Talk:Unnecessary Fuss

Error/Misleading Comment

The current version of this article contains the following statement: "One example was where an accidental water spill over a conscious baboon during a surgical procedure was identified, without evidence, as an acid spill. [1]".

I have to dispute the allegation that this claim was "without evidence.". The voiceover described the spill as "perhaps acid" and in fact the researchers talking about the spill as "acid... it's gonna eat your balls off!" Now they may have been joking around or mistaken but this was a statement made by the experimenters on the original sound-track, so there was evidence to believe the liquid was acid.

Furthermore, the cited source does not directly support the statement as it stands. While the source correctly points out that the spill was actually water, it does not say there was "no evidence" for the interpretation that it was acid.

In conclusion, the voice-over was wrong about the spill being acid; but at the time the film was released, the producers had good reason to think it was. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 139.80.123.38 (talk) 12:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

Uh, yeah, because we also keep bottles of acid open on our surgery benches. 68.46.183.96 (talk) 08:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with the above, upon watching the film, I clearly heard the researcher ask "What was that?" and another researcher CLEARY says "acid." This, is justifiable for Newkirk to say "perhaps acid," because the researchers use the word 'acid' within the film. This needs to be corrected right away, especially since the source of the claim is a pro-animal-experimentation document.74.65.209.160 06:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong? Can't get over the fact that Newkirk would dare to lie to the sheep who follow her? The irony is that most PETA members are pet owners, and PETA is explicitly against pet ownership. 64.230.95.56 (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Peta is not against pet ownership. The narration was based on the evidence shown. Do you condone the behavior in this movie? How does torturing animals further science? And no, I'm not really interested in hearing your no doubt puerile answers. 76.115.59.36 (talk) 12:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Slamming

I think the sentence should do something to convey the violence of the procedure. "Slamming" is an accurate description, in my view, though I'm happy to have it substituted, but I feel the sentence should be more descriptive that it is. RP, if you watch the videos, you'll see what I mean. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Mmmm. Ok. Hows about "striking"? Rockpocket 21:00, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, we describe the force of it in more detail lower down, so perhaps it's fine as it is for the lead. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I considered changing that to "strikes" also, but figured I'd let that one go ;) Rockpocket 21:06, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe the official term is "impact" if it was a CCI-type device. See Dixon et al. (1991) J Neurosci Methods. 39:252-262 as an example. If it's a DAI-producing device, there is no impact at all, and thus "slamming" or "striking" would be grossly incorrect. It would be a simple, but forceful, axial rotation of the head. Usually in the literature, for obvious reasons, it's described in the passive tense, e.g. see Zhang et al. (2008) Exp Neruol. 210:645-655. 68.46.183.96 (talk) 08:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Sixty hours?

The claim is made in the article that "Sixty hours of audio- and videotape were removed from the laboratory during a raid in May 1984".

Is there any way to view this raw material? Coolgamer (talk) 06:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Contradictory statements, a mystery, and things we should do

There are multiple problems with this article and I will lay them out, along with my recommendations for each. I did not set out to research this, just to update a citation, and wound up in this plate of spaghetti! Apologies in advance for the length of this writeup, but how else do you untangle spaghetti.

Dates: 1983 or 1984?

PETA and ALF repeat that the "raid" was in May 1984, however McCarthy's OPRR report [2] says 1983 ("In 1983 another case made national headlines. A group that identified themselves as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) broke into the University of Pennsylvania Head Injury Clinic in Philadelphia. Equipment was smashed and files were scattered. Most important, approximately 60 hours of audio/videotapes were stolen."), and later says "PETA refused for more than a year to turn over the evidence it had to the OPRR. In the spring of 1984, PETA sent the unedited tapes to the USDA, which in turn sent them to OPRR."

On the other hand, North America ALF Press Office published a webpage [3] saying "May 1984 – Raid on the University of PA Head Injury Lab. PETA's webpage for the film [4] doesn't have any text mentioning the date but does post the film and a link to more info (which is broken and has no corresponding page at archive.org). The Southern Poverty Law Center published a report in 2002 [5] where they say "May 1984 ALF raid" but given that it was published around 18 years after the events, it's quite possible that they could have "picked up" the error that was being repeated.

The IMDb page for the film [6] only mentions "1984" but that would be the release of the film. This supports my conclusion that the raid was in 1983 and the film was released in 1984. I will correct the article accordingly.

The video and the footage

There were several links in the wiki article pointing to where one could purchase the video. The promotional links should be removed per wiki policy. See Wikipedia:Spam and WP:NOTPROMOTION.

There were some links to five video segments on animalliberationfront.com (that website is defunct) which I found archived at Wayback Machine: Part1 5:26 Part2 5:07 Part3 6:03 Part4 4:54 Part5 6:00 which totals 27 minutes and 30 seconds. These video segments match the 27 minute video posted on PETA's website [7].

However, the accompanying text in the wiki article says "The video footage released by PETA can be viewed at" and later "PETA refused to release the original footage", which implies these links might have the original 60 minutes of footage from the lab. That is not the case. If these links were to the original footage, then it would have value to the article. However, links to the film on Wayback Machine don't fit wiki guidelines.

Conclusion: The links to the 5 video segments should be removed from the article.

Primary sources

I don't think it's appropriate to cite Newkirk in her book about this film since she is the producer and narrator of the film. See Wikipedia:Primary sources.

I'm uncertain if providing a link to the film itself (hosted on PETA's website) would be appropriate or not.

I notice there are no "reviews" of the film in this article. I'm pretty sure I saw some when I was poking through everything. I'll look again and add them to the article if I find any.

Origin of film title

The wiki article says "The title of the film comes from a statement made to The Globe and Mail by the head of the clinic, neurosurgeon Thomas Gennarelli before the raid. He declined to describe his research to the newspaper because, he said, it had "the potential to stir up all sorts of unnecessary fuss ...", but the McCarthy report says "The title Unnecessary Fuss was derived from a statement by Dr. Weingarden, then Director, NIH, to the effect that the ALF and PETA had raised an unnecessary fuss over research involving animals, particularly research conducted at the Head Injury Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania.".

The only citation offered by PETA & ALF is "Palango, Paul. Globe and Mail, March 6, 1983." and no URL. The McCarthy reference is a more reliable source than a PETA exposé, so I would tend to believe it more than PETA in this case. That said, we could solve the mystery if we had a copy of the Globe and Mail article. The Toronto Public Library has free online access to the Globe and Mail newspaper archives (1844-2016) to those with a library card (see this link). So if there are any Toronto-ians out there who could look it up, please do it for us! It's the weekend and they're closed or I would just call them on the phone [8].

Inappropriate redirects

Fourteen years ago, on the day that this article was created (February 26, 2006), the author created four redirects to this page: Thomas Gennarelli, Thomas Langfitt, University of Pennsylvania Head Injury Clinic, and University of Pennsylvania baboons.

These were unnecessary in 2006, and are still unnecessary today. Langfitt is no longer mentioned in the article. The U of P are spam. Anyone can use Wikipedia's search bar to find this article for Thomas G. As a reader searches, this redirect will make it look like Thomas G has a page in Wikipedia, which he doesn't. This redirect violates Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons standards to tie him directly and only to a PETA exposé that was found to "grossly overstate the deficiencies in the Head Injury Clinic". [9] All four redirects should be deleted.

Summation

That's a lot of spaghetti, folks! I'll try to work some more on the article. If you feel so inclined, jump on in and join me.

— Normal Op (talk) 00:53, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

A section break (for comments)

• I have found another great source. This one corroborates the 1984 year of the raid. Normal Op (talk) 02:30, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• I solved the issue of pointing to the actual film by putting it as the official website in the external links section. Normal Op (talk) 03:54, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• I found the actual date of the raid (May 28, 1984), and cited that. I removed 1 unnecessary citation to Newkirk's primary-source book, but left the other two (I just didn't go messing with the section "Contents of the film" which is where they are used). I found two great sources (Lowe, Meyers and the attached committee report) and put in a section that was, frankly, glaringly missing. I named it "Distribution, reception, result". Normal Op (talk) 06:34, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• I watched the whole film and put in time stamps. I cleared up the language. I removed one bit, sourced by Newkirk's book, which I didn't find in the film. Removed what I hope is the last of the primary sources. Changed dental cement to dental stone. The former is used to adhere dental restorations in a mouth. The latter is used to make casts of teeth. The univ report used the term 'dental stone'. Normal Op (talk) 22:38, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Sources