Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pharmacology/Archive 4

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Warburg's Tincture

I added the WikiProject Pharmacology tag to the following article, Warburg's Tincture. I trust that's okay.--Roland Sparkes (talk) 00:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I have expanded and improved this article a lot more. Please can an article quality rating now be assigned by this project. Thanks--Roland Sparkes (talk) 10:24, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You still appear to be making quite a few edits, I would suggest requesting classification once these major edits are complete. As a guide though, I would say this currently rates as a 'Start' class. Perspeculum (talk) 14:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I made further improvements and edits to this article in past 24hrs to get it in better shape. I'm not sure I am able to improve it much more on my own. Please could I get an assessment rating in its current form. --Roland Sparkes (talk) 11:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

HELP REQUIRED. I strongly believe this article would benefit from the input of those Wikipedians of a pharmacological, medical or chemistry background. I do not come from any kind of science background. I am a historian. Because this article is strongly in the field of history of medicine, it covers both areas. Thanks--Roland Sparkes (talk) 11:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi! I'd give it a C by now although some people might say this is a bit optimistic. The major issues I see are:

• The article reads like this was still a pharmaceutically interesting drug. For example, the quote from the Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society seems to say that there is no good replacement for Warburg's Tincture in present-day medicine, which is simply misleading. Don't get me wrong: It is certainly historically interesting and an article highly worth including since people want to read about how illnesses were treated in former times, but as a drug, it is obsolete. I see your difficulties as a historian to include such information, but at the moment I wouldn't know where to find sourceable information either. (PubMed returns no results.)
• Too many quotations. See Wikipedia:Quotations for suggestions.
• Some copyediting would be appropriate, but that can be done easily. Let's see if I find some time.

Otherwise, I say it is well written and sourced. Cheers --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Engineered antibodies

Could someone give an opinion whether Template:Engineered antibodies should contain antibody mimetics? In a separate group (as now) or as a subgroup of "Monospecific"? Or a separate template altogether? The German Wikipedia has a Category:Antikörpermimetikum ("antibody mimetic"), containing Monobody and DARPins in addition to Affibody and Anticalin. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Proprietary (i.e., brand) names?

Hi! Last time (and the only time) that this issue was discussed was in 2006, so I thought it'd be nice to have an updated consensus on this one. :) In articles for drugs like e.g. chloramphenicol, the list of brand names is seemingly infinite since it has been generic since very long ago. With brand names for this compound from every single country imaginable, I suppose the already very long list of brand names would inflate to unbelievable proportions. Also, in e.g. cefadroxil, I removed the generics due to this issue after having decided that Curisafe from pharco B international was non-notable since the pharmaceutical company itself did not have an article.

Thus, I'd like to know what you think about brand names in a generic world? Should we just list the (p)INN, restrict the brand names to only the initial/major (however that is defined!) brand names, or should every single brand name imaginable be listed?

Take a look at e.g. the Swedish list of brand names for paroxetin. That's just one country's list of brand names for one single substance. Sweden is a country of ~9 million people, so I'd guess the possible brand names would be higher in a country like e.g. India. Should all these be listed in the paroxetin article? W n C? 14:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

NB: I'm thinikng of WP:NOT, especially WP:DIRECTORY. W n C? 14:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

See Talk:Metformin#Deletion of Trade Names and especially Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)#Trade names. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointers. The discussion seems to have been long and somewhat back-and-forth, but I take it to read that a consensus has (somewhat) been reached for the inclusion of the initial and major brand names, while laundry lists of all the world's possible generic brand names are to be avoided or at least put away from plain sight, preferably (or possibly?) put in a separate article. Would this be a good summarization?

(NB: not trying to revive the discussion; I just have some issues with concentration and distraction when reading large amounts of repeating material, so I just wanted to check if this indeed was the outcome, lest I'd be confused.) W n C? 15:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'd say that's about it. But there seems to be no way to keep newbies from adding and re-adding brand names (and we don't want to BITE them). --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:43, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the generic name should be used with the original brand name in parentheses. There will be a few cases in which the generic name differs in some countries, in which case it may be necessary to use two generic names. For example aspirin is generic in USA but a trade name in many countries.Nakatsuk 19:59, 6 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nakatsuk (talk • contribs)

PiHKAL and TiHKAL Articles

There are a lot of obscure compounds from PiHKAL and TiHKAL that aren't even pharmacologically active that have been added to Wikipedia. I don't really see the point and I think they should be removed. If people want info on them they should refer to the books, not here. What about you guys? See these templates for listings:

{{PiHKAL}}

Mwaagh, they have quite an interesting source, and albeit that there is not too much known about them, I think all are notable just because of the study. You're right, they will, probably, never get to FA status, but so will many of our >10.000 chemicals. Maybe some should just have a chembox? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

PiHKAL and TiHKAL are one of the only examples of structure-activity relationship studies that have been widely read and discussed by non-experts, and I'd think this would give them a degree of notability well beyond that of say inactive compoounds listed in some random patent. In this case I'd argue that the inactive compounds are almost as relevant as the active ones because of the trends that can be derived from comparing them all. Meodipt (talk) 04:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Midazolam

Midazolam is up for good article review, if anyone is interested in reviewing or improving the article. It is quite an important benzodiazepine for hospital use and emergency control of seizures.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Drugbox

An eye (and some words) on the latest sections of Template talk:Drugbox would be much appreciated. There's a suggestion about omitting empty fields, and some suggestions for improving drugboxes for monoclonal antibodies. Thanks all, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

source and mabtype parameters are online for testing at {{drugbox/sandbox}}. Comments welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 14:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The hiding mechanism for empty fields is online for testing at {{drugbox/sandbox}}. Short description at Template talk:Drugbox#Missing fields should be omitted. Comments welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Categories for side effects?

Anyone have any ideas about how to usefully categorize Morning pseudoneutropenia? I'm firmly convinced that "Pharmacy" isn't the right answer... but what is? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

It's already in Category:Blood disorders. Does it really need anything else? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but a Category:Iatrogenic conditions or Category:Adverse drug effects seems like it would also be appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, nothing wrong with creating a category for adverse effects. The problem with the first one is that most general audience readers would not know what it means. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Conditions caused by a physician? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 07:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

drug article guideline

Please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Guideline. This is a guideline or template that editors can use to help construct articles about drugs. It's based off of the WP:MEDMOS drug guide, but contains a bit more information and is a bit more detailed. If anyone has any comments or things to add to it, that can be discussed here. Cheers! WTF? (talk) 21:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Azapropazone

Azapropazone is a very effective NSAID , but it has also a high degree of unpleasant side-effects. The current article is really bad, and looks as though it has been pasted from the advertising blurb. It could well do with some attention from someone who knows (as opposed to me, who's just taken it for a very long time) . Cooke (talk) 22:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Unfortunately it was a violation of WP:COPYVIO. Someone had just copied and pasted the text from the patient.co.uk page and I had to delete the bulk of the text in that article. Don't be afraid to develop an article, be WP:BOLD, if you leave out technical details or make a few mistakes other editors will soon pick them up and fix them or if you get stuck you can ask for help from a project such as this for advice.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Vitamin C

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as this project's banner is on the talk page. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:Vitamin C/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Nootropics and cognitive enhancers

I just found these articles, they are currently basically the same as someone copy and pasted nootropic to make the CE article. It looks like there should be two separate articles but I'm not knowledgable enough in this area to sort out the mess. Could someone from here take a look and sort the articles out? Thanks Smartse (talk) 12:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I deleted the redundant text, but both articles still nead heavy copyediting. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Heparin

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as this project' banner is on the article talk page. I have found some serious concerns which you can see at Talk:Heparin/GA1. It appears that large parts of the article are copyright violations. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Pyrazolodiazepine

Category:Pyrazolodiazepine, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you.

GA review of Orlistat

I have started a GA review of Orlistat. Only a few minor points needed [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:27, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Psychoactives

I've studied pharmacology for roughly two years but personally I'm solely interested only in psychoactive drugs. I think this is the case with many of the other people here as well. Psychoactive drugs are much different than other drugs as the science behind them crosses into other subjects like neurology and psychology and does not apply just to biology and chemistry. Therefore I propose we launch a new subproject -- WikiProject Psychoactives -- to encompass all psychoactive drugs and help to separate them from non-psychoactive substances. We already have psychoactive-stub, why not make it a party? el3ctr0nika (Talk | Contribs) 05:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I might be interested in that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you aware of WP:PDD? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't, but I am now! Thanks! At the same time, these are not exactly the same thing, since what El3ctr0nika is talking about would include neuroleptics, for example. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I was aware but as Tryptofish said it's not the same thing. el3ctr0nika (Talk | Contribs) 01:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants has been relatively inactive for a while. Maybe you should consider renaming and expanding the scope of that already established project. It would be easier than starting from scratch, especially considering all of the articles within the scope of WP:PDD would be within the scope of a psychoactive drugs project. Something else to consider is converting the project to a task force of WP:PHARM, since I'd imagine that all of the articles in a psychoactive drugs project would also be encompassed by WP:PHARM. --Scott Alter 02:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Finasteride

I am having a discussion with another editor as to whether we should be discussing non-approved indications for the drug in the lead section. Please comment on the talk page. JFW | T@lk 17:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

The unreferenced articles related to your project can be found at >>>Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Archive 4/Unreferenced BLPs<<<

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Thank you.

Update: Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Archive 4/Unreferenced BLPs has been created. This list, which is updated by User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects daily, will allow your wikiproject to quickly identify unreferenced living person articles.

There maybe no or few articles on this new Unreferenced BLPs page. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot, you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions.

If you have any questions or concerns, visit User talk:DASHBot/Wikiprojects. Okip 00:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Mirtazapine

Anyone have any views on how to sort this section out?Mirtazapine#Indications I am tempted to do mass deleting but I don't know enough about the drug to know what are notable off-label uses and what is improper use of primary sources. It has been sitting in this state for months, maybe a year or more.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:19, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Yikes! I'd go for a pretty extensive deleting. I'd suggest finding the FDA drug label online, and emphasizing the on-label uses, and maybe listing a few off-label ones that are related to the on-label uses and are supported by multiple peer-reviewed references. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Yea I know, yikes indeed. Thanks for your reply Trypofish, I am starting to get brain fatigue at the moment and need to sleep soon but hopefully in the next day or two I will find a spare couple of hours to read over reviews and FDA drug labels. I was kind of hoping someone would have good knowledge of the drug and could delete instinctively. If not then I need to put on my literaturegeek hat, and start reading, ugh.:-(--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:24, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah well, better you than me. Thanks for doing it. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, you need to have Wiki project med watch listed. It was not I but another who did the good work.Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Mirtazapine :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Selective glucocorticoid receptor agonist: GA nomination

I nominated Selective glucocorticoid receptor agonist for GA review. This is my first nomination, so I basically have no idea whether this article stands a chance. Anyone wants to review it? Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Now a good article. I boldly rated it as high-importance. Anyone who is more familiar with importance rating, feel free to change this. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 19:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Is this accurate?

Pharmacopoeia#History, makes no mention of ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian medicine mentions it. This is way before Pliny the Elder's birth at 23CE.

• I mentioned this both in Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology & Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt.

Thanks, Marasama (talk) 16:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Added mention of Egypt, Edwin Smith Papyrus. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 16:05, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Messy and quasi-promotional articles

Any chance that someone has the time to look at these articles: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/L-Arginine Malate? Some of them might need an individual deletion discussion (I've already started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Synephrine hydrochloride (2nd nomination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dicreatine Malate (2nd nomination)‎), and all need heavy copyedit, and a good look at synonyms, formulae and stereochemistry. I'm off to bed now. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 20:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

GABAAergics Template

In "Volatiles/Gases" I see about a dozen of non-volatile compounds, e.g. hexapropymate (this is a carbamate), petrichloral, chloralose, bromides. --FK1954 (talk) 19:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Did some rearranging, mainly from "Volatiles" to "Others". Removed dithiothreitol and theanine – the former doesn't seem to be a hypnotic at all, the latter is more likely to be a direct agonist or a transporter ligand. I left some strange specimens for the time being: Ethanol is volatile, but usually taken orally. Methanol is toxic. Menthol?? Also, I'm not sure about the aldehydes. In one word: Some more checking would be much appreciated. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:07, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment: Link from Drugbox to IUPHAR database entry

User:Chidochangu / User:Chido Mpamhanga who works with IUPHAR would like to include links from the IUPHAR ligand database to the corresponding Wikipedia articles. I was able to supply Chido a mapping (e.g., Flesinoxan ←→ Flesinoxan). In return, Chido has requested a cross link from Wikipedia ligand article back to the IUPHAR database entry. Before implementing this, I would like to solicit the Wikipedia Pharmacology community to see if there is support for adding an IUPHAR link to the {{Drugbox}} template. Cheers Boghog (talk) 18:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Support. --Arcadian (talk) 20:25, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I support too. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Stuff you smear on

We seem to have several overlapping articles:

• Ointment
• Cream (pharmaceutical)
• Topical
• Lotion (also Cold cream)

Should these be merged? Are there widely agreed-upon differences between these that simply haven't impinged yet upon my consciousness? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Your header title really caught my attention! :-) Anyway, yes, there are differences among the formulations, in terms of their physical properties. For example, an ointment, properly defined, has a thick, oily consistency, whereas a cream is, well, creamy. These distinctions are explained at topical. That said, a case can definitely be made for merging all of the others into topical. The question would be, for each case, whether there is enough encyclopedic material to justify a standalone article on the particular formulation, with a summary style mention at the parent topical. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

If these articles are all short they would work well all merged into topical than redirected there. Then the slight differences could be easily contrasted. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I got started just now, but am out of time. Please feel free to build on the first steps, or to ping me if I forget to get back to this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Images of medications

It would be useful to have images of all medication from both sides. We often get people who are unconscious or confused and we have to identify what pills they have in their pockets. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:01, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, no one should use Wikipedia to be making life-or-death decisions. There are other sources, such as the PDR. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

While I have no objection to providing images that show both sides of a pill (and providing alt text with a description of any text on the pills), there are so many pills in the world that I think a comprehensive database would require an enormous amount of work and be well beyond Wikipedia's scope. That's probably a task for a major poison control center or drug regulation agency. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Advert?

Could someone have a look at Berocca? I'd rather have this deleted altogether, or at least have it severely pruned. Any other views? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Therapeutic index

I request comments from people with more experience in this subject than me here. I suspected that therapeutic index would have some advantageous uses in the drugbox, but another user disagrees, and thus I'd like to welcome other users to place their opinions. I'm by no means an expert on pharmacology so any opinions are welcome. Obviously I don't want to go requested an edit of the template without any consensus and with some contention! Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  22:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm on my way over there. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I'd still appreciate a few more thoughts on the matter before I put in a request to an administrator. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  01:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Peak (pharmacology)

Should this really be an article? It seems like it's really just a definition, and a full encyclopedia article will really be nothing more than a stub? WTF? (talk) 18:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you are right. It would be entirely reasonable to take it to AfD. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively it could be merged with C_max. Boghog (talk) 19:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

That might be better, in fact. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

C_max seems like all it will be is a definition as well, which might be more suited to something like wiktionary, but not an encyclopedia. WTF? (talk) 19:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

On third thought, that's true. I'm beginning to realize that there are a whole mess of pages like these that should probably all be merged to pharmacokinetics. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:49, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I think there is enough material on C_max to justify its own article (relevance to side effects, estimation of rate of adsorption, bioequivalent measurements, etc.). I am not an expert in pharmacokinetics, but I have made a start on expanding the article. Boghog (talk) 20:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

If no one objects, I plan to merge Peak (pharmacology) into pharmacokinetics by Monday, June 7. I'll leave C_max where it is for now. WTF? (talk) 17:25, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I was bold and already merged Peak (pharmacology) into C_max. If C_max in turn is merged into pharmacokinetics, then a number of related terms such as bioavailability, clearance, half-life, and volume of distribution should be mentioned along side of C_max. The aticles for some of these related concepts are quite extensive and it would not be appropriate to merge these into pharmacokinetics, but including a short definition for all of these terms I think would be appropriate. Boghog (talk) 17:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I wish you didn't do that. Personally, I'd rather Peak and Cmax just all be merged into pharmacokinetics. We're not really providing definitions here, that's not what an encyclopedia is for. I think Cmax should now be merged. WTF? (talk) 17:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

As I stated above, I think there is enough material on C_max to justify its own article. I have made a start on expanding it and will continue to expand it further so that it is more than just a definition. Boghog (talk) 18:25, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I seriously would not waste your time on it. Anything relevant you can find would go much, much further being added to the pharmacokinetics article. The other problem with having Cmax in its own article is it presents the issue of a content fork developing, which Wikipedia policies strongly advise against. WTF? (talk) 23:17, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you meant to refer to content forking. The C_max and Peak (pharmacology) articles were redundant and therefore it was appropriate to merge them. I don't think C_max could be considered a POV fork of pharmacokinetics, since the subject matter is not particularly controversial. C_max could be considered an article spinout which is a permissible type of content fork. There are a number of pharmacokinetic parameters (AUC: area under the curve, bioavailability, C_max, C_min, clearance, half-life, volume of distribution, etc.) that should be briefly described in the pharmacokinetics article. Some of these parameters such bioavailability and clearance have quite extensive articles written about them and it would be clearly inappropriate to merge these in their entirety into the pharmacokinetics article. The C_max and C_min articles currently are very short and if not expanded, I would agree that they should be merged into pharmacokinetics. If they are expanded however, there is no a priori reason why they should not have their own article. Boghog (talk) 04:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I share WikiTango's skepticism that there is really enough material to justify a standalone page, but I agree with Boghog that there are no fork issues about this. Overall, I'm willing to wait and see what sources Boghog can come up with to justify expanding the page beyond a definition, and if it satisfies WP:NOTABILITY, that will be fine with me. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Can't search for ATC codes

Coming back to an old discussion (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pharmacology/Archive 3#Can't search for ATC codes), I'd like to create redirects from 5th level ATC codes to drug pages, as well as from 3rd and 4th level codes to the corresponding sections in the ATC lists (ATC code A01 etc.). The bot could also add {{anchor}}s to section headers in the lists, to avoid breaking if a header changes. Would this bot task be supported here? Any comments or suggestions? Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Just for your information: The bot has run a trial. Results can be seen at Special:Contributions/PotatoBot and Category:Redirects from ATC codes. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing pharma trial results posters

Is there official policy concerning the use of pharmaceutical trial results posters as primary sources? Here is one such poster; it's a PDF. In this case, the file is hosted on the pharma company's Web site; it was presented at a scholarly conference after passing peer review. Also, what should we call such documents? Abstracts? Promotional material? Please advise. MatthewBurton (talk) 19:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The most relevant guideline is WP:MEDRS#Other_sources, which recommends caution.

Conference peer review ranges from non-existent to reasonably acceptable; I don't know what standard posters were held to in this particular conference.

The usual concern with posters is WP:Recentism, especially if this is supposed to de-bunk a better supported claim ("All the reliable sources say X, but this shiny poster says Y!"). With a poster presentation in 2008, though, I don't know whether that's relevant. It does make me wonder whether this data has since been presented in a properly published journal article... and if not, it would be interesting to know why not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that posters presented at conferences go through "peer review" in the same sense that journal articles are peer reviewed. The abstracts do most likely go through some sort of review prior to the conference, but the data and conclusions generally do not go through any review whatsoever. Since it's posted on a corporate website, I'm sure the corporation reviewed it themselves, though as we all know, sometimes corporations can be deceiving,. . .

However, the data is probably ok, but caution should still be exercised. Nevertheless, I've seen posters being included as sources in peer-reviewed publications, so I wouldn't think there's any reason for Wikipedia to automatically ban them, either. If someone does have a problem with the data used in it, they can bring it up on the talk page or by contacting the authors directly.

At the very least, if the citation is included at all, it needs to have the full author information, title, date presented, as well as the conference presented. WTF? (talk) 21:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

This very same issue had already been discussed here (see Proposed text updates to prulifloxacin page) when Kdrichards attempted to use these same promotional materials in the same manner as MatthewBurton (talk) is now attempting to do within the same article. It is to be noted that MatthewBurton (talk) stated that he is also being paid by the sponsor’s advertising agency to make these edits; just as Kdrichards had.

Within these previous discussions I believe that the consensus reached was that the use of this material was inappropriate. Which I had communicated to MatthewBurton (talk) who appears to be appealing this prior decision. He is objecting to my removing these promotional materials from the article and replacing them with published neutral third party articles that make reference to the promotional material, rather than the promotional material itself. Which I would consider to be an acceptable and reasonable compromise. MatthewBurton (talk) disagrees.

This is the pertinent text upon which I had based my opinion that the use of these promotional materials presented at a conference, material that is based upon the results of clinical trials that has yet to be peer reviewed or published, was inappropriate:

Fvasconcellos (t·c) stated that: “…studies (whether they are published articles or poster sessions) should be cited directly instead of the manufacturer's web page. “

WhatamIdoing (talk) stated that: “…I'd also like to see high-quality journal articles cited instead of (or in addition to) the manufacturer's websites….”

The Sceptical Chymist (talk) stated that: “…Krichards, the proposed text is based entirely on press-releases. This is inappropriate since multiple peer-reviewed sources on prulifloxacin exist. If placed in the main space, the text is likely to be challenged and removed. For the standards of sourcing in medical articles please see WP:MEDRS….”

In response to these comments Kdrichards stated: “…Thanks, all. I'm happy to go back and provide more specific citations. Updates to come soon. KDR …” (no such updates were ever made)

It is also the policy of the leading medical journals NOT to publish articles dealing with the results of clinical trials if the results had not been previously published. Here we are dealing with promotional material regarding studies to which no results have been published to date. Additionally a portion of the contents of this material is clearly contradicted within filings made with the United States Security and Exchange Commission by the sponsor of the study, which would render its use as a reliable source to be frivolous.

Additionally I can find no evidence that this material had ever been peer reviewed, contrary to the statements being made here by MatthewBurton (talk).

The authors of the promotional material in question are:

H.L. DuPont who works for the University of Texas–Houston School of Public Health and Medical School where he received from various donors, and clinical trials concerning the use of antibiotics in acute diarrhea, $500,000/year. Within his Curriculum Vitae he makes no mention of any association with the drug’s sponsor. He has written about a dozen articles over the years concerning the fluoroquinolones and their use to control diarrhea.

Z.D. Jiang was the Co-Investigator in both trials and works for St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas;

OPT-099-001 DuPont (PI) 02/15/2006 – 10/31/2006

Advanced Biologics $2,149,388

“A Multicenter, Double-Blind, Randomized Study To Compare The Safety

And Efficacy of Prulifloxacin Versus Placebo In The Treatment of

Acute Bacterial Gastroenteritis In Adult Travelers; Protocol OPT-099-

001;Phase 3”

OPT-099-002 DuPont (PI) 10/01/2006 – 02/28/2007 10%

Advanced Biologics $296,400

“A Multicenter, Double-Blind, Randomized Study To Compare The Safety

And Efficacy Of Prulifloxacin Versus Placebo In The Treatment Of

Acute Gastroenteritis In Adult Travelers, Protocol OPT-099-002;

Phase 3”

R.B. Walsh works for Optimer, the drug’s sponsor.

If those who have commented on the request to include company sponsered promotional material as a valid reference now believe its use to be acceptable, having been made aware of the factual circumstances concerning its orgins, I will not object any further. But it is my position that in this specific case this continues to be inappropriate for two reasons. The first being the fact that multiple peer-reviewed sources on prulifloxacin exists, and secondly there are other valid third party references that could be (and have been) subsituted without harm. Davidtfull (talk) 05:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It is a very frequent practice to first present results in the form a a poster and/or talk at a meeting and then follow-up with a publication in a peer-review journal. Most journals will allow publication after a poster presentation since a poster presentation represents a preliminary disclosure of the results that lacks the detail of a full paper. Before adding a poster citation to a Wikipedia article, one should of course check to see if the same material has been published in a journal and if found use the citation to the journal article instead. If not, I think including a citation is permissible, especially if the poster is a very recent one since there may have not been enough time for the full paper to have published. Boghog (talk) 05:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The studies being discussed were completed two years ago and the results have not been published to date. Nor have the results been disclosed on the FDA clinical trial website as required. The only place that the prelimanry results of these two trials are to be found is on the sponsor's website. They have not been published anywhere else to my knowledge. Nor has there been any explanation given as to why the results have not been published.Davidtfull (talk) 01:32, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Fall under definition of self-published sources [2] because the abstracts are not usually peer-reviewed. Acceptable if published by established experts.Biophys (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Cancer info on Wikipedia

This Washington Post article might be of some interest to editors over here. The short version: "Good news: Wikipedia's cancer information is generally accurate. Bad news: It's hard to read." WTF? (talk) 02:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Tetrasil

I have nominated for deletion an article, tetrasil, that may be of interest to members of this project. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tetrasil to contribute to the discussion. ChemNerd (talk) 00:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Stovaine (amylocaine) and Novocaine (procaine)

Hello. I set the following message two months ago on Talk:Procaine. Without any reaction by any contributor, as far as I can see, I copy it here. Regards. Thierry (talk) 08:12, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

It is not true that Procaine was “first injectable man-made local anesthetic”: Stovaine was discovered first, in 1903, by fr:Ernest Fourneau. Would you have a look on French article fr:amylocaïne ? And please, would you see French book : Christine Debue-Barazer, « Les implications scientifiques et industrielles du succès de la Stovaïne. Ernest Fourneau (1872-1949) et la chimie des médicaments en France », in Gesnerus 64, 2007 (It seems to me that there is an English version of this text in the same issue of the revue).

I lament I am not able, as you can see, to write in an easy enough English to change the article to this way, and I have to let it done by an English contributor. Regards. --Thierry (talk) 21:38, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

You can refer to : Marie-Thérèse Cousin, L'anesthésie réanimation en France. Des origines à 1965, préface de Maurice Cara, L'Harmattan, Coll. "Sciences et société", 2005 p. 313 :

"Deux nouveaux anesthésiques locaux relancèrent l'anesthésie localisée que la toxicité de la cocaïne avait menacé de faire disparaître. 1°) Le chlorhydrate d'amyléine (amine dérivée de la cocaïne) ou Stovaïne synthétisé en 1903 par Ernest Fourneau (1872-1949), pharmacologue de l'Institut Pasteur. Les essais cliniques furent confiés à Reclus et pour la rachianesthésie, dès commercialisation de la Stovaïne, à Tuffier, qui publia ses 80 premiers cas en 1905. La Stovaïne fut bientôt détrônée par la procaïne (Novocaïne, encore baptisée Syncaïne, Scurocaïne, Allocaïne) synthétisée en 1905 par l'Allemand Alfred Einhorn."

And you can also refer, on site of [E.S.P.C.I] , to François Tillequin, François-Hugues Porée, De la plante au médicament, Faculté de Pharmacie - Paris V, 22 Janvier 2007 :

"C’est au pharmacien français Ernest Fourneau (1872-1949) que revient le mérite de la conception et de la synthèse en 1903 du premier anesthésique local non psychotrope, la stovaïne, qui sera commercialisée par Poulenc Frères dès 1904. La voie était ouverte pour le développement des anesthésiques locaux et un second dérivé, la procaïne (novocaïne®), préparée par Alfred Einhorn en 1905, connaît également un succès commercial immédiat."

--Thierry (talk) 16:52, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Will do. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Discussion continues at Talk:Procaine. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:06, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Crizotinib

The new-ish Wikipedian ScienceRulz2012 (talk · contribs) has created the article Crizotinib, and asked for my help in developing it.

I think it is within the remit of this project group, so I added the project on the talk page, with an initial assessment of start class/low priority.[3]

I would be very grateful if anyone could look at the article, possibly change the assessment, and make comments on the talk page. Best,  Chzz  ►  16:27, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Request for help regarding Loratadine article

Loratadine

I'd like to request an expert to take a look at this article. I'm not convinced the text regarding the controversy surrounding it's efficacy is detailed enough, or that the text matches what the source says. There are some comments on the talk page about this, and I have added the experts needed template. If this is not your domain, could you please send a note to whoever it is? Thank you. Forkhandles (talk) 17:37, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done – Thanks for the notification! --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 19:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Fluoxetine and US/world brand names

Hi, all. In Australia, fluoxetine is sold under the generic name of Lovan, but the name Lovan is not anywhere in the article. I note that the manual of style recommends listing 'all applicable brand names'.

However, I have been told by aficionados of this project that this is not the policy in practise. I have tried to add brand names in the past and been told not to do this.

It is mentioned in the opening paragraph that fluoxetine is sold under the name Sarafem (in the US), but this is only for one indication -PMS. I think that if this project is going to be helpful, it ought to list all the brand names, and brand names from countries other than the United States. Lay people can very easily get confused about what their medications are. (And the pharm companies encourage this, I reckon, in order to differentiate premium brands). So what's the official word on brand names? - Richard Cavell (talk) 13:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)/Archive5#Trade names for a start. Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Style guide, where the "all applicable brand names" comes from, is unfortunately out of date in some parts. I'm not very happy with omitting brand names either, but the fact is that well-known drugs like fluoxetine can have literally hundreds of brand names if you count the non-US ones, and such lists wouldn't be to helpful for our readers, too. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I understand there may be hundreds of brand names. I still feel that the article is incomplete without it. The brand names may be notable on their own - for example, there may be litigation against one brand name in one country. Also, I think that the choice of names is currently a bit US-centric. - Richard Cavell (talk) 05:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The current policy is to add the initial brand name(s) to the lead, so I think the choice is not a matter of US-centricity – Prozac supposedly was the first registered brand. If there is a notable litigation against one brand name, there should be a section or paragraph about it, mentioning the concerned name of course.

Having said that, I certainly won't revert you if you add further names; I'd just assume you are using COMMON sense. But please don't add them to the lead section: even starting a list of three or four names tends to yield outcomes such asthis (and I've seen worse), which renders the lead almost unreadable besides being dead ugly. Even Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Style guide, outdated as it might be, recommends adding them to a section further down (e. g. a section Brand names near the end of the article). --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 10:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

My first instinct (and I'm not a member, contributor or knowledgeable person about drugs) would be to use disambiguation pagesand redirects but that only helps at a certain level. Has a List of brand names of Prozac page ever been suggested? A bit of overkill perhaps (particularly given the thousands to millions of pharmaceuticals and brand names), but still useful, informative and probably comprehensive, particularly if done in table format:

Brand name	Country
Lovan	Australia[1]

It could easily be sourced, and as a list it's not cluttering up the main page while still being both useful and informative. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Redirects for the main brand names are recommended, but redirecting from a name that isn't mentioned in the lead section of the target article only confuses the readers. Dabs like Lovan are fine but only feasible if the word has different meanings as well.

As for the list: It would have to be List of fluoxetine brand names to judge from the existing List of ibuprofen brand names andList of paracetamol brand names. Come to think of it, redirecting brand names to such a list (or to a section Trade names in the drug article) might make things clearer for readers than just redirecting to the top of the main article. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:34, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Another option would be using the drug infobox. Perhaps have an autohidden section at the bottom that expands to a list of alt. names in different countries. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Style guide update

For your information: I've updated Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Style guide. Any additional contributions and corrections welcome, of course. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Pharma stubs

I've started creating subtypes of {{pharma-stub}} per Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2009/June#Reorganisation of Pharmacology stub categories; see Category:Pharmacology stubs. In the process, I've nominated {{Antimicrobial-stub}} for deletion because it is superseded by the properly named{{Antiinfective-agent-stub}}.

Just for the record, I know I'm talking to myself. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:19, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, this talk is on my watchlist, and I do read all of your comments here, but I just don't have anything to add. :-)--Tryptofish (talk) 18:06, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

--ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 19:15, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

And two days before July 4! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:24, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

w00t w00t! Boghog (talk) 19:37, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, I may come back eventually, you know :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:44, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, guys, let's have a party :-) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Drug-free, of course! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:31, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

That's how the new stub templates look like. Feel free to tweak the text and change the images.

• {{Gastrointestinal-drug-stub}}
• {{Blood-drug-stub}}
• {{Cardiovascular-drug-stub}}
• {{Dermatologic-drug-stub}}
• {{Genito-urinary-drug-stub}}
• {{Systemic-hormonal-drug-stub}}
• {{Antiinfective-drug-stub}}
• {{Antineoplastic-drug-stub}}
• {{Musculoskeletal-drug-stub}}
• {{Nervous-system-drug-stub}}
• {{Respiratory-system-drug-stub}}

--ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 14:37, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Those look very good, and I'm impressed at the class-specific molecular structures! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to Ben Mills, I had these wonderfully 3D-ey space filling models at my disposal.--ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:21, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

MPA medroxyprogesterone compared to progesterone

I am having a discussion with another editor as to whether to include a reference to a review article which evaluates efficacy of MPA medroxyprogesterone compared to progesterone. Please comment on the talk page. UGAcodonUGAcodon (talk) 22:36, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

This looks like becoming an edit-war bioidentical hormone replacement therapy vs. "synthetic" hormones. Some eyes and hands would be really appreciated. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:04, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Sweet monkey Jesus, some extra hands and eyes would very much be appreciated. So far I have cited policies pretty extensively, and the response has been pharmanoia - conspiracy theory and unfounded conflict of interest accusations that fail to take into account the myriad sources that substantiate the points. Particularly aggravating is the direct comparison of progesterone and medroxyprogesterone with the unattributed conclusion that progesterone is "more effective", and this in the adverse effects section (as is the half-life of MP). WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of pharmanoia, didn't we actually find a few sources about that a year or two ago? Perhaps they could be found again and added as a short section to Chemophobia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find enough sources to pass WP:N for a separate article, and it's a neologism making it a suspect term overall. While I have seen it bandied about in a couple blogs, it doesn't seem to have caught on elsewhere. What I could scrape together can be foundhere. Not enough in my mind for either an article or even a user essay, but could be shoehorned into a separate article. The talk page has more sources, but I've never managed to move it somewhere else. WLU(t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Medroxyprogesterone versus Medroxyprogesterone acetate

Can someone tell me the difference between Medroxyprogesterone and Medroxyprogesterone 17-acetate? One is a progestin, one is apregnane, does that mean MPA is converted to progesterone in the body? Sources seem to use the two interchangeably as far as I can tell ([4]).

Cross-posted to WT:MED, feel free to shut this one down if the answer is better found over there. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:55, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Both are pregnanes (that' the steroid framework) and both are progestins (i. e. synthetic progesterone derivatives). The acetate is morelipophilic and is therefore better resorbable. It is split into medroxyprogesterone and acetate in the body. I'm not aware of medroxyprogesterone being used directly. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:02, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I can't quickly find any free sources to back this up, but MPA may act as a prodrug of medroxyprogesterone (for example to preventphase II metabolism). On the other hand, MPA itself may have appreciable binding affinity for the progesterone receptor and act as an agonist (see for example PMID 2479058). Also it is not clear how rapidly it is hydrolyzed. Hence it may not be a true prodrug. Finally MPA is the active ingredient of Depo-Provera which can be used as a injectable contraceptive whose effects last for months. Hence the reason for the acetate ester maybe to increase the hydrophobicity and thereby increase the half-life of the drug. Boghog (talk) 12:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks , if anyone is interested I've compiled the replies I got at WT:MED and the RD/S at talk:MPA. Someone suggested merging the two pages which might make things more interesting. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:38, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Trophy case update

I've updated the old "trophy case", adding Icos as a featured article on the main page recently, as well as added two former featured articles that appeared on the main page but are no longer FA (the FFA symbol was used here, to denote that they're no longer FA). A listing of current Good Articles has also been added below the FA list.

I also removed the manual listing of the most popular pages, since it hasn't been updated since August 2009. Plus, there's already a bot-generated list here, which was updated just a few days ago. That page is linked just below the article/page stats. WTF? (talk) 21:23, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Pricing information

I just removed the following paragraph from the itraconazole article:

Roughly 180 generic capsules costs $360. If a patient is prescribed three capsules twice daily for the minimum of three months, the patient would spend more than $1080 and consume over 540 capsules. The possible loss of motivation to spend thousands of dollars for continued use therefore constitutes a threat and a risk for the fungus to regrow in the body.

I'm bringing it here just in case such statements are more widespread. For a start, the pricing of drugs varies widely between countries, and the text of the paragraph does not mention that the quoted prices refer to the U.S. only: for example, I picked up a six-month prescription of itraconazole just this afternoon, and it cost me €40 (about US$30). Secondly, the dosage regime indicated in the example is a definitely a worst case scenario for generalized infections such as blastomycosis or histoplasmosis, not necessarily indicative of other uses of the drug. Even going on the prices quoted in the example, the treatment for normal candidiasis would work out at less than US$15, depending on the site of the infection... Physchim62 (talk) 00:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I certainly hope that price information is not widespread, and I agree with you about, generally, removing it. In addition, Wikipedia should not be serving as a provider of commercial information. I think the only instance in which prices should be regarded as encyclopedic is when secondary sources indicate that there has been a notable issue concerning pricing. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I've added that point to MEDMOS. It won't do any good for the anon who added this in 2006, but it will give the regulars something official to point at when they explain. I'll also post a note at WPMED, to remind folks to remove such information on sight. WhatamIdoing(talk) 16:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

L-methylfolate

Is L-methylfolate the same thing as 5-Methyltetrahydrofolate? I see some connection, but a websearch doesn't lead me to anything that definitively identifies them as the same thing. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:16, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

According to the ref on that page (PMID 17934378), L-methylfolate = 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (= metafolin). That fits the lead sentence (...the active form of folic acid). Strange name, though — I'm not sure what the INN is. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:12, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. I have put a merge tag on each of the articles. I can't find the INN (if there is one) either. --Ed (Edgar181) 17:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The INN is levomefolic acid (see [5]).Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Moved. Thanks --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 20:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of the move and merge. And thanks, Fv, for the INN. -- Ed (Edgar181) 21:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

EMC links

A new user, Ozybolairy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), has been adding electronic Medicines Compendium links to several articles. These additions were recently reverted per WP:NOTLINK, and while I initially thought this was a good idea, perhaps these links really are useful. Should we consider reinstating them? Maybe create an EMC template along the lines of {{DailyMed}}? Thoughts welcome.Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

My initial thoughts are that that site is a reliable source, it hosts Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) which are approved by the MHRA in the UK. I would not be opposed to it being made a template or those links being used for sourcing or as an external link.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for your replies and i would be very interested to know how to create a template to provide this information. Many Wiki medicine articles already use the electronic Medicines Compendium as a reference, but it is predominately for healthcare professionals. Therefore i propose that links could be added to the Medicine Guides which provides patient firendly versions of the SPC and is governed by regulatory bodies such as theMHRA, the ABPI and the NHS. Links could also be added to the eMC as well to cover both basis. What are your thoughts in progressing this further? Ozybolairy (talk) 10:32, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

To reply to your message on my talk page as well as here. I am not sure that they should by default be added to every pharmacology page as an external link. I think that the addition of an external link should still be on a case by case basis. There may be a good argument for including them on articles which are lacking in content. However, what I think would be much more preferable, as well as more productive is that it is used as a reliable source to develop articles. Many pharmacology articles are severely lacking in encyclopedic content, such as indications, contraindications, adverse effects and so forth, why not use this as a source to develop the articles?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 11:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Levodopa

I was having trouble finding an easy way to access the INN, I'm trying to clear up whether all refs to levodopa should be 'L-Dopa' ( I think levodopa is a commercial name ). I'd like to know how to double check for future and the INN seems a great idea, but not very user friendly - do I have to register to search it properly or is there an all in one list I missed ? cheers Lee∴V(talk • contribs) 11:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, "levodopa" is the INN. WHO publishes a list of all INNs periodically, but at $350, it's a little steep—you do have to register to access the MedNet system online, but I'm not familiar with the process, so I can't tell you whether it's simply a matter or registering or if you have to pay/send them an email to actually request access, etc.

A quick and dirty way to search for INNs is to just Google "drug name INN Martindale" (Martindale being Martindale: The complete drug reference). Even though it's a subscription service, headings are indexed by Google.

Finally, our List of drugs is accurate, so you can simply search for the INN right here.Fvasconcellos (t·c) 11:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The page has been moved back and forth, with this argument in favour of L-DOPA. Thoughts?--ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:39, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes, INN-or-not-INN is a meaningful distinction, but this one strikes me as a how-many-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin issue. After all, levo is what the L is an abbreviation for, and both names are very widely used and reasonably reader-friendly. As long as we have a redirect from the alternative name, I don't think it matters. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I can't say I care much either. It's the same argument behind the epinephrine vs. adrenaline debacle. Ideally, I'd like to see every title at the INN for internal consistency, but I can see how it would be a hard sell for articles whose subjects are primarily of biochemical, not pharmaceutical, importance. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Maybe we should add that distinction into the article (L-DOPA-natural, levadopa-synthetic)? In order to be consistent ourselves should I rename the full names in Levodopa-induced dyskinesia, Carbidopa/levodopa and a potential Benserazide/levodopato 'L-DOPA' ? Lee∴V (talk •contribs) 12:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

First: I agree with Fv and Tryptofish that we shouldn't put too much energy in the naming issue. The articles you mentioned are clearly about the pharmaceutical use, so I'd leave it at levodopa. Also, be careful with the wording of "L-DOPA-natural, levadopa-synthetic" — it shouldn't sound as if they were two different substances. It's more like "The INN levodopa is normally used when talking about the use as a drug, while in biochemical contexts the name L-DOPA is preferred." although I'm sure this could be phrased better.--ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry those were course words - I did intend the phrasing you've used! Will add ( with ref) when I find it...Lee∴V (talk •contribs) 13:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Have added 'When used in a pharmaceutical context, the INN designation 'levodopa' is normally used.' to the l-dopa article, many thanks for advice Lee∴V (talk •contribs) 11:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Prasugrel

I deleted much of Prasugrel that was a copyvio from http://www.rxlist.com/effient-drug.htm. The old text ishere, in case anyone wants to re-implement it in a non-copyvio fashion.--ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:46, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Zeranol

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask... I'm a wiki-newbie. I was just reading the article for Zeranol, and some basic internet browsing shows that it is approved for use in Canada. Sadly, I don't have access to any of the journal articles that mention use in Canada (like this one: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf9010005), so I can't cite any references to update the information, and updating without references is just bad. I have found some commercial websites that mention it, but I don't think commercial/vendor websites make very good references. Could someone with access to journals take a look at this and make the quick update? —Precedingunsigned comment added by LadyIslay (talk •contribs) 05:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Theoretically, this is the right place. No one with access to the article the lady has mentioned? --ἀνυπόδητος(talk) 15:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Not me... but a Google-indexed passage of the article does say "Zeranol has been approved for use in Canada, which has established administrative maximum residue limits (AMRLs) of 2 and 10 μg/kg in cattle". If no one here has access, you can always ask at the Resource Exchange—someone over there will surely be able to help. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

About discovery of Sulfanilamide

Hello. I posted the following message sometimes ago on Talk page of Sulfanilamide. Without any reaction, I dare to transfer it here. Best regards. --Thierry (talk) 13:21, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

“Gerhard Domagk and Jacques and Therese Trefouel (1935) are generally credited with the discovery of sulfanilamide”

This sentence makes a confusion between discovery of Prontosil (sulfamidochrysoïdine), by German chemist Domagk at the beginning of year 1935, and later discovery, at the end of the same year, of sulfanilamide (p-aminophénylsulfamide), by French team Jacques andThérèse Tréfouël, Federico Nitti and Daniel Bovet, in laboratory of Ernest Fourneau at Pasteur Institute. Lesulfamide or 1162 F (F as the first letter of Fourneau) is a metabolic part of Prontosil, the only one effective against bacteria.Sulfamidothérapie really began when this active agent had been isolated at Pasteur Institute.

I am myself not able to contribute in such bad English you can read here, so I pray you to mention the fact. You may refer to your pageSulfonamide (medicine) or Sulfa drug and to French articles fr:Ernest Fourneau, fr:Gerhard Domagk,fr:Antibiotique sulfamidé, fr:Daniel Bovet, fr:Prontosil, fr:Institut Pasteur. Regards.

You make an excellent point, and this should indeed be remedied. If anyone's interested in working this into the articles, some useful online English-language sources are Pharmaceutical achievers: the human face of pharmaceutical research (chapter 5, freely available on Google Books) andThe First Miracle Drugs(JAMA review).

Interestingly, I've been meaning to write about one of Bovet's other achievements (suxamethonium) for quite a while now :)Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:28, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Bonjour, et merci à Fvasconcellos... for his attention to my post. I am not a chemist, but I am interested in history of French pharmacology during first half of twentieth century, and I would be pleased if you asked me, in the rare cases where you could think I am able to help.

About Daniel Bovet and his works on "autonomic nervous system" and "neuromuscular transmission", you have the full text of his Nobel Lecture on the subject at the following address: Daniel Bovet,Nobel Lecture, 1957.

About Daniel Bovet and "sulfa drugs", I don't think there is a clearer and more complete source of information than Une chimie qui guérit: Histoire de la découverte des sulfamides, Payot, 1988. As far as I know, this book has not been translated to English. But it has to be verified. Cordialement. --Thierry (talk) 16:07, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Dopamine reuptake inhibitors

Template:Dopamine reuptake inhibitors has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 14:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Biopharmaceutical

I've proposed moving Biopharmaceutical to Biopharmaceutical drug. Since the article is within the scope of this project, you may wish to comment at Talk:Biopharmaceutical#Requested move. --RexxS (talk) 09:01, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

FYI

Hi, as recommended by the expert template, I am bringing this to your attentions. The article prednisone is in sad shape. I also made a comment about this template on the talk page and found that this was the project that considers this of high importance. I hope to bring more eyes to the article to bring the article into better condition than it is at this time. I went to this article as a reader looking for what information it had not as an editor of the project. I hope some of you have time to look over this article that has had a template on it since 2008 for more citations that are verifiable. Most of the citations are in the info box and even one of those are marked with verify. I'd appreciate the help. I am not able to do this myself, sorry. I have a rule about my POV about subjects and this is one of them that I do not feel I can edit properly. Disclosure: I went to MastCell for help with this. Thanks in advance,--CrohnieGal^Talk 13:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Dispute over entry on Sipuleucel-T AKA Provenge

Dispute over Provenge entry

I have several friends with prostate cancer. The FDA has just approved the first cancer immunotherapy vaccine and it happens to be for prostate cancer. The treatment approval was heralded by the medical community as a significant breakthrough in cancer treatment, since researchers have been trying for decades to succeed in training the patient's immune system to attack cancerous cells--and Provenge is the first treatment to succeed and gain regulatory approval. Provenge was almost immediately accepted by the NCCN as first line treatment for advanced PC, and ASCO has strongly supported Medicare coverage for Provenge treatment to the CMS. The study which resulted in FDA approval was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Provenge significantly extended the lives of treated patients. The median extension of life was 4.1 months. At three years the Provenge group had 32% still alive and the "placebo" group 23%. This latter figure may understate the treatment effect, since patients were allowed to cross over to Provenge after their disease progressed--and 67.3% of placebo patients elected to do so. While the placebo cross overs vs. those who did not cross over was not randomized and thus was stated to require further study, the NEJM article did report that the "pure placebo" patients, who did not ever receive Provenge, only lived a median of 11.6 months vs. 25.8 months at median for the treatment group. The simple math says the treatment group advantage over "pure placebo" was 14.2 months.

I have tried several times to post an accurate "Provenge" entry setting out these facts, which are all verifiable from authoritative sources. I have also tried to explain in the entry the significance of the distinction between "median" and "mean", since the 4.1 month median life extension by Provenge is the halfway point in a series of numbers and not, as has been repeatedly inaccurately reported, the "average life extension". In fact, examining the graphs in the NEJM article clearly shows many men lived years longer than their life expectancies by Halabi nomogram. I have further tried to include the advantage over "pure placebo" data that is plainly set out in the NEJM article.

Nbauman in each instance has reverted my edits back to a version he wrote which is slanted and inaccurate. His version originally referred to "average life extension", removed all references to the distinction between "median" and "mean" (which he does not seem to understand), removed any reference to the treatment being a breakthrough--in spite of multiple sources characterizing it that way--and similarly removed all references to "significant" life extension, apparently substituting his inexpert judgment that "just" 4.1 months is not "significant", for that of again multiple authoritative medical sources pointing to the life extension achieved as the largest EVER in this patient population. He has also objected to the inclusion of the 14.2 month figure above ostensibly because my doing the math that 25.8 minus 11.6=14.2 is an unallowable "interpretation" of data, rather than a neutral statement of the same. I don't exactly understand what source I am supposed to cite for the proposition that 25.8-11.6=14.2.

In any event, I am only trying to post an accurate entry, and despite repeated exchanges in talk in which I have set out for him where he is wrong, he just goes and restores his earlier inaccurate version. I hope you will help resolve this. SaulK (talk) 17:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC)SaulKSaulK (talk) 17:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SaulK (talk • contribs)

Per WP:TLDR, please try to state your case succinctly. The adjective "breakthrough" is a WP:PEACOCK term and should be avoided, unless included in a direct quote from a reliable source. Furthermore one cannot conclude a 14.2 month survival advantage since the treated vs. untreated groups were not randomized. Boghog (talk) 21:14, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I need some help.

A new editor, SaulK, has opened a single-purpose account Special:Contributions/SaulK and edits articles about the drug sipuleucel-T(Provenge) and the company that makes it, Dendreon. He keeps making changes http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sipuleucel-T&diff=prev&oldid=379861385 that claim, or imply, that it's more effective than the studies say, while ignoring WP:RS andWP:OR. I've reverted him, other editors have reverted him, and he keeps reverting back. He has not been cooperative and he has someWP:EQ problems.

In looking for any WP:RS that would support his position, I found that SaulK himself has a blog which promotes Dendreon stock,http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/567205-saulk/86530-dendreon-updatehttp://seekingalpha.com/instablog/567205-saulk/80819-lessons-in-biotech-dendreon-the-next-amgen and that SaulK himself holds stock in Dendreon. This violates WP:COI, and should disqualify him from editing any articles on sipuleucel-T or Dendreon.

The technical issue is that sipuleucel-T was approved by the FDA for prostate cancer, on the basis of a phase III study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study said that sipuleucel-T extended median survival by 4.1 months.

Within the article, there is a discussion of a followup part of the study which SaulK interprets to mean that sipuleucel-T extended survival by 14.2 months in this subset. He's subtracting 2 numbers that aren't compatible. I believe, and Boghog believes, that this is WP:OR. In addition, there is no WP:RS that supports this interpretation -- not in peer-reviewed journals or reports in major newspapers. Most of the Google hits on this issue are blogs in which SaulK himself makes that claim.

He discussed this in detail on my user page User_talk:Nbauman#Sipuleucel-T

Could an admin take a look at this? -- Nbauman (talk) 22:32, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion about pathways templates

Users here may be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology/Proposals#Adding interactive pathway maps, which may affect page content at pages involved in this project. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Haloperidol article kind of written like a conspiracy theory

Hi guys, So I'm not a member of this portal nor do I use Wikipedia very often, but the Haloperidol page is not well sourced, parts of it are written in broken English, and it makes unverifiable claims/claims that misunderstand the sources (that are not cited, by the way). Example: There was a paragraph stating something along the lines of "some studies have found that it causes large brain lesions." I couldn't find any sources, although I suppose that since there are articles about the use of Haloperidol on mice that have brain lesions, doi:10.1007/BF00431935 and there are articles comparing the effects of Haloperidol to brain lesions, someone who, say, isn't fluent in English might misinterpret them. Also, this sentence: "Haloperidol is not devoid of potential psychological dependence. However, due to the debilitating side effects,patients prescribed this drug have a high rate of non-compliance." (not sourced, by the way)

If you take a look at the discussion page, you'll find that there was someone who had, err, shall we say, strong opinions about the drug, and who is not fluent in English.

Can someone here maybe check that page out? Thanks! CaTigeReptile (talk) 13:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. The talk page sludge is a couple of years old, so I'm not too worried about that, but I looked at some recent edits (other than yours) and realized that they should be reverted. I'll try to look more carefully at the page when I have more time, but it would be good if other editors would put eyes on it as well. I'll also put a note at the Medicine WikiProject page.--Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Cephalexin?

A bit of a war brewing between myself and an IP over at Talk:Cefalexin. Apparently, the user is confused by the fact that the Australian and U.S. spelling are the same, while the INN (and new UK spelling) differ. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Xyrem

Another article needing attention: Xyrem. Should this be merged with gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (which also contains some information about Xyrem), moved to gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (drug), or...? Anyway, the Xyrem article looks rather like an advertisement to my taste. Any suggestions? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge with gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid would be the best approach I'd say seeing as the non-drug uses of GHB are fairly minimal.Meodipt (talk) 10:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Being discussed at Talk:Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid/Archive 1#Merge discussion. Comments welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:41, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Pharmacology articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject'sarticles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, withyour WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Propose Addition of Fluarix and Flulaval Articles

Hi, I work for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the United States as a Medical Information Scientist. I have been engaging on the Cervarix talk page with the intent to provide information to the editors of Wikipedia for their use in the article. I would like to propose the addition of articles for the GlaxoSmithKline influenza vaccines, Fluarix and Flulaval. I believe that it is important to provide safety and clinical information about the vaccines for this upcoming flu season. Additionally, I have noted that many of the other influenza vaccines have a dedicated article. If article stubs are created, I can provide information about the products in accordance with the Wikipedia Manual of Style for Medicine Related Articles.

I have also posted this request on WikiProject Medicine, as it is not clear to me where this type of request should go. Thank you.Maitri Shah, PharmD, GSK (talk) 19:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

If they are notable vaccines, I don't see any reason why the articles cannot be created. You can create articles yourself if you like. If you don't know how to create articles I or someone else can explain how to do it and any other help or tips you need.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Literaturegeek. Since I have a conflict of interest (COI) as an employee of GSK, would the correct approach be for a Wikipedian without a COI to add stubs for the articles, and I can propose content on the talk pages of the articles created? Maitri Shah, PharmD, GSK (talk) 20:31, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why someone with a COI could not create new articles. I would say go ahead and create articles and if anything goes wrong blame me! :-) I should state though that on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine that Doc James pointed out that articles should be started under their generic names rather than brand names. Brand names can be mentioned and placed in bold in the first paragraph of an article.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Blaming Literaturegeek is a good last resort. :-D Before that, just be sure that everything you add is well-sourced and presented in a manner that does not read as though it is promotional. (And keep an eye on the articles after you create them, and be prepared to put a "hangon" notice on them, along with a thoughtful explanation, in the event that they are marked for speedy deletion.)--Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Guanylate cyclase-C receptor

According to various sources, the guanylate cyclase-C receptor is the target of the drug linaclotide. Any idea what this receptor is? Do we have a page about it/its gene? Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we do! That would be Guanylyl cyclase c. See e.g. PMID 14748740 and PMID 15825168.Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

By the way, doi:10.3390/toxins2092213 is probably a good secondary source for writing a background section.Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:21, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Boghog and I thought so too, but weren't certain. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Category:Monoclonal antibody pages needing a picture for deletion

Nominated Category:Monoclonal antibody pages needing a picture for deletion. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 October 7#Category:Monoclonal antibody pages needing a picture. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:36, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Anatomy of an Epidemic

Eyes needed on Anatomy of an Epidemic, Talk:Anatomy of an Epidemic. Thanks --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Discovery and development articles

Our Icelandic friends are again busy creating high quality "Discovery and development" (D&D) articles (see discovery and development of melatonin receptor agonists for a recent example). I think these articles are great, but the article titles IMO are a little long-winded. There previously was a discussion about these titles here and the consensus at that time was to name the articles "Discovery and development of _____" . On the other hand, several of these article titles were shortened by consensus (see Talk:Cannabinoid_receptor_antagonist for example).

Per WP:TITLE, "conciseness – shorter titles are often preferred to longer ones." In addition, the scope of these articles is broader than just D&D. Hence I suggest that article names be shortened by dropping the D&D from the beginning of the title. Does this sound reasonable? Boghog (talk) 22:04, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

For me, the bottom line is what is the most useful for our readers, and for that reason, I would agree with you that it would be better to shorten the titles. Relatively few readers will look for a title starting with D&D, but they will look for the drug class name. One exception, however: the D&D prefix should be retained if there is a page about the drug class in general, and another page focusing on the discovery—although in that case, I'd probably restrict the title to just "Discovery", and I'd probably also favor merging that article into a "discovery" section within the main page, unless there is a very notable story associated with the discovery. --Tryptofish(talk) 23:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree, I think there must be a project going on somewhere where people have been given the task of writing these D&D articles, I found out about the onebelow after a post at WP:COIN where someone pointed out it has something to do with the Icelandic FDA. Looking at the previous thread linked above, it looks to be an annual thing. SmartSE (talk) 12:08, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table orby categories andthe index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Health effects of Caffeine article

I'm not really sure if this is the place to bring it, but there's a new article, Health effects of caffeine, that seems to cover the same content as Caffeine#Pharmacology, although the main article's section looks like it has more detail and better sourcing. Given that the caffeine article is pretty long, it doesn't seem unreasonable to break it off and merge that into the new article. One thing that does seem user-friendly about the new one is the list of pro/con, but it seems a bit out of Wiki style. Thoughts? ~rezecib ^(talk) 02:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Sure, it's fine to ask here. I took a quick and superficial look at it, and I don't see a particularly major problem, and there is probably more than one way to go. The section within Caffeine certainly seems better written and sourced, whereas the new page shows the signs of being a new and unfinished page. Nothing particularly wrong with that, just the need for more editing, including the need to expand the lists into paragraphs and for some better sourcing and balance. On the other hand, one could perhaps make arguments for merging the new page into the older one, or for merging the section of the older page into the new one, which could be discussed on their respective talk pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Discovery and development of dual serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors

I've just noticed Discovery and development of dual serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors which was created a few days ago by a newbie. It's a great article, but I've proposed it is merged with Serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor athere, where your comments would be welcome. I'd like to get this done quickly as we should be able to feature the new article at DYK. Bollocks, the article has already been in DYK 6 years ago! Oh well, comments on the merge would still be appreciated. Thanks SmartSE (talk) 00:19, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Mad in America

Hi all. Mad in America is a new article in the DYK queue. Your input is welcome. Tryptofish and ἀνυπόδητος both commented onAnatomy of an Epidemic by the same author so thus I post this note. Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 04:47, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

verification

The verification process, in which we try to verify the data displayed in the chembox (more informationhere), is making quite some progress. We started off months ago verifying all the CASNo's, but that has stalled now (partially due to manpower, partially due to not many more pages being available on commonchemistry, which makes verification of CASNo's more difficult).

In the meantime we made contact with the FDA, who have given us a long list of UNIIs (Unique Ingredient Identifiers), which I have since (on the basis of the verified CASNo's) incorporated into our articles (note: not all compounds have a UNII, for those the field is verified to be blank - it is still a verified value).

ChemSpider provided us with a large list of pages for which the ChemSpiderID was verified, and some have noticed the long run of script assisted edits in which I updated the CSID's. Another set was done by hand and those were done in the same run. This week I made a checklist of compounds which did not have a verified CSID but did have a verified CASNo, and I am pleased to announce that I now verified for all of those the CSIDs.

Hence, CheMoBot now follows CAS numbers, ChemSpiderIDs and UNII (note: only the first CASNo, UNII and ChemSpiderID are verified and (should) point to the correct isomer/composition&c., the others are, at the moment, not included in the process, they may be flagged butnot via CheMoBot). This now enables to semi-automatically fill the StdInChI and StdInChIKey fields from ChemSpider, which then really enables image verification and verification of physical data (within the limits of the accuracy of physical data) as we really know what compound the page is talking about. When all the StdInChIs and StdInChIKeys are set for the verified compounds, I will also make the bot follow those appropriately.

To put it in numbers: 2571 of 6815 pages with a chembox are verified for CAS, UNII and CSID (37.7%); 1227 of 4697 pages with a drugbox (26.1%). Our list of ChemSpiderIDs is 7459 items long (but that contains 'duplication').

I am making this announcement here, so I get a wider public: please, when you encounter pages which have all three correct, but which have not been indexed in Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Index or Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Index, then add a revid with the correct values to the appropriate index (manuals there). The more we get there, the more correct StdInChI's we can get, and the more data we can properly verify to the correct compounds. Also, there may be cases where there are mistakes, I would be pleased if you would either point me to them, or repair them (and update the index as needed). CheMoBot will do the rest (in terms of notifying you of unverified data). It would of course be our goal to get to a near 100% coverage in the end, and you can be of help there. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:12, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Prescription fraud

I'd like to recommend an article for Prescription fraud. This is becoming a major problem and I was surprised there wasn't already an article on this. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk •Work} 15:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would be a good idea, you can create such an article yourself if you like.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 05:05, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Nomenclature of monoclonal antibodies: History

I have nominated Nomenclature of monoclonal antibodies for GA. A short history section would be nice (or at least a sentence about when it was introduced). Does anybody know about some sources? Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Found source. Never mind. Nevertheless, reviewers are welcome. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Enoxaparin sodium

I just redrew a drug structure for Enoxaparin_sodium. As my source, I want to "the horse's mouth" (Sanofi) and I found this video:[6]. The old image ishere. I see missing stereochemistry, but more seriously, the left hand ring appears to be missing some functionality (it is not a sugar derivative). Compared to my structure, it's also the free acid (OK, but doesn't match article name), and the dihydrofuran ring at the end of mine is replaced with an acetamide (like in heparin, I believe). I understand that the actual drug is a complex mixture, but we should be able to show something that approximates to the correct structure. Any thoughts? I'm also contacting people at Sanofi and ChemSpider. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 04:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting this! I've marked the old image with {{Disputed chem}} which led to correction within a few minutes. Would you care to compare the two formulae? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that new one looks to be very good; and very fast! I'm glad the other languages now have a decent structure. I've got some comments from ChemSpider recommending this structure, but I'm awaiting more feedback (most notably from Sanofi themselves) before I make any changes. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 15:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Letting pharmaceutical companies redirect their trade names

There are a lot of trade names of drugs that should be redirected to the proper article (usually having the generic/International Nonproprietary Name). I'm having the idea that pharmaceutical companies could be advised to make those redirects themselves. I'm a little bit skeptic myself about capitalist involvement, but I don't see how it would harm the project. After all, it's better than having them making separate stubs of those trade names, as they are probably doing right now anyway. Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

As long as (1) they don't clutter up lead sections by adding all the trade names and (2) don't replace existing disambigs (like Ella) or other pages with redirects, I don't see a problem. Just help watching out they don't use the opportunity to "steamline" the articles while they are at it. (Yes I know I'm a bit pessimistic today.) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that. But I'm not comfortable with "pharmaceutical companies could be advised". What would this "advising" entail? I have no objection if an editor happens to show up and create a useful redirect, but an active effort to recruit such edits would be a bad idea.--Tryptofish (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

As an afterthought: Isn't there a database of trade names somewhere (EMA, FDA, WHO?) that a bot could use to create these redirects? Would be quicker and cleaner. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 06:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a better alternative if it's possible. I think your idea deserves a separate section. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Letting a bot redirect trade names to generic names

So, there are a lot of trade names of drugs that should be redirected to the proper article (usually having the generic/International Nonproprietary Name). It would help readers find the target and avoid the creation of essentially duplicate articles, and, after all,redirects are cheap. It has been suggested that a bot could be created that would create such redirects from databases of trade names. I'm sure it would be possible, but first, does anybody have any objection against such a bot? Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

No objection at all from me, from a content perspective. Of course, it would also have to go through WP:BAG.--Tryptofish (talk) 22:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course. My bot has already done some redirect jobs; I could adapt it for this type of work without problems. The only thing missing, technically, is a list of trade names to add. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 07:07, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

From what I've googled so far, I'd really like to see the trade names on the list by Cassandra M. Terrell at[7] redirected to their generic names. The Merck Manuals has a list too at [8] - apparently not as comprehensive as Terrell's, but may still complement with many names. However, I don't know what list format a bot prefers - would any of these be digestible by such a bot? Mikael Häggström (talk) 09:53, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Cassandra's list doesn't look very reliable to me (or I have got prejudices about what trade names look like): "ACTH" is given as a trade name for corticotropin, "Ammonia Water" for ammonia solution, "Atracurium Besilate" for atracurium besylate... is that possibly correct? The Merck list looks good to me (although I doubt that "Bayer" is a trade name for Aspirin).

The format isn't a problem. I think I will start coding over the next few days. Thanks for the links, Mikael!--ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:17, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Those are very limited lists (paracetamol alone is known under >160 different brand names). A better starting point could be using the drugbank links that are present in most pharmaceutical articles, and link all synonyms and brand names listed there. --WS(talk) 12:36, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Good idea! PubChem (paracetamol example) and/or DrugBank (paracetamol example) both appear to be very comprehensive sources. A bot may perhaps crawl through Wikipedia articles containing such boxes and redirect those trade names to that article. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:22, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Still, that list in the Merck Manuals may still be a start - just to make sure the most common names have redirects.Mikael Häggström (talk) 08:04, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll have to find out whether DrugBank has a method for accepting bot queries. The Merck list is no problem there and could be a nice way of testing the code. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 07:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Drugbank has its data available for download, although I don't know if that includes the synonyms, they might be in the flat files data set. --WS (talk) 23:42, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link! Yes, the trade names are in the flat file. Still, I'll run the Merck data first to test my code. By the way, the bot request for approval is filed here. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I wish you the best with the request for approval, ἀνυπόδητος. The function details look fine. I was also thinking, in case the generic name has no article, but one or more trade names do, then, perhaps it could be logged as well, so it could be corrected if needed?Mikael Häggström (talk) 09:41, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

It does, actually, although I didn't think of this possibility. (It logs all redirects it couldn't create because the page already existed.) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:53, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

That's great. Optimally, all trade names logged as such should be either moved or merged to the generic/INN name, but I think that has to be done manually. That task could perhaps be added at Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology#How you can help, something that might be suggested in that talk page once the log has started to grow. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:19, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

PotatoBot has finished adding trade names from the Merck index. Here is a log of (103) possible problems the bot detected. Many of them probably need attention – fixing redirects, merging articles under trade names into the ones under INNs, adding hatnotes, whatever. Help would be appreciated. Please strike any list items you have fixed or found to be ok. Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The list of edits is here. Feel free to fix any odd additions you find. --ἀνυπόδητος(talk) 19:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Great work. I'll have a look at the list later. --WS (talk) 20:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Too Many Templates

Please note this talk - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemistry#Too Many Templates - which is also affecting articles here. The combination of high template use in the Chembox/Drugbox, plus the high usage of templates in the refs are pushing pages to the limit as far as the wiki page processor can do. I have done some substitutions in the many Category:Drug templates, where sometimes literally hundreds of {{•}} templates were in place in each navbox (biggest was over 700), and now (I think) all pages render OK, but some pages are still very close to the limit - example Ketamine

<!-- 
NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 82168/1000000
Post-expand include size: 1951579/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 1269452/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 17/500
-->

Where before my corrections the Post-expand include size was 2048000/2048000 bytes - i.e the page processor had reached it's limit, and retaliated by not rendering the final two navboxes on the page. I don't know what else can be done, except maybe to make sure that future "improvements" do not add even more templates.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:53, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Amifostine

I'm doing some structure verification work, and came across a couple of comments requesting a mechanism of action. See Talk:Amifostine. The article mentions how it is activated from its prodrug form, but doesn't mention what it does. Can anyone from this project supply that information? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 02:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I've added such a section now. Mikael Häggström (talk) 08:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2011 (UTC)