that can be a health problem. Dental infections of all kinds certainly have been linked to health problems, but teeth well treated with root canal therapy are no longer the culprits that they once were.) http://www.centerforintegrativedentistry.com/root_canal_therapy/index.html
• Root Canals, Cavitations and Focal Infections (Even the cleanest, most "sterile" root canal tooth remains infected. Scientists at ALT Corp have found that 99% of all root canal teeth contain pathogenic microbes. Where they go, what organs they affect and how depend on the specific type of bacteria involved. This has been known since the days of the great dental researcher Dr. Weston Price. Price found that if he extracted a root canal tooth from a person with a particular illness and then sewed that tooth under the skin of a rabbit, the rabbit would almost always develop the same type of illness experienced by the tooth donor. This not only shows that infection remains in the teeth but that the pathogens involved can affect other organs in the body.) http://www.drerwin.com/article_06_rootCanals.html

Ocaasi ^c 22:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I absolutely agree there exists sources that tie Price to FIT; my point in the other talk page was that the high quality sources (I hope we can agree endodontics textbooks are of higher quality than quackwatch and about.com) all agree that Price supported FIT but this theory was subsequently supplanted as more evidence came in (as is the case with most scientific theories). I don't believe historical claims fall under MEDRS, so I guess I'm wondering where you're going with this. Yobol (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the above sources explain the disconnect between the high quality sources. The confusion between what Price did and thought during his career, what his legacy is interpreted to mean now, and what changed with FIT over the years (at least as regards dentistry), is greatly complicated by the fact/possibility that those who currently criticize Price are actually criticizing a caricature of him painted by his 'followers'. We can't get into too much of that, because we'd be performing synthetic research and analysis, but we can at least give the background so that readers understand what I described in the introduction of this section.

Interestingly, (and speculatively) have you considered how Fringe applies here in the opposite direction? We normally do not fault a scientific field for ignoring a pseudoscience (e.g. Hawking need not comment on Astrology); is it possible that some of our high-quality RS do not mention Price more directly because Price didn't support FIT in the way his followers portray it today? In other words, is it possible that high-quality RS don't absolve Price of his support of FIT partly because there wasn't much of one, whereas less reliable sources are presenting a caricature of Price (and other medium quality sources are refuting that caricature rather than Price's actual position)? Ocaasi ^c 04:57, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I have already noted how anti-fluoride advocates have used Price even though when you go back to the actual source you find out he was an advocate of fluoride use but did warn "fluorine treatment, like dental extractions, cannot be a panacea for dental caries."

Going back to Price himself I have major misgivings about how his modern supporters portray him. Take this quote from Price's Dental infections, oral and systemic for example: "Just here I wish to introduce a warning; Exodontists and physicians who do not have the heart-rending worries of making dentures comfortable and serviceable, under conditions which are so nearly impossible as to be very discouraging, often feel justified in removing many doubtful teeth. I am seeing continually patients who are suffering more from the inconvenience and difficulties of mastication and nourishment than they did from the lesions from which their physician or dentist had sought to give them relief." (pg 488)

In 1925 Price clearly stated "(t)he relationships between dental infections and degenerative diseases, if such exist, should be demonstrable by other means than the establishment of simply an association of the two in the same person, or the development of such lesions in experimental animals with cultures taken from focal infections." Why is this point in a peer reviewed publication kept out?

In 1939 admitted "(t)he evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something." Yet we get the impression from Yobol unless Price expressly mentions FIT we can't use this quote because of how readers might read it. Is that sane or reasonable given the questionable use (or from what I am seeing outright misuse) of Price's old 1923 research by the anti root canal brigade? Why not use Price's own words in a reasonable context and let the reader decide for themselves?

The article is currently stagnating, because we're not distinguishing between a) what Price's research initially found, including alleged/perceived flaws in that research; b) how Price felt about what was being done under FIT while he was alive, including his opposition to excessive tooth-pulling; c) what changed in the modern dental understanding of FIT, basically that FIT was nonsense; d) what modern revivalists of Price claim he believed, that Price was a genius who sparked all of their current practices ; and e) the limited resurgence of serious academic interest in FIT, almost wholly disconnected from anything resembling Price's initial research.

Yobol seems to be avoiding detailing these individual areas at the risk of conflating them (and/or because he doesn't think we have good enough secondary sources). I see lots of good sources, at least for claims in themselves, which I feel somewhat comfortable using so long as we don't editorialize and are careful with NPOV. Ocaasi ^c 05:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that NPOV is a real problem given how Price's work is being used by his modern day proponents and it is this use rather than Price himself that is the problem. This is why I said a while ago going back to articles contemporary to Price might be the way to go regarding his actual views on both FIT and nutrition

I would like to point out that the general consensus in Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_79#Is_a_paper_.28possible_blog.29_by_a_psychiatrist_valid_regarding_old_claims_regarding_dentistry.3F, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive97#Noticeboards.2C_source_criticism_and_claims_of_BLP_issues, and Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_21#Weston_Price_and_Quackwatch was that Stephen Barrett's article was NOT a RS regarding Weston Price as every claim he made about Price was refuted by Price's own words.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I am no big fan of Quackwatch, which wields its however well-intentioned Skepticism like a club, but it is a great source for skepticism as such, showing that there is a debate about dentistry, attributed to Price and claims which center on him. What we can't do, is say ourselves, as Wikipedia, that 'Barrett is wrong and Price did not advocate x, y, or z'. What we could do, however, at least what I would like to do, is just present the various sources alongside each other and let readers see some of what we're seeing, so they can understand the contours of the debate. This is a relatively looser approach to encyclopedic writing, but I've consistently felt that where it loses something in WP:V it gains much for WP:NPOV. Yobol and other science-minded editors tend to disagree, and this is a continual battle between those who majored in Chemistry and those who majored in Psychology. (I was a Government major, so I just try to appease everyone). Ocaasi ^c 06:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually we CAN rule on Stephen Barrett as reliable source for Weston Price and in that case Barrett claimed Price did not address points x, y, or z but going back to Price himself it was showed that Price did in fact address those points.

"Barrett is not an WP:RS on this subject matter at all as far as I can see, and this is just evidence of that fact." (22:57, 18 October 2010 User:Griswaldo)

"One could hardly wish for a clearer proof that Barrett simply makes things up rather than doing any research." (23:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC) user:Hans Adler)

Stephen Barrett was ruled as NOT being a WP:RS for this article as his information on Price was shown to be grossly in error.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC

Nuances here. Wikipedia's voice, literally in the article, cannot say "Barrett was wrong". Now we can use Barrett or not use him, but if we use Barrett, it's not as an RS for the claims, but merely as an RS that prominent skeptics are making the claims. Again, there is an aspect of this topic which is not about truth, but about controversy, and the modern debate between FIT revivalists and FIT debunkers is part of that. Quackwatch is a quintessential RS for the debunker POV (not necessarily for the truth), which is how I meant it above. Also, a link to the RS discussion would help.Ocaasi ^c 11:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

True but the Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_4#Quackwatch and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_32#Usage_of_Quackwatch_as_RS_in_medical_quackery shows that has been a long debate on the RS status of Quackwatch. Besides we have two far better sources for the root canal and nutrition issues then Barrett:

Hasselgren, Gunnar (1994) Annals of dentistry: Volumes 53-54 New York Academy of Dentistry pg 42)

Jarvis, William T. (Mar/Apr 1981). "The myth of the healthy savage". Nutr Today (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) 16 (2): 14–15, 18, 21–22.

Both these sources give far more detail to the matters at hand then Barrett does actually explain where the problems are. Hasselgren in particular points out that many of the problems with Root Canal Cover Up are due to Meinig rather than Price. Meinig's book suffers from a lack of professional editing, is quite wordy, makes unsubstantiated claims, confuses terms (such as infection and inflammation), and expands into areas unrelated to the main topic. Hasselgren finishes the article with the comment "I wonder how the serious researcher Weston Price would have reacted to the way his work has been presented."--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:43, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

@Ocaasi: You are absolutely right in that I'm somewhat of a source "snob" - it is my opinion that we should be using the best sources available and only rely on ones of lesser quality when they provide information that can't be found in better sources. That being said, certain fringe articles rarely have the best sources to use, so we make do with what we have. In this case, Quackwatch is clearly reliable in documenting the existence of a controversy about holistic dentistry. How much weight/emphasis we give to such theories, especially in this biography article, should be driven by the higher quality sources, I think (though some mention and description of Price Pottenger and WAP is certainly necessary for an encyclopedic understanding of his legacy). Yobol (talk) 18:50, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

"One last time: this is an article on Weston Price." This is not the article on holistic dentistry.

The first sentence is your own words, Yobol. If a blog on holistic dentistry whose basic claims regarding Weston Price can be shown to WRONG is usable so are peer reviewed articles on FIT that mention Price; that door swings both ways and it is more in favor of the peer reviewed material.

Besides there are better articles regarding holistic dentistry:

* Greene, CS (1981) "Holistic dentistry. Where does the holistic end and the quackery begin?" Journal of the American Dental Association, Vol 102, Issue 1, 25-27

* Goldstein, Burton H. (2000) "Unconventional Dentistry: Part III. Legal and Regulatory Issues" J Can Dent Assoc 2000; 66:503-6

* (1994) CDS review, Volume 87 Chicago Dental Society (Ill.) Page 27

As I said before once you prove that a source is providing inaccurate information the whole thing become suspect. Let's go over Barrett's claim about Price and compare that with Price's own words again:

Barrett: "While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition."

Price: "since 1870 the average length of life has been increased by fifteen years, that marked reduction has occurred during this period in infant mortality and in mortality due to tuberculosis, typhoid, smallpox and many other diseases." (1923 Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic; referenced in 1939 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration Chapters 2 and 18)

Price: "This physician stated that there were about 800 whites living in the town and about 400 Indians, and that notwithstanding this difference in numbers there were twice as many Indian children born as white children, but that by the time these children reached six years of age there were more white children living than Indian and half-breed children. This he stated was largely due to the very high child mortality rate, of which the most frequent cause is tuberculosis." (1939 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Chapter 6)

Price: "The changes in facial and dental arch form, which I have described at length in this volume, develop in this age period also, not as a result of faulty nutrition of the individual but as the result of distortions in the architectural design in the very early part of the formative period. Apparently, they are directly related to qualities in the germ plasm of one or both parents, which result from nutritional defects in the parent before the conception took place, or deficient nutrition of the mother in the early part of the formative period." (1939 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Chapter 19)

Price: "It is important to keep in mind that morbidity and mortality data for many diseases follow a relatively regular course from year to year, with large increases in the late winter and spring and a marked decrease in summer and early autumn. [...] I have obtained the figures for the levels of morbidity for several diseases in several countries, including the United States and Canada." (1939 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Chapter 20)

Price: "Dr. Vaughan in her reference to the data on the annual report of the chief medical officer, the Minister of Health, states as follows: Our infant mortality returns show that over half the number of infants dying before they are a year old die before they have lived a month..." (1939 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Chapter 21)

Yet despite Price mentioning short life expectancy, high rates of infant mortality, and endemic diseases being eliminated by modern culture in the very book Barrett is referencing Barrett claims he ignored these points. So you ignore something by mentioning it...SAY WHAT?!? THIS IS INSANE! How anyone could consider this nonsense reliable is beyond me.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

MEDRS and biographies

I have moved this discussion from WT:MEDRS to here. Please post requests for help at WT:MED and keep article-specific discussions on the article talk pages. Colin°^Talk 07:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The issues I have been having with the Weston Price article made me wonder about just what role WP:MEDRS plays in biographies.

Currently in the introduction we have "These applications of focal infection theory fell out of favor in the 1930s and are not currently considered viable in the dental or medical communities." which is referred to Ingle's Endodontics 6 ed. 2007) which would be fine except Carranza's clinical periodontology (2006) and Textbook of Endodontology (2009) and even the 2009 PDQ Endodontics book by Ingles paint a very different view of Focal Infection theory but because they don't mention Weston Price they have been kept out.

In fact all attempts by me to put in a more NPOV and IMHO more actuate per MEDRS introduction have been stymied on this "doesn't mention Weston Price" issue.

In the past I have presented way too much evidence and overwhelmed people with walls of text so my short and to the point question to my fellow editors is what role does MEDRS play in a biography?

Must misleading or possibly out of date information regarding a medical claim be kept in a biography even if there are other reliable sources that would clarify the matter but these other source do not mention the subject of the biography?

Furthermore can direct quotes from the subject of the biography when they come from Journal of the American Medical Association and a book published by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers be kept out if the can be shown to be reasonably complete?--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Medical history is different from medicine, and I believe the claims we make fall under 'regular scholarly/historical RS' rather than MEDRS. However, that doesn't solve the original research conundrum regarding Price, which applies to any RS. So you've been stymied not for RS issues but for OR issues. You should read WP:OR carefully and maybe your objection can be answered there.

If reliable sources differ in their historical reading of FIT, and they are similarly reliable, we should just describe the dispute among the sources per NPOV. However, if those sources don't all mention Price, then we're left connecting the dots ourselves regarding which readings imply Price and which don't. The ones that link directly to Price are much preferred, and the ones that don't link directly are arguably Original Research (synthesis) from the start. You can probably set the 'context' of this debate in the Price article so long as you don't make any particular claims about which version applies to Price (unless sources do first). This seems a bit stymied, for sure, but it's the only way to prevent Wikipedians from becoming anthropologists (even good ones). Ocaasi ^c 09:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

In general, MEDRS is an appropriate source of advice for any current medical claims that appear in a biography. On specific points:

1. Just about anything can be kept out, per WP:Editorial discretion. The existence of a reliable source is not a mandate to include the material.
2. It's my impression that the current state of the art is changing. In particular, there seem to be a whole lot of dentists who need a good lecture on the fact that correlation does not imply causation, i.e., that the relationship between poor dental health and heart disease does not mean that improved dental care will reduce heart disease. IMO it is far more likely that the heart disease causes the dental problems than the other way around, but it could also be neither (the sort of person who eats junk food and refuses to exercise might refuse to do basic dental hygiene, too).
   Consequently, we may have to resign ourselves to having this article a bit out of date for now, and limit ourselves to reporting "yesterday's" state of affairs rather than "tomorrow's", because "today's" is less than ideally clear.

In terms of the dispute at the article, I wonder whether you'd be open to a slightly more weaselly, marginally more accurate version along the lines of "Although the focal infection theory has some limited validity in specific infectious diseases, these applications have not generally been considered viable in the dental or medical communities since the 1930s". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, in the quote noted, the "these applications" of focal infection was in reference to the 1930s version of it which Price supported, which basically said pull all teeth and don't do root canals. The current wording of the article is accurate; Bruce just wants to introduce information about the current focal infection theory which is really a completely separate theory into this biography of Price, when the only current sources which speak about Price talks about the old theory. Very much SYNTH to me. Yobol (talk) 17:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Then perhaps some greater specificity about "these applications" would be appropriate, e.g. something like, "This theory led to the practice of removing all the teeth, rather than doing root canals, to reduce infections; it fell out of favor in the 1930s and is not currently considered viable in the dental or medical communities." WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of: "Although FIT has some limited validity in specific infectious diseases today (and has been revived as a popular but unsupported theme in some natural health areas), it has not generally been considered viable in the dental or medical communities since the 1930s when it led to the practice of removing all the teeth to reduce infections, rather than doing root canals. There is disagreement about whether Price was a supporter of FIT at the time and the degree of reservation he had about both its theory and the spate of operations it led to." I think that's both accurate and source-able. Ocaasi ^c 00:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is your solution is 'not supported by the WP:RS as I show in the focal infection theory article:

"Because of this there is major disagreement about not only when oral focal infection theory fell out of favor but also to the degree it did. For example, Ingle's Endodontics 5th edition (2002) stated "(i)n the 1930s, editorials and research refuted the theory of focal infection" while Carranza's clinical periodontology (2006) stated "(t)he focal infection theory fell into disrepute in the 1940s and 1950s", and Textbook of Endodontology of 2009 stated that "dental focal infection theory never died".

Furthermore Ingles of 2009 states "And even today, cancer and neuroropsychiatric disorders are blamed on focal infection."

This is why I want to go with the following for the introduction:

Price's Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic (1923) and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects (1939) have received recent public attention due to promotion by anti-root canal, anti-flouride, and paleo-diet supporters.

Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic was Price's research supporting the then prevalent concept of oral focal infection theory which had lead to extractions rather than endodontic therapy being the predominate method in dentistry.(1) In a 1925 Journal American Medical Association article Price acknowledged that far more than the mere coexistence of dental infection and degenerative disease in the same person or the results of implanting cultures into test animals was needed and then presented his own research in support of oral FIT.(2)

However, research in the 1930s raised questions about the quality of this and similar evidence and in 1939 Price's himself stated "(t)he evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something." and in the same publication said "(i)t is very important that in the consideration of the dental caries problem it shall be kept in mind continually, that it is only one of a large group of symptoms of modern physical degeneration and when teeth are decaying other things are going wrong in the body. Fluorine treatment, like dental extractions, cannot be a panacea for dental caries."(2) Despite a cautious resurgence in interest in oral FIT there is still no scientific evidence for it working to the degree supported by Price and his contemporaries nor for nonsurgical endocontics being a major cause of focal infection.(1)(4)

"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects detailed his global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures, coming to the conclusion that so-called Western diet was the cause of many diseases. This work received mixed reviews, and continues to be cited for controversial dentistry and nutritional theories.

(1) Pallasch, Thomas J. DDS; MS, and Michael J. Wahl, (2003) "Focal infection: new age or ancient history?" Endodontic Topics, 4, 32–45

(2) Price, Weston A. (1925) "Dental Infection and related Degenerative Diseases" J Am Med Assoc 1925;84(4):254-261

(3) Price, Weston A. (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects. Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers.

(4) Ingles (2009) PDQ Endodontics pg xvii

This address the whole NPOV issue that using one source causes and addresses the issue of holistic dentists like (Dr. Robert Gammal) who are expressly making a connection between the research of Price and his contemporaries and the current revival in FIT because Pallasch has already made that connection in both his 2000 and 2003 article (Pallasch has stated in both these article that FIT of today is the same theory as in Price's time and even defines it in both articles). I should mention that a quote from the (1935) Journal of the Canadian Dental Association pg 451 shows Price's concerns about the excesses resulting from how FIT was being applied:

"Just here I wish to introduce a warning; Exodontists and physicians who do not have the heart-rending worries of making dentures comfortable and serviceable, under conditions which are so nearly impossible as to be very discouraging, often feel justified in removing many doubtful teeth. I am seeing continually patients who are suffering more from the inconvenience and difficulties of mastication and nourishment than they did from the lesions from which their physician or dentist had sought to give them relief."

The kicker to that statement is it a near verbatim repeat of one in Price's 1923 Dental infections, oral and systemic (pg 488)! Price's own words show that by the standards of the day he was conservative regarding the extracting of teeth even in 1923 and admitted he could find no proof for FIT being a major contributing factor in 1939. Yet these points have been kept out of a biography on the man. We can't use s person's own words in his biography?!? Does this make sense? It is even sane?--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:50, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I think you're over-interpreting your sources. Hoxsey therapy "never died", but it has fallen out of favor, is considered disreputable, etc. That it is out of favor doesn't mean that no quacks promote it or that no desperate patients attempt it.

Any individual statement by a person is less important than what independent sources have written. I'm sure that if you looked through what I've written in a lifetime, you could easily cherry-pick statements that prove almost anything you want. If Price is widely known for supporting this theory, even if he expressed doubts about some aspects of it, then we should leave readers with the impression that he supported the theory. We should not try to whitewash or downplay his notable support. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

WAID, I think the issue is slightly more nuanced. Price was generally respected as a dentist and researcher in his time and even in hindsight carried many important insights forward. However the Weston A. Price foundation, which bears his name has created a whole movement of people promoting nutrition-based medicine and anti-root canal dentistry. The discrepancy is that those who currently attribute views to Price are cherry-picking Price's sources. So we should leave readers with the impression that Price is well known today for X but that in his own day, he was known for Y, and held views Z about X. (Price is well-know today for nutrition-based dentistry and anti-root canal dentistry (FIT), but in his day he was known for dental research in general with an emphasis on nutrition for general health, and held skeptical/conservative views that FIT was not well established related to dental care). Ocaasi ^c 20:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Uh, guys, as far as I can tell, there are only 3 high quality sources that mention Price and focal infection: Ingles 2008 (not counting the prior edition), Pallasch (who has only one sentence about Price), Grossman 1940. That tells me his role in focal infection was small, but significant (otherwise he wouldn't be mentioned at all). They all agree that his studies fit into the 1930s version of focal infection in that his work led to the pulling of teeth and the abandoning of root canal. None of them talk about his work in any way, shape or form in the context of how focal infection is talked about now - and for a good reason - it doesn't have a single thing to do with how it is discussed now. If all the independent, secondary, reliable sources talk about Price in this context, why on earth are we bringing up another context? No secondary source as far as I can tell has ever had any reservation about his support of FIT or how well his work supported it - that is all OR by Bruce. This should be easy - we have three high quality sources, let's summarize them and move on. Until we get more reliable independent sources that mention Price in context of FIT, we're just spinning our wheels here, like we've been doing for months now.

(As an aside, the Weston Price Foundation actually has barely any mention of his root canal theories (last I checked 2 pages out of probably hundreds on that website) - that lack of emphasis probably has to do with the co-founders' emphasis on nutrition rather than dentistry. Yobol (talk) 21:43, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I responded at the article talk page with sources that link Price to FIT in modern skepticism, in Price's legacy foundations, and in way too many SPS dental blogs. Take a look. Note, it's not just the Weston A. Price Foundation, but also the Price-Pottenger Foundation. Ocaasi ^c 23:08, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Responded there. I also took WhatamIdoing's good suggestion about being more specific about what "these applications" were so that there would be less confusion. Hopefully that will smooth things out. Yobol (talk) 02:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yobol conveniently ignores the Annals of dentistry: Volumes 53-54 New York Academy of Dentistry already in the article which goes into detail about how Meinig used only Price's two volume Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic as his source material and got confused regarding some of the terminology but the article stated "[h]owever many clinicians appear today to have lost sight of the fact that endodontical treatment shall be based on biology and not on the use of various gadgets to sweep canals. Also, one-visit treatment of necrotic, infected teeth is being advocated and practiced even if no long-term study has been performed to investigate this kind of treatment. The work of Dr. Weston Price is therefore still to a great extent valid and important and the role of infection can not be underestimated." and yet this information has been kept out as well. Nevermind that the claim by Yobol that Price's own paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1925 is not a high quality source boggles the mind.

Furthermore a PDF of Chapter 2 (which contains the information regarding Price) shows 1) that the information provided in Grossman "is based on a paper authored by Dr. Grossman that appeared in "Dental Cosmos" in 1925, titled "Focal infection and its oral significance."" and 2) only mentions Price in one sentence in reference to a 1940 paper which Yobol would have known if he had actual bothered to read the source directly.

Finally, Bacteriology & surgery of chronic arthritis and rheumatism 1927 by the Oxford university press; Annals: Volume 4 (1928) Pickett-Thompson research laboratory; The Journal of the American Dental Association: Volume 16 (1929) American Dental Association and many other sources contemporary to Grossman's 1925 paper mention Price and his role in FIT.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

"which Yobol would have known if he had actual bothered to read the source directly" - Keep your unfounded snark to yourself, thanks. Yobol (talk) 18:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

And /roll eyes (see Talk:Weston_Price/Archive_2 for that nonsense is not an "unfounded snark"?--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

No, actually. Yobol (talk) 12:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Has the question concerning "what role WP:MEDRS plays in biographies" been answered? Do we need to update this guideline? Can we move the focal infections discussion to somewhere else please. Colin°^Talk 07:30, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, that depends on whether medical/research history is something you/others think needs its own mention. Also this policy has lots of good medical eyes on it, so people come here for advice, especially about medical sources. Would you recommend WP:RSN or WP:MED instead? (The discussion at the article talk page had stagnated, so new editors' opinions were needed and helpful). Cheers, Ocaasi ^c 08:17, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Weston Price, NPOV, and MEDRS

There are serious MEDRS problems with the Weston Price article. Bear with this as it is a little detailed (ie long)

1) Part of it relates to what Price himself and those who use him to support their view say and those who try to refute those views. For example, Stephen Barret's claimed regarding Price "While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition." despite Price saying in his 1923 Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic book "since 1870 'the average length of life has been increased by fifteen years, that marked reduction has occurred during this period in infant mortality and in mortality due to tuberculosis, typhoid, smallpox and many other diseases." and not only reiterating this in his 1939 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration in Chapters 2 and 18 but also all the other points Barret claims Price ignored including this little piece: "I have obtained the figures for the levels of morbidity for several diseases in several countries, including the United States and Canada." (Chapter 20). (see Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_21#Burn_Barrett_Bandwagon.3F for the full refute using Price's own words showing that Stephen Barret had NO IDEA what he was talking about)

2) Other problems relate to disagreement in the literature regarding FIT. For example Ingle's Endodontics 5th edition (2002) states "(i)n the 1930s, editorials and research refuted the theory of focal infection" while Carranza's clinical periodontology (2006) states "(t)he focal infection theory fell into disrepute in the 1940s and 1950s" and Textbook of Endodontology of 2009 by Bergenholtz states that "dental focal infection theory never died".

3) Finally there are these words from Price himself some of which have been kept out despite their clear WP:RS status that throws doubt on the whole "This application of focal infection theory fell out of favor starting in the 1930s, and it is not currently considered viable in the dental or medical communities." claim with regards to MEDRS (in being too vague) I have highlighted the relevant parts:

a) "The relationships between dental infections and degenerative diseases, if such exist, should be demonstrable by other means than the establishment of simply an association of the two in the same person, or the development of such lesions in experimental animals with cultures taken from focal infections. In this paper I summarize some new data developed in my researches on the relation of focal infection to systemic disease, with particular consideration of dental focal infections and the degenerative diseases, and with especial reference to structural changes that take place in the supporting structures about dental focal infections, and to serologic changes in body serums." (First lines of paper used as there was no formal abstract Price, Weston A. (1925) "Dental Infection and related Degenerative Diseases" J Am Med Assoc 1925;84(4):254-261)

b) "Just here I wish to introduce a warning; Exodontists and physicians who do not have the heart-rending worries of making dentures comfortable and serviceable, under conditions which are so nearly impossible as to be very discouraging, often feel justified in removing many doubtful teeth. I am seeing continually patients who are suffering more from the inconvenience and difficulties of mastication and nourishment than they did from the lesions from which their physician or dentist had sought to give them relief." (Dental infections, oral and systemic pg 488 quoted in (1935) Journal of the Canadian Dental Association pg 451)

c)"In my search for the cause of degeneration of the human face and the dental organs I have been unable to find an approach to the problem through the study of affected individuals and diseased tissues. In my two volume work on "Dental Infections," Volume I, entitled "Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic," and Volume II, entitled "Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases," (PRICE, W. A. Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic. Cleveland, Penton, 1923) I reviewed at length the researches that I had conducted to throw light on this problem. The evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something. This strongly indicated the need for finding groups of individuals so physically perfect that they could be used as controls. In order to discover them, I determined to search out primitive racial stocks that were free from the degenerative processes with which we are concerned in order to note what they have that we do not have." (Price, Weston (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers)

d)"Fluorine treatment, like dental extractions, cannot be a panacea for dental caries."(Price, Weston (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers)

All these relevant points by Price himself in reliable sources have been kept out of his biography even though they would clarify what is meant by "This application of focal infection theory" for MEDRS--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

NPOV issues (again)

I have kicked Yobol's constant reverts without any real argument to Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Weston_Price_introduction and worded it in such a way that Yabol is the one who must get consensus. I've also challanged Yobal's constant claiming that the quotes are selective noting that he doesn't claim this for the exact same quotes in the focal infection theory despite it having to meet the higher WP:MEDRS bar.

Furthermore Yobol's removal of "Noted in the dental profession for his work in the relationship between x-ray and cancer, the invention and improvement of a pyrometer dental furnace, and the development of radiological techniques expanded on in the 1940s" which already has references in the main body somehow falls under WP:OR claims regarding my other lead ins makes me seriously wonder why he is impeding efforts to fix the clear NPOV issues this biography has.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

By the way I found this: "The last paper was read by Weston A Price DDS of Cleveland, "Focal Infection" tracing the source of infection to the gums, tonsils and accessory sinuses, showing the intimate relationship between the nose and threat surgeon and dentist" ((1915) The Lancet-clinic, Volume 113; pg 508) If Yobol or anyone else has reliable sources that directly and expressly show Price abandoned his idea of "gums, tonsils and accessory sinuses" as being part of his application of FIT I think we would love to see them.

This confirms my concern that much of what is being said regarding Price is more to do with what those who use him are saying rather than what he himself said. As I said before the best way to fix this mess of a biography is to go to sources contemporary to Price to try and separate what he actually said from what his modern supporters and detractors are saying.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The leadin (again)

I am now trying to put in the following lead in:

Noted in the dental profession for his work in the relationship between x-ray and cancer, the invention and improvement of a pyrometer dental furnace, and the development of radiological techniques expanded on in the 1940s (1)(2)(3)(4), Price has been brought to the general public's attention by anti-root canal, anti-flouride, and paleo-diet supporters basing their ideas on two of his works: Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic (1923) and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects (1939).

Building on the work of Edward C. Rosenow, Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic was Price's research supporting the then prevalent concept of oral focal infection theory which had lead to extractions rather than endodontic therapy being the predominate method in dentistry (5) but later research showed Rosenow's, Price's and other studies supporting FIT a primary cause of systemic disease to be seriously flawed.(6)

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration detailed Price's global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures, coming to the conclusion that so-called Western diet was the cause of many diseases and held that dental health - and consequently physical health - were heavily influenced by nutritional factors. This work received mixed reviews, and continues to be cited for controversial dentistry and nutritional theories.

1) Medical Record, A Weekly Journal of Medicine and Surgery - (Dec 1903, Volume 64, page 982)

2) Walton, Richard E. (2007), "15", Ingle's Endodontics (6 ed.), PMPH-USA, p. 554, ISBN 978-1-55009-333-9

3)Karjodkar (2006), Textbook of Dental and Maxillofacial Radiology (1 ed.), Jaypee Brothers, Medical Publishers, p. 6, ISBN 8180618544

4) Langland, Olaf E.; Francis H. Sippy (1973) Textbook of dental radiography

5) (1928) Annals of the Pickett-Thompson research laboratory, Volume 4; Pickett-Thompson research laboratory; pg Page 451

6) Grossman, Louis (1940), "Pulpless teeth and focal infection", Root Canal Therapy, Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, pp. 16–17

Please note that unlike by previous leadins this is composed entirely of third party references some of which are already in the main text with the rest clearly reliable. Yet Yobol is removing this version despite this fact.

A) I sure you all agree that the first part of the first paragraph with four third party references is well referenced and there are sources that can back up the second part so Yobol can't throw out WP:OR as a valid argument. More to the point the first sentence establishes why Price is important outside of all the current use of his work

B) The second part has two references--both third party.

C) The third part is simply a reworking of what already exists.

Who here agrees with Yobol keeping in a unreferenced lead in that has nothing to support anything it claims and more importantly why?--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:01, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

More information on Weston Price

A search for "Weston Price" "focal Infection" via Google Scholar produced some interesting results. In particular we have BARTELS' "HISTORICAL PORTRAITS IN DENTAL CULTURE; WESTON PRICE (1870-1948)" N Y J Dent. 1965 Mar;35:97-8. which would provide some needed additional information.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)