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Male breast cancer importance classification

As it stands, the article Male breast cancer is classified as Low-importance on the WikiProject Medicine importance scale. It doesn't appear to fit the criteria for that classification, and I propose it be reclassified as Mid-importance.

The examples given for a Low article are "very rare diseases, lesser-known medical signs, equipment, hospitals, individuals, historical information, publications, laws, investigational drugs, detailed genetic and physiological information, and obscure anatomical features". Male breast cancer is none of those -- while uncommon compared to its mother condition, it regardless makes up 1 in 100 cases of one of the most common cancers. There are far rarer conditions granted the Mid classification; indeed, the cancer given as an example of a Mid-importance medical article has a lower prevalence than breast cancer in men.

The article classification criteria explicitly describes 'most medical conditions' as demanding a Mid-importance classification, and male breast cancer does not fit into the cross-section of articles defined otherwise. As a condition of middling prevalence, and a subtype of a condition classified Top-importance, the article Male breast cancer certainly seems to deserve a Mid classification over its present Low. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 09:52, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Yannow, I've to wonder, does anyone use these importance ratings? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:22, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Probably not, but hey, long as they're there... Vaticidalprophet (talk) 10:34, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Done. IMO all people and research institutions are "low importance". Diseases should be mid importance and above. So updated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:36, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Very rare diseases shouldn't be "mid" importance, according to WP:MEDA's long-standing advice.
I think that the comparison against cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) is wrong. Approximately one in 1,000 men are ever (lifetime) diagnosed with breast cancer, so another way to look at it is that male breast cancer is a (sub-)condition that doesn't affect 99.9% of men (or 99.95% of all people). Cholangiocarcinoma seems to have a lifetime rate around 1% (an entire order of magnitude higher), but it varies significantly by place/risk factors. There are places in Asia where the typical adult man's annual risk of cholangiocarcinoma is higher than a typical man's lifetime risk of breast cancer.
99% of breast cancers are diagnosed in women. A presentation that affected 1% of people with liver cancer would probably get a "low" rating, too. However, cholangiocarcinoma is one of the most common presentations of hepatobiliary cancers (10 to 25% of them, depending upon place).
If we're just looking at the numbers, I think that the 'low' rating was a fair decision. If we care about other things, such as political effects, then I think that 'mid' is a reasonable rating.
Jo-Jo, the ratings are (or were) used by the WP:1.0 team. They combined them with things like popularity/page views to decide which articles to prioritize in collections. We have used them in the past to decide which articles to work on next (e.g., if it's "High" priority, it should be better than Stub class). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
I know what the ratings were for, I am just not sure whether they are still useful now. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 06:12, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on Talk:Anesthesiologist

Opinion from other editors would be welcome at Talk:Anesthesiologist#Request for comment on definition of anesthesiologist; the article has recently been rewritten to state that anesthesiologists are not necessarily doctors, but may be nurses, veterinarians or dentists. Discussion of these edits has stalled on the talk page. --Kwekubo (talk) 17:48, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:55, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Factitious disorder

I was doing background reading at Factitious disorder and noticed some recent edits that look ... odd. I don't know enough about the field to know if they're right, wrong or something else so I thought I should flag it here where someone with more knowledge might see it. Red Fiona (talk) 17:29, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks User:Redfiona99. Unreferenced. Reverted. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:15, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposed Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria medical page lacks references

It seems that a few editors are in the process of either creating a new "epidemiology" section under the page for the medical condition Gender Dysphoria titled "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" or creating a new page as a proposed alternative explanation for the medical condition. I'm a bit concerned since the topic will invariably concern and try to present itself as an explanation for a known medical condition. The problem with this is the proposed medical phenomenon clearly fails to meet WP:RSMED criteria. There are no scholarly secondary reviews to substantiate the claims made by the proposed content of the article, medical organizations seem to refute it's existence, and the sole primary journal article concerning the study was a survey of people without the condition, and therefore can't meet even the threshold of case studies. Just as concerning, the journal the study was published in, PLOSone, is currently investigating the study for alleged methodological flaws. It seems like it's very premature to make a new scientific page that tries to address a known medical condition and give advice while lacking adequate sources. It would be very good if other editors could weigh in on the imminent proposed additions to medical articles and or creation of a new article. The discussion for the new articles concerning the proposed medical condition or addition to current medical articles is underway in Talk:Lisa Littman. Thank you for your attention to this matter.Freepsbane (talk) 17:53, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

You're right; without secondary WP:MEDRS-compliant sources, this is a no-go. Where is this being proposed? Is there a draft? Carl Fredrik talk 20:31, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
The article should not be created. Pinging Mathglot, who has been concerned about its possible creation. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:14, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Agree it should not be created. Monitoring the situation, but nothing new to contribute at this point that hasn't already been said. Mathglot (talk) 12:07, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
  • The initial statement above may have been misleading. The section title begs a question by calling a proposal (for splitting an ROGD article from the BLP of Lisa Littman) a "medical page", which may or may not be true. It also tells you that the article "lacks references", which is something you should check for yourselves.
I do believe the existing Lisa Littman article has very serious issues, which is why I reported it to the BLP noticeboard four days ago. The lengthy content about a single study by Littman is unacceptable in a BLP, and it clearly needs to be removed from the BLP sooner rather than later, for reasons discussed at WP:BLPN#Lisa Littman.
Not all of the content is medical in nature. Portions that are about the study's findings are certainly medical, and require WP:MEDRS secondary sources. Portions that are directed to the political/social controversy surrounding the study, and to issues of academic freedom that arose from the controversy, may only require WP:RS. Before reaching a conclusion, I would suggest that you read the content at Lisa Littman for yourselves, and consider whether its secondary sources (including Science (journal)) are in compliance with WP:RS or WP:MEDRS.
The largest open question is whether there is any place for that content on Wikipedia, anywhere, under any title. Suggestions would be welcome. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 21:39, 11 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 21:44, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
The problem with that Science article is that Science (and Nature) also has a non peer reviewed news service, it is a different thing than their literature reviews you would need for that. A second problem is the news article also is not about the condition ROGD, but that the single study on ROGD is currently under investigation by its journal, and they say the study observed no humans with the condition, so it can't even meet the criteria laid out on [[WP:MEDRS]. An article on this condition is far too premature at this point.Freepsbane (talk) 01:02, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
I think editors would be well-advised to read the article, and form their own opinions about what it says. The question is whether any part of the Lisa Littman article is sufficiently sourced to appear in a WP gender studies article, and how to name or identify such an article so that it can't be mistaken for a medical article. (Is effemimania a medical article?) Lwarrenwiki (talk) 02:28, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
They could read the article as much as they want and it wouldn't change they key point that it is not being published as a peer reviewed journal, and that the only coverage the article mentions about ROGD is that the study is under investigation by the journal that published it. The concept ROGD claims to be a theory explaining a known medical condition, there is no way you could not have a medically centered article.Freepsbane (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
"Portions that are about the study's findings are certainly medical, and require WP:MEDRS secondary sources."
I'm not sure that this sweeping statement is quite true. The study itself is a reliable primary source for its own findings. "She published a study that said (whatever the study indisputably said)" does not technically require secondary sources, even according to MEDRS. The value in secondary sources is being able to move past "She said (whatever she said)" and towards "(Whatever she said) is true" in Wikipedia's WP:VOICE.
Secondary sources (and, to a lesser extent, independent primary sources) are also very useful in being able to decide whether this should be mentioned in that article at all. I looked into this yesterday, and it sounds like we're not going to find a good excuse for omitting all mention of the study in that biography. If we omitted it entirely, people could rightly accuse us of writing an article so incomplete that it was biased, and perhaps some would feel justified in calling it censorship, if our accusers believed that the motivation was to prevent anyone from finding out about it. So from here, I believe the question is really "How much detail?" rather than "Whether to mention at all", and we'll have to work with the best of the sources we have, rather than trying to reject them all for being imperfect.
If you'll let me stay on my soapbox for another moment, sourcing isn't a game of Mother May I?. We use good sources so that we can write good content. When everyone agrees that content is accurate, the immediate value of gold-plated sourcing is reduced. That means that if everyone can agree that it's true that "She published a study that said (whatever the study indisputably said)", then it doesn't matter as much what source(s) you list in the little blue clicky numbers. The important part is the sentence that everyone can agree on, not the ref that (almost) nobody except the editors involved in the dispute are going to read (because readers don't read the refs, no matter how much we wish they would). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Thank you for that response. I take no issue with your reining in my "sweeping statement." In fact, you've just written the most sensible thing I've read on Wikipedia in weeks (at least). Lwarrenwiki (talk) 00:20, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
The study makes medical claims and invariably falls under WP:MEDRS, there are plenty of proposed additions to medical topics deleted because the premise is only supported by in vitro or animal studies. In this case, there were no evaluations of human subjects, so the same problems exist. And just as significant, PLOSone, which published the study is currently investigating the study for alleged methodological problems. I have never heard of using a single primary study that is currently under a cloud as the sole source for a medical premise.Freepsbane (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Freepsbane, I think you're missing something subtle about the difference between describing what people say about medicine, and actually making medical claims in Wikipedia. Something like "On 18 August 2018, PLOSone published a study by Littman that made a medical claim" is not actually a medical claim. That claim is about an event: either those people said that on this date, or they didn't. You don't debunk that statement by trying to prove that the study's conclusions are wrong or that the survey doesn't "count" because it involved the human subjects indirectly. (And if you're tempted to do that anyway, there's a whole section in MEDRS about how Wikipedia editors aren't supposed to do that for any source. We are not peer review.)
The way you debunk that statement is by proving that it was published on a different date, or that it wasn't published in that journal, or that it wasn't written by that author, or even that nothing of the sort was ever published. Why? Because "X made a medical claim on Y date" is never a medical claim itself. Whether the medical claim that X made on Y date is actually true is entirely irrelevant for RS and MEDRS purposes. But that claim is a "historical" claim, so you would need to evaluate it in that framework, which is all about who, what, when, and where.
By contrast, something like "Some girls who have claimed to be transmen actually aren't trans at all" is a medical claim. Regardless of whether you personally believe that claim, that type of statement is treated as biomedical information, and MEDRS would apply. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: the point you seem to be missing is that when an editor writes "On 18 August 2018, PLOSone published a study by Littman about the medical condition ROGD", it makes the underlying assumption that ROGD actually is a medical condition (which needs MEDRS to verify). If we don't have that safeguard, any crackpot theory or newly-minted buzz-phrase can be given a gloss of respectability on Wikipedia by using the argument that writing about somebody discussing a crackpot medical theory doesn't need MEDRS. It does. --RexxS (talk) 22:48, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Good point, if we look at precedent, there's no shortage of articles, and additions based on a single controversial study that subsequently get deleted because their claims invariably touch upon some established medical concept. My point is an article about a medical study will invariably be under project medicine rules. And in this case, no matter how we spin it, the proposed article falls far short of MEDRS guidelines, no literature reviews, not even a primary study that meets the project definition of a case study. Which brings us to a second problem: an article created about this medical study will invariably run afoul of WP:Undue if it covers Littman's medical theories. As of now, there are no secondary sources, or primary studies with subjects to substantiate her position, and the medical organizations that have weighed in question the validity of her theory. If we created a page to cover the theory instead of controversy (IE: PLOSone investigation and the like) we would be not only violating MEDRS guidelines, but also providing undo weight for a hypothesis far of the current mainstream and with no supporting literature.Freepsbane (talk) 00:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@RexxS and WhatamIdoing: Even assuming it's a fringe theory (which is very far from being settled), RexxS's valid and legitimate point could be very easily addressed by rephrasing the statement to read something like "...about parental reports of sudden occurrences of gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults, which Littman described as 'rapid onset gender dysphoria'." That description of the study makes no medical claim, and can also be supported by reliable secondary sources. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 00:31, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@Lwarrenwiki: what article do you think could contain "...about parental reports of sudden occurrences of gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults, which Littman described as 'rapid onset gender dysphoria'."? Littman's newly-coined description would be UNDUE in any article other than one about Littman or the controversy itself, so you're no further forward in trying to create another article or find another home for it. --RexxS (talk) 00:40, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@RexxS: So, do we agree that this version fixes the MEDRS issue you identified? I do agree with you that this description of the study would not be UNDUE in the articles you noted: either the bio, or an article about the controversy. (I would call that article Rapid onset gender dysphoria; others may prefer Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy).
I'd add that it wouldn't be UNDUE as an addition to gender dysphoria. The study isn't doing anything crackpot like denying gender dysphoria, and it isn't denying that the studied cases are cases of gender dysphoria. The study describes a particular kind of presentation of gender dysphoria, and it goes on to present several unproven alternative hypotheses about causes and treatment, concluding only that additional research is needed. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 02:08, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
It certainly wouldn't you are proposing creating a medically named article covering a medical theory that is not mainstream and has no sources that could satisfy MDRES. Adding it to a medical article would fall into the same problem. I imagine it would be immediately reviewed and removed as similar inadequately sourced material has in the past. It would also be undo weight to either create an article to discuss a hypothesis that lacks mainstream acceptance and to cover the results and hypothesis of a single primary study that was not high impact and is being investigated by the journal it was published in. Simply put, if you want an article on your medically themed topic you should wait till there are literature reviews or at least clinical studies in high impact journals, being premature might just lead to content deletion and hurt future efforts at creating a page.Freepsbane (talk) 03:04, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • @Lwarrenwiki: even if we ignored the obvious MEDRS problem of adding an unsourced medical theory to a medical article, it is still a clear case of UNDUE, major medical organizations have put out statements doubting the theory, we would be weighing what right now is a fringe position equally to the current consensus. And just as significantly, we would be taking a non high impact primary study that doesn't meet any of the criteria project medicine set for reliable sources and elevating it to the same importance as secondary reviews from high impact papers. I encourage you to check other science pages, we don't give primary articles from PLOSone that had low impact, especially articles under investigation by PLOSone, any weight compared to reviews from JAMA or Nature. I don't see why we would change our usual rules.Freepsbane (talk) 03:10, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • @Lwarrenwiki: Barnstars really don't say much, suggesting we should avoid well established guidelines regarding what it takes to make medical claims based on one is an an unfounded appeal to authority. By that logic, Carl Fredrik (who has the exact same award) and others who warned about the pitfalls of rule violations are also "top medical contributors" so we are mandated to listen as well. That logic doesn't seem right though, we should look at following established rules, which as pointed out we can not presently meet. Even Retraction Watch, which is a source for study controversy, not a MEDRES source doesn't speak of ROGD as the medical/sociological/scientific page you speak of creating, instead all they say is that the study is under investigation by the publishing journal. All it tells us is the publishing paper is under a cloud, discussing Littman's theory would not only be undue weight but would also not be covered by the RW source itself.Freepsbane (talk) 07:20, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
And adding medical or medical sounding information and assertions and theories when they are poorly sourced for the standards we need and/or give undue weight will do nothing to improve Wikipedia. Guidelines have an obvious place in improvement.Freepsbane (talk) 17:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Also, you just wrote "major medical organizations have put out statements doubting the theory". I am not aware of those organizations. Please cite their statements here, so other WP:MED editors can see them too. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 04:38, 14 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 04:54, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Certainly, you deleted sources from WPATH regarding the ROGD study another editor had uploaded. You said that despite the obvious discussion of medical concepts, MDRES guidelines did not apply. That seems questionable.Freepsbane (talk) 07:11, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
@Freepsbane: Thank you for clarifying that by "major medical organizations" (plural), you meant WPATH. If you check that source, WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) doesn't claim to be a "medical organization", because it isn't one. According to its website, WPATH is a "non-profit, interdisciplinary professional and educational organization"; full membership isn't limited to medical professionals, and the majority of its board members are not medical doctors. Nothing in those facts diminishes WPATH's ability to advocate for transgender health, which is a praiseworthy educational purpose. (And as noted in the edit comment you linked, I deleted content from WPATH from the BLP for WP:BLP reasons, while also saying that it could appear in an article about ROGD.) Lwarrenwiki (talk) 15:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Looking at this, it seems they are the ones who set the standards for regimens used for treating GD. They routinely publish "standards of care" which are followed by most clinicians so it seems very strange to claim they aren't a medical organization when every other group that plays the same role, including defining treatment protocol is one. Not medical might seem to be original research.Freepsbane (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
WPATH's self-description, as quoted, is sourced to WPATH's website per WP:ABOUTSELF. I share the concerns about the appearance of OR. @Freepsbane: If you're standing by your claim that "major medical organizations have put out statements doubting the theory" (diff), with WPATH being the only example you named, I hope you'll give us one more example. And you can let us know your MEDRS that described WPATH as a "major medical organization". Lwarrenwiki (talk) 23:19, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
RexxS, I agree with you, but AFAICT, "whatever the study indisputably said" doesn't appear to include anything that uses 'ROGD' and 'medical condition' in the same phrase. It looks like even the study's authors avoid claiming that it's a distinct medical condition (they seem to prefer the term "phenomenon"), so that claim would IMO deserve a {{failed verification}} tag. There are statements that could be written and suitably sourced – Lwarrenwiki proposes one above – but "the medical condition ROGD" is not one of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
"...about parental reports of sudden occurrences of gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults, which Littman described as 'rapid onset gender dysphoria'." Still happens to be a premise about an established medical condition which inserts a new theory. That seems to clearly be under project med's scope. Furthermore, we still have the problem of assigning undue weight to a non mainstream hypothesis and giving a non high impact study that is under investigation the same level of weight as established theories regarding that condition that are sourced by secondary sources in high impact journals.Freepsbane (talk) 07:29, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
It doesn't matter whether it's under WPMED's scope. Our scope – like every single WikiProject, and according to the formal guideline on the subject – is whatever pages this group feels like supporting. What matters for sourcing is whether there are acceptable sources, not whether WPMED chooses to support the article. We don't, for example, choose to support articles about hospitals, even though hospitals have a lot more to do with our core interest areas than any paper about a preliminary survey. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:09, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
But you do notice hospital pages do not usually make claims of discovering new medical theories, new conditions, or epidemiological principles that apply to established medicine. And if they do it's something supported by appropriate resources. We have no acceptable sources for supporting any of those medical claims and scientifically, we would be giving undue weight by giving a PLOSone primary study that wasn't high impact, has no supporting scholarly sources, can not meet any of the guidelines project Med sets for reliable sources, received a skeptical response from medical organizations, and is currently under investigation by the publishing journal, the same amount of weight we would give a secondary source from JAMA or Nature.Freepsbane (talk) 17:52, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
So? Lwarrenwiki's proposed sentence doesn't say that Littman is making any "claims of discovering new medical theories, new conditions, or epidemiological principles", either.
"...about parental reports of sudden occurrences of gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults, which Littman described as 'rapid onset gender dysphoria'." Claims to have found a new medical phenomenon regarding an established condition and even dubs it with a new medical name based of a well known condition. It's about as clear in making biomedical claims and theories as you could get.Freepsbane (talk) 21:48, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Nope. Nosology requires much more than "I claim to have found some parents who say something." WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
You mean like claiming to have found a new epidemiological principle regarding a well known medical condition and then naming a new medical phenomenon they claim to have found after the well established one? I have never seen an article here make such extraordinary claims without having some medical resources to back them. And I have never seen any case where we give so much undue weight to a single primary study from a low impact journal that is under investigation from the publishing journal. Honestly, how is it that if this is sufficient, we don't also go and give every primary study in Cell and Nature a page too. Not only are they more notable scientifically, but they have broad scientific acceptance and aren't under a cloud of review.Freepsbane (talk) 22:04, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Are you old enough to remember that whole Lesbian until graduation thing back in the 90s, when it seemed like every other clinical psychologist was treating an unhappy young woman who had suddenly announced that she was lesbian, and spent every therapy session griping about how her parents didn't understand her or support her? At the time, it was a political mess ("How dare you not believe our self-identification!" on the one side, and "Those nasty liberal universities!" on the other), but, in retrospect, pretty much everyone agrees that it did happen. It seems to me that all Littman has said amounts to "Guess what? 'Trans' might be the new 'lesbian'. Let's have some research, instead of just whispering about it at professional conferences, okay? I'll start with a quick and easy study: here's what a couple hundred parents say about their kids. Next up: I'm going to try actually talking to some of these kids. Now, what are you going to do to figure out what's going on?"
BTW, if anyone's interested in this general subject and wants to do something useful, then Affirmative therapy is a red link, and it shouldn't be. It should have an article that explains the difference between actual affirmative therapy, as defined by WPATH, and therapy that blindly believes whatever the identified patient says in their first conversation. Affirmative therapy looks something like this: "I'm not going to tell you or anyone else whether you're trans or not. A medical transition is an option for your future, if that's what you decide to do in the end, and if that's what you decide in the end, then I'll help you with that. But that's all for the future: we definitely need to deal with your anxiety and depression and family problems before a medical transition could be possible." The pop culture fantasy (indulged in by far-right hatemongers and some kids) of "Hi, nice to meet you, I totally believe that you're trans, so let me prescribe some hormones for you!" is a different class of treatment. It would be nice to debunk some of these myths in a factual way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
This sounds like original research, creating a medical article advising the public on how to treat a medical condition based on what you or political commentary might say. We should not be creating the proposed medical content unless you have secondary sources from high impact journals to support such a thing. As for what you describe regarding the Littman study, it sounds like you are saying that providing coverage would be a case of undue weight, which makes sense. We don't give medical articles, or scientific articles to a single study published in a low impact journal that subsequently ends under investigation. As for claiming to have found a new condition, and coining a new medical terminology, such a thing is patently within the scope of project medicine and it's requirements for sources. Probably a good thing, otherwise we would have no shortage of quasi-medical pages for every non mainstream theory. Freepsbane (talk) 21:46, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • There's nothing in the world that's wrong with having "quasi-medical pages for every non mainstream theory" that editors want to create, just as long as those editors establish WP:N under WP:GNG, and use only WP:RS, and are able to maintain WP:V and WP:NPOV. An article about a quasi-medical or non-mainstream topic is allowed to exist on the very same terms as any other Wikipedia article. It is not allowed to include WP:Biomedical information asserted as fact, unless that fact is backed up by a WP:MEDRS. That's all. It's almost simple. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 23:35, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Even if they avoid asserting it as fact or mainstream theory, and it's really hard to see how that can be done when making medical claims without again bringing this into the scope of project med and it's rules, and feeding the public possibly false medical advice, it would still be a clear violation of undo weight. Find a paper, that was a primary study in PLOSone or another low impact journal that has zero supporting scholarly sources, has medical sources openly skeptical of it's theory, and is itself under investigation by the journal in question. Then find a case where we considered it acceptable to grant it a page discussing it's theory. There are primary studies in Cell that are very high impact and we don't give them pages, this shows just how badly we would be pushing undue weight if we gave a PLOSone paper that is currently in danger of retraction more weight than a slew of seminal, high impact studies. What you want is unprecedented as far as giving due weight to studies is concerned. Freepsbane (talk) 04:39, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
  • As a side, the paper currently does not meet the scientific definition of notability, no cites, was published in a journal known for having a low impact factor for multidisciplinary, which makes it unlikely to rocket like a Nature paper, it's even under investigation by the publishing journal. Which if it for some reason ends as a retraction, could give sufficient notability to be added to the list of retractions in PLOSone. Look at pages on papers, they're all seminal this as of now has no indication of being one.Freepsbane (talk) 04:44, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm not advocating that anyone waste time "creating a medical article advising the public on how to treat a medical condition based on what you or political commentary might say." I'm advocating that they create an article about what WPATH says is the best treatment for gender dysphoria. WPATH's recommended style is generally called "affirmative therapy" (or, more fully, "gender affirmative therapy") these days; it is one of multiple approaches that have been used. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22gender+affirmative%22+AND+(Review%5Bptyp%5D+AND+%22last+5+years%22%5BPDat%5D) gives three recent reviews on gender-affirmative therapy. PMID 28861529 is free to read and looks like it would make a fine basis for starting an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

This topic is also being discussed now at the BLP Noticeboard. Mathglot (talk) 08:02, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I think the administrators at WP:BLPN may have had their fill of the topic; it seems like it might get archived without formal closure. That is probably just as well, since the situation has changed considerably since discussion began there. I'll post over there to withdraw my initial notice. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 17:44, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@Lwarrenwiki: I agree it will get archived, but since it wasn't formally opened afaict, there's nothing to formally close. And you can't "withdraw" a discussion; the discussion took place, and that doesn't change. Posting a "withdrawal" notice there, will only reset the timer and delay the eventual archival. If you haven't posted over there already, best thing would be just to leave it alone. (Manual archival is a possibility, but hardly seems worth the effort.) Mathglot (talk) 23:06, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

 Discussion ongoing: Requesting that participants here continue their further discussion of this topic at the article's talk page, to consolidate the discussions in one place.
Lwarrenwiki (talk) 17:44, 17 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 17:45, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Anemia flowchart

The flowchart here seems to be missing some parts. Can anyone fix this? Natureium (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Restored to a prior version. This tool here is super useful for figuring out who added what to an article.[1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:45, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Natureium (talk) 15:52, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

History of medicine

Skin keratoacanthoma

Arthur Rook , dermatologst, is an approved dyk nomination waiting to go on home page with a link to Keratoacanthoma. Can anyone help improve Keratoacanthoma? Whispyhistory (talk) 17:33, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Alzheimer's disease#Methylphenidate for the treatment of apathy in patients with Alzheimer Disease

Needs some other eyes. I'm questioning a Cochrane review's objectivity, which I would not expect to need to do. It's not a comfortable feeling. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:19, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

they appear to be having other 'issues' as well see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Cochrane organization above ↑ --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:16, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Circulating mitochondrial DNA

I have just created a stub on circulating mitochondrial DNA, which is a topic with over 800 Google Scholar hits and a breathless writeup on September 13 in Scientific American. If anybody want to improve my terrible stub, please do. Abductive (reasoning) 08:34, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Reader research on Wikipedia's Zika coverage

The first presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY8vZ6wES9o might interest the editors who worked on the Zika articles. Conclusions begin around the 21-minute mark. One that will likely not surprise any experienced editor: the size of the actual problem does not correlate well with the amount of attention given to it in the news media.

The second presentation in this research showcase is about WP:RFCs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

[2]good info, thank you WAID--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:38, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Forest Bathing

Bamboo forest

I was reading about this here in Ottawa. The newspaper article said that some people "report lowered blood pressure". May be worth keeping an eye on. Nature_therapy. JenOttawa (talk) 09:46, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

pubmed] offers quite a bit article could be expanded...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:07, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
I think Trip Database is clearer about what is available: https://www.tripdatabase.com/search?criteria=%22forest+bathing%22&lang=en – and the answer in MEDRS terms is "not much". --RexxS (talk) 12:20, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
a more refined search offers (MEDRS) 4 reviews(they all have free access)...however I do see RexxS point about this article, an article that was merged w/ it was tagged alternative medicine[3] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:02, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
The topic is indisputably CAM. The four reviews are published in (1) BMC complementary and alternative medicine; (2) International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health; (3) Toxicological research (the official journal of the Korean Society of Toxicology); (4) International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, respectively. I'm not exactly bowled-over by the authors' choices of publication journals, but what really bothers me when I read the articles, is that none of the authors raised the question of how you might conduct a valid double-blind trial in order to reach a conclusion like "Systolic blood pressure of the forest environment was significantly lower than that of the non-forest environment." Still, it's not my place to criticise the methodologies. --RexxS (talk) 14:26, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

History of Medicine

Herbert R. Spencer is on DYK tomorrow with links to Breech birth and External cephalic version. Any help to remove citation tags welcome. Actinic keratosis and Seborrheic keratosis are also links on home page tomorrow. Whispyhistory (talk) 06:30, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Thank you @Ozzie10aaaa:. I've been looking at ECV. Maybe I'll just add to my to do list. Are these references ok?

On reflection, the medical links appear to receive more views than the main article in hook. In future, is to ok if I post potential home page articles here? Syphilis is next. Whispyhistory (talk) 21:23, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

as to your first question Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)all referencing is done via MEDRS, as to your second question Im certain all/any editors here are happy to help--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:31, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Pseudoscience article written in POV

This article seems to be written straight from a promotional pamphlet.

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Panchakarma 2600:6C50:797F:DE8D:0:4070:8162:8F46 (talk) 18:21, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I've requested a medical citation for the claim of detoxifying the body. I'll be interested to see what the evidence is that shoving boiled tree bark up a person's rectum removes toxins from their body.
I also added the cautionary note taken from the lead of Ayurveda about the lack of evidence of effectiveness, etc. --RexxS (talk) 22:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
This article is so poorly written and sourced and since Panchakarma is a subset of Ayurveda why not add anything pertinent to the Ayurdeva article then delete this. AS an aside, I haven't seen a meta analysis or systematic review that supports the use of boiled tree bark up the nether regions and tend to think such a review may not be coming soon? Tongue in cheek intended.... play on words not (originally).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Littleolive oil (talk • contribs)

Chapman reflex points

It isn't clear from reading Chapman reflex points whether this is science-based or pseudoscience. Can someone familiar with the topic and with WP:MEDRS please have a look? Gnome de plume (talk) 13:02, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

It's osteopathic woo - this should be made clear. Not sure we need a whole article on the subject! Alexbrn (talk) 13:10, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Similarly for the related article Somatic dysfunction. These sort of articles use the passive voice "are considered", "are hypothesised", etc. to hide the fact that it's only a small bunch of adherents who subscribe to these completely unscientific claims. I've applied a series of requests for MEDRS citations where I believe a biomedical claim is made or implied, but as the {{MEDREF}} on Somatic dysfunction dates back to 2013, I'm not hopeful that anything short of taking an axe to the articles will improve them. --RexxS (talk) 14:34, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
As a Chapman, my reflex is to nuke that festering heap of codswallop. Guy (Help!) 17:05, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Err yes, looking as somatic dysfunction why are we describing this seriously as something that can be diagnosed and treated when in reality it's a load of hocus-pocus[4] used as a basis for quackery? And then I notice Counterstrain, Paraspinal inhibition, etc. – seems like we have a bit of a problem. Alexbrn (talk) 08:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

As an osteopath, I will say that there are no randomized controlled trials or double-blind studies validating the use of practically every osteopathic tenet, e.g. somatic dysfunction, Chapman points, counterstrain, etc. because of the fact that they are impossible to double-blind, for obvious reasons. That being said, I don't take a stand on whether they are science or pseudoscience, since there is insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the validity of osteopathic fundaments. I would think that most osteopaths don't practice osteopathic manipulation in the mainstream, most likely because of the paucity of evidence. Any other osteopaths out there, feel free to offer your 2 cents on this matter. So I think it is safe to say that these topics are best left off of Wikipedia, because of heavily biased viewpoints on the subject matter. N. Jain (talk to me) 21:12, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

As a non-osteopath, I would definitely agree with your conclusion that these topics are best not used as the basis of Wikipedia articles, but not with your reasoning. Many topics that engender far more heavily biased viewpoints are properly covered on Wikipedia, but only where they have numerous good-quality independent sources. It's the absence of those (particularly in the light of WP:MEDRS) that handicaps our ability to deal with OMT related topics. --RexxS (talk) 23:15, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

List of spiders associated with cutaneous reactions

I think this article could really use a better title (maybe to clarify that they cause cutaneous reactions in humans, not tiny cutaneous reactions in the spiders themselves [do spiders have skin?]), but I haven't been able to come up with one that isn't a full sentence in length. The lead could also use some work ("There are a few spiders that can bite human skin and cause a cutaneous reaction, but they are blamed for many more."). Please give any input. Natureium (talk) 16:25, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

The article should be deleted in my view. Any spider large enough to bite a human and inject venom is likely to cause some kind of "cutaneous reaction" in the human, if only a very small area of reddening around the puncture. I think the article is meant to be about "spiders for which there is reliable evidence of medically significant cutaneous reaction following bites to humans", but this is covered (not as well as it could be) at Spider bite. The key problem is described at Spider bite#Diagnosis: spiders are regularly blamed, but the evidence is regularly weak. A list of spiders for which there are reliably diagnosed medically significant bites could be added to Spider bite, I guess, and the article under discussion made a redirect to it. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Merged to spider bite per the suggestions. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:55, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty

Endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty has recently hit the popular press: see [5], [6]. (The difference between this and normal sleeve gastrectomy seems to be that ESG involves stitching up the stomach from the inside, with no removal of tissue.) We don't have an article on it, so I've created a stub article using recent Medline articles, describing just the basic nature of the procedure. Could someone with relevant experience please review it? -- The Anome (talk) 08:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:48, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Concealed conduction

Concealed conduction

Can anyone with any relevant knowledge advise me if this article is necessary, useful, or correct? It's been unsourced since 2009 so I'm dubious. I can do the legwork of merging or tagging for deletion if the consensus is no. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 11:13, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

added ref[7]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:34, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Many thanks :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:52, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Cochrane organization

Appears to be in a difficult place. User:Sbelknap forwarded this to me, which I appreciated learning about... Jytdog (talk) 15:01, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

This is weird because the paper that triggered it was authored by two people I know, but I have also met the target, Peter Gøtzsche, in fact I had dinner with him and David Colquhoun once, and he is very impressive. I have no idea what to make of it, other than to note that Gøtzsche's line on industry funded research is distinctly fundamentalist. Guy (Help!) 15:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
More here[8]. It savours more of interpersonal crises than existential problem, but we shall see. Of course the Cochrane Collaboration generates a great deal of good, if not perfect, sources for us. Alexbrn (talk) 16:14, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Nearly all organizations deal with interpersonal conflict. Cochrane I am sure will continue on. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:20, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

This is pretty detailed: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2018/09/16/cochrane-a-sinking-ship/
But, as James and Alexbrn say: they are still some of the best sources we have. Carl Fredrik talk 22:55, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

A good review of the situation from someone many here likely also know.[9] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:02, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Background Inadvisable anti-vaccination sentiment. One of the authors is a friend. -Roxy, in the middle. wooF 07:19, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Nature covered the mass resignation, too: Mass resignation guts board of prestigious Cochrane Collaboration. Here's the paper by Peter Gøtzsche and others which is referenced. Ignoring the people entirely for a moment, this paper partly on the difficulties of writing that paper is fascinating. It says in part:

We recently published an index of all prospective comparative studies on human papillomavirus vaccines we could find. The index is made of study IDs and (where possible) a description of their content... It took us 3 months to complete the index, starting from correspondence with regulators and adding studies by identifying them by cross-referencing from several other sources: industry, registers and other regulatory documents. Not as straightforward as an electronic database publication search.[10]

This seems like something a Wikiproject could help with. The skills required to write a really good systematic review are far beyond what is needed to identify that a trial happened on a certain topic at a certain place and time. A robot could usefully contribute to the latter. WikiCite will cover published studies, but we might consider a database of notable research not, or not yet, conventionally published. I'd assume any human trial is notable in that sense. HLHJ (talk) 19:00, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
@HLHJ: WikiCite in its natural development has indexed many Cochrane publications. See analysis at the profile on Cochrane in Scholia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Lane. That's a a fascinating link, and a great source of interesting stats (and an incentive for log-lin scales). I'm afraid I might not have been clear, tho. I was wondering about the sources used by Cochrane reviews. I know some academic papers in Wikidata have the sources they cite entered as items, and in principle there's no reason not to also enter, say, a trial registration in a trial registry, though I haven't seen it done. But how about a data item for a registration which has not been cited? or an open lab notebook? Could we have an item for something an academic paper might cite, and which meets some sort of notability threshold for inclusion in WikiCite? HLHJ (talk) 02:23, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
@HLHJ: First WikiCite is indexing academic papers. So far as I know, WikiCite does this better than any other platform right now. I think it is competitive with Google Scholar. Indexing odd things which even universities do not respect, like trial registries and notebooks, is something in development and which will happen, and I expect it to happen in WikiCite first. Here is a clinical trial model - d:Wikidata:WikiProject Medicine/Data models/Trials. I and some others are developing this as quickly as we can.
WikiCite / Wikidata do not want to index useless things for the sake of a human sense of completeness, but yes, there is a desire to index all these useful things which people would want to query. It is coming! Having this information should assist anyone in judging the reliability of individual papers and answer questions, for example, about these particular Cochrane reviews. There is a learning curve to jump into this and the documentation is lacking but for anyone motivated who has time there are ways to get involved. I could use help with that clinical trial model if you have comments on it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:53, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
@Blue Rasberry: I've made some prelim comments on d:Wikidata_talk::WikiProject Medicine/Data models/Trials; not sure if they are the sort of thing you are looking for? I'd be happy to help with this (and with documentation), but the learning curve has been an issue. As you may have seen here, I've been trying to structure trial COI metadata (with the immediate motive of picking out non-independent advertorial/adverttrial sources which keep getting cited in Wikipedia); a bot which would pick out known research-sponsoring organizations mentioned in trial COI declarations seems possible, especially now PubMed is publishing them. I really don't have the knowledge for even the stuff I have attempted, tho; Daniel Mietchen gave me quite a bit of help there. I'm likely to be a bit busy in the next few days, but then I'll have some more time.
On a related topic, I have a (non-copyright, compiler-permission) database of drug interactions I'd like to upload, and technical problems extracting it from a PDF (I've been meaning to add it to a relevant Wikipedia article as a table); perhaps it might be better to upload it as data and link the data from Wikipedia? HLHJ (talk) 03:46, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Spanish medical content: Dermatology

There is a group of dermatologists who are interested in improving the skin-related WP articles in Spanish. Do you have any ideas of community members that we can connect them with? They are going to start to contribute to the "Dermatology Taskforce" project on WPMED as well in english. I would be happy to help connect anyone else interested in participating. This same group updated wikipedia articles with all the skin-related Cochrane reviews and now they are interested in continuing to edit Wikipedia by improving more dermatology articles and potentially starting this translation effort. If this interests you, please let me know. I think that it is great to see this enthusiasm. Of note, this group has done a terrific job of going "slow" and learning how Wikipedia works and how evidence is shared in the encyclopedia before diving in.

Thanks! JenOttawa (talk) 13:39, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe Mansoncc and Behemot leviatan, or of course User:BallenaBlanca. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
The WPMED in ES could really use more activity.[11] Happy to speak with them about possibilities. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:02, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks @Doc James: I have sent him a message. JenOttawa (talk) 01:20, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Since my last post on this topic, I had bookmarked about 50 medicine-related articles which contained links to DAB pages – but when I came to review them, I was pleased to find that most of those puzzles had already been dealt with. These, however, remain, and need expert attention. They range from the molecular biological to the commercial (but for once, there's no dinosaur anatomy). As always, if you manage to solve any of them, (1) remove the {{disambiguation needed}} tag from the article and (2) post {{done}} here.

Thanks in advance, Narky Blert (talk) 04:36, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I did a few. Some I'm not sure are medicine related. Natureium (talk) 01:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Me neither. Bad links like these range between "I know what I'm talking about, and didn't bother to check the link because everyone knows that ABCD is a protein encoded by the gene with the same name" and "I don't know what I'm talking about". Narky Blert (talk) 19:04, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
timestamp not done(BTW did one DAB)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:13, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Endomyocardial biopsy

I started Endomyocardial biopsy if anyone interested to contribute or advise. There is stub on bioptome and ?should merge. Whispyhistory (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

The bioptome is used for more than endomyocardial biopsies so fine seperate I think. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:59, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I couldn't find what else it is used for. Does anyone know? Whispyhistory (talk) 05:28, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Looking further, I am not seeing that it is used for GI. So yes maybe merge to endomyocardial biopsy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:24, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Saw one old primary mention of canine bronchial use in Japan, but nothing recent.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:11, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks...I can only see the bioptome in cardiology. Maybe something will appear in future. I'll take GI off as its not in the source. I think its still ok as stub for a tool. I add two more sources. Whispyhistory (talk) 15:12, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema

Another one from the Feb 09 orphans. It's well-referenced, but do we need a separate article about a combined diagnosis like this, or could that info be included in the relevant articles? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 11:25, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Axl created it[12], article seems ok..IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:44, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
There is good refs to support so no concerns. There are only a few of these. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:44, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I didn't suspect it was illegitimate so much as was curious if it needed to be its own article. That being said, can anyone suggest where to link it from so I can de-orphan it? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:12, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Huh? Did someone mention me? (I don't even remember writing this article.) Perhaps "Spirometry" would be a suitable link? Actually the "Spirometry" article describes a lot more than just simple spirometry. It should be renamed. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:13, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
"Pulmonary function testing" exists as a separate article. What a mess.... Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
I wound up linking the original in {{Respiratory pathology}}. It hasn't been removed so I assume it's not a horrible addition to the template :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:09, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
Okay. Combined pulmonary fibrosis & emphysema does not fit comfortably into a single category, but interstitial/restrictive (fibrosis) is as good as any other. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:10, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

History of medicine- monkeypox

Monkeypox

I have nominated Preben von Magnus for DYK with his description of monkeypox in monkeys in 1958. Please check over the monkeypox articles and possibly von Magnus too. I predict more people will click monkeypox rather than von Magnus. Whispyhistory (talk) 05:37, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

added 'diagnosis' section[13] to Monkeypox--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:35, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks...@Ozzie10aaaa:. I added to your sentence. I'll look again later but let know if I'm doing correctly. Whispyhistory (talk) 13:23, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
the reference supports the text--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:10, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Orthokine

This article could use more eyes. Concerns about medical claims without sufficient quality references. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:15, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:55, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

American College of Pediatricians

Are the views of this group on certain LGBT topics to be considered on the fringe of professional organizations? Please contribute your opinion at this discussion at the Fringe theories noticeboard. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:59, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes. The APP is the major pediatric association. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:38, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Pervasive refusal syndrome article

At Pervasive refusal syndrome (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), I reverted InkyElise (talk · contribs), but I can see that the article needs updating and maybe a name change. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:09, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

First three refs are primary sources. Fair bit of work needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:38, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for taking a look and cleaning up some matters at the article, Doc. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Autism (symptom) article

Autism (symptom) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology#Autism (symptom) (permalink here), issues with this article were addressed.

Thoughts? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:59, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

thank you[14] Guy--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 03:13, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Reverted, so Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Autism (symptom). Guy (Help!) 09:26, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
deleted[15]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:22, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 59#Brainstorm: Useful "pseudo article" categories.. or something

Please comment there. This concerns predatory journals. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:52, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Cannabis Treatment for Epilepsy

Hi there! I'm a Queen's University student and am editing the Epileptic Seizure page for a class project. I'm thinking of updating the section on cannabis given the recent FDA approval. I posted on the "Epileptic Seizure" talk page as well, but wanted to get other opinions on if I should proceed with this. Let me know your thoughts! Niamking (talk) 12:35, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Have replied. Used for epilepsy rather than seizures. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:20, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Supranational activation

Unsourced. Xx236 (talk) 13:00, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

[16]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:54, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
So, really unsourced, then, @Ozzie10aaaa:? Related: it seems Gluten ataxia is built very largely on work by a small research group around Marios Hadjivassiliou at Sheffield University. They've published a bunch of papers discussing immune-mediated gluten responses and resultant neurological insults. They seem happy to include their own work in the reviews they write, which doesn't help us much... They also seem to be promoting ALCAT testing on their website, which doesn't inspire me to great trust either. Am I just getting paranoid, or is there cause for concern here? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:36, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
would agree w/ you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:45, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
I've speedied it. Jytdog (talk) 00:00, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Queen's University student editing initiative

Medical students at Queen's will begin to improve 16 medical articles in the next few weeks. This work will span from Oct to mid November. I will post the articles being worked on below shortly. I would greatly appreciate your support as these students learn how to edit Wikipedia and work together to improve the pages. I will be doing my best to support and moderate the content they are adding as we go (working in their sandboxes/article talk pages/Wp articles). Each group of students are being supported (content-wise) by a faculty member expert in the field who has been primed on what sources are acceptable to use as evidence in WP. The students have been taught WP:MEDRS, however, mistakes will occur while they learn. I encourage the ProjectMed community to give these students a warm welcome and have some patience while they are learning. The group is excited to be contributing. Hopefully, we will be able to work together to improve the evidence that is shared in these 16 articles and give the students (and faculty) a positive experience on Wikipedia that so that some of them may stick around and help us with our efforts. If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to let me know. JenOttawa (talk) 23:50, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

looking forward to it thanks for post!--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:36, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
List of Articles being worked on. We specifically chose articles in B or C class. Students will be communicating via talk pages.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback I welcome it (and appreciate it) at any time. Hopefully we can work together to encourage these students.
JenOttawa (talk) 16:41, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
User:JenOttawa you've set up a course page here. Why the focus on CAM when we have so much need of maintaining and updating mainstream medicine information? I see that WikiEd dashboard is here. 76 students! (this version says 102 students) Not sure if that is a duplicate page or if there are 178 students all day, but either way, yikes. I am a bit worried, especially with the CAM angle brought in.... Jytdog (talk) 17:58, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for taking a look at the course page. The students will not be editing on CAM specifically for this course, their focus is on improving the medical content as you mentioned. I strongly agree that CAM is not the best place to wade in as a new editor or in a teaching setting. The doc you are looking at outlines the class assignments, the CAM portion is an offline critique that they will be handing in (not editing live). There are 100 students in 16 groups (working on 16 articles). @Jytdog: if you have any suggestions or feedback I would greatly appreciate it and I would be happy to discuss further on or offline. Thank you again! JenOttawa (talk) 18:14, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying the CAM thing. On the numbers... that is so many! One of the reasons the EJustice course went off the rails is because the class was way too big. The others (the main ones) were that the instructor didn't understand what we do here, and had several TAs that didn't either, and communication totally broke down between the instructors, the people from the WP education program, and the editing community. (here is their statement reflecting on it later.) You do understand what we do here and I hope the other instructor does as well. But it is a lot to chew. Jytdog (talk) 18:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
@Jytdog:thanks for the note and the link. Let’s keep talking and do let me know if you have any suggestions. This will be an opportunity to expose 100 future MDs to the positive aspects of medical editing on Wikipedia and make some improvements to these articles. JenOttawa (talk) 00:15, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
yes, it is such an opportunity. This is underway, so we will see how it goes! The really key thing you and the other instructor can do is make sure they are oriented to the mission of WP and understand MEDRS/MEDMOS/MEDHOW -- which I am sure you are doing. The better oriented they are, the less trouble there is likely to be. Jytdog (talk) 00:48, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Alzheimers

Is there a user group for discussing Alzheimer's disease? User:Imersion

Hi @Imersion: thanks for leaving a message. Have you checked out the talk page for the Alzheimer's Disease article? You could post your message there and then if you do not get very much feedback, come back here and flag the group to give further input. JenOttawa (talk) 15:19, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Imersion, we don't have discussion groups anywhere in Wikipedia about general topics. We have an article on Alzheimer's; its talk page is strictly for discussing improvements to that article. If you want help finding support groups and the like, someone at the help desk might be able to help you. See Help:Reference desk. Jytdog (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks everyone. Imersion (talk) 23:14, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Medical uses of Pumpkin seed oil

Pumpkin Seed Oil

There is a Pumpkin Seed Oil page on Wikipedia, but it only contains culinary information - however, this oil is also medicinal, not only as a herbal treatment, but as a prescribed medicine also available over the counter for the treatment of nocturia in women and men. The oil has undergone much research into its medical benefits. The medication in the UK is called Urostemol. Please could medical/medicinal info be added to the Pumpkin Seed Oil page? 92.40.144.90 (talk) 10:17, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

According to the MHRA, Urostemol is registered purely as a traditional medicine and there's no relevant medical evidence supporting its use.[17] Since this doesn't appear to be covered in secondary sources I think it'd be undue to mention - and if we did we'd would need to say there's no evidence it's useful. Alexbrn (talk) 11:00, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Agree with Alexbrn - I couldn't find any reliable evidence of efficacy, the only links I found went to the MHRA document linked above, which explicitly states that evidence of efficacy is not required for traditional herbal remedies such as urostremol. Unless you can provide some WP:MEDRS-compliant sources for the research you say has been done, the most we could add to the article would be a note along the lines of 'Pumpkin seed oil is used as a constituent in traditional herbal remedies, but there is no good scientific evidence that it is effective for any ailment'. GirthSummit (blether) 11:12, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
There seem to be a few potential sources, although not entirely about nocturia: PMID 27743330 is on biodiesel; PMID 22936573 has chemical composition; PMID 24564589 speculates on its utility for diabetes. PMID 27377091 covers multiple forms (oil vs non-oil formulations) and finds at least the possibility of efficacy for some men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (a common cause of nocturia among adults). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
The OP is asking that we discuss the medicinal purposes of the oil, so the first three links are not suitable (two are not about medicinal qualities at all, the third is as you say speculative and so not MEDRS). The fourth one is a bit more promising, but it's only a narrative review of sixteen studies - ten in vitro and six clinical - again, this doesn't meet MEDRS requirements. At most we could say that some research has been carried out into medicinal effects, but there is no good evidence to suggest that it does anything at present. GirthSummit (blether) 18:35, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Why would you think that MEDRS doesn't accept that source? From the nutshell at the top of MEDRS: "This page in a nutshell: Ideal sources for biomedical material include literature reviews or systematic reviews in reliable, third-party, published secondary sources (such as reputable medical journals)..."
MEDRS does not elevate systematic reviews over other good sources. I agree that each type of "ideal" source is better for some things than for others (e.g., systematic reviews: better than other options for proving that knee arthroscopy is useless for osteoarthritis; worse than others for finding out that the real-world decline in that procedure is strongly connected to insurers refusing to pay for useless surgeries), but MEDRS never dismisses a source as unusable because it is "only" being a literature review. If you're interested in this issue, then you might be interested in the table at Wikipedia:Biomedical information#The best type of source.
Furthermore, MEDRS specifically prohibits editors from deciding whether ten or six or any number of studies being summarized is "enough". That's peer review, and we don't do that here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
agree w/ WAID's comments--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Just noticed the comments - apologies for slow response. I guess you're right, going by the wording of MEDRS, this is a literature review published in a medical journal, so apologies for dismissing it so quickly. Seriously though, it's pretty weak stuff - six small clinical studies indicating potentially positive results, and a fairly standard 'more research needs to be done' conclusion. Can we really hang a claim stronger than 'some research has been carried out into it medicinal effects' on that? GirthSummit (blether) 11:59, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
You could probably write something slightly stronger, like "Some initial research into pumpkin seed oil and its constituents has indicated a possible benefit in men with BPH". (If the source indicates that the effect is small, then I'd specifically include that, too.) I think it might also be fair to add a sentence about it having been researched in multiple other conditions, but probably not working in anything else (if my memory of that source is accurate). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing I won't be making that edit. I'm not saying it's technically invalid in policy terms, but I wouldn't want to put my name to it. We know from this review that over the last thirty years, six small studies have indicated such a possible benefit; we don't know how many similar studies have been conducted in that time showing no benefit, and gone unpublished as a result. I mean, they've gone to market with a product - surely they've done more research than this? I'd want to see something better before calling it real evidence of efficacy. GirthSummit (blether) 18:48, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Given that we're basically talking about a dietary supplement – which means, legally, that you can grind up any pretty much plant you want and sell it without doing any more testing than a breakfast cereal company would do on their ground-up plant products – what makes you think that "they" have any reason to do any proper research into efficacy at all? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:38, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
continue to agree w/ WAID's comments--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:24, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
We seem to have got off on the wrong foot here, so let me apologise if the tone of any of my previous comments made you think I'm looking to get into an argument about this. I'm glad that we agree that Urostemol (described by the OP as a 'prescription medication') is actually a dietary supplement that does not appear to have undergone any proper research into its efficacy for any condition. I don't think the article needs to mention Urostemol at all, and I've indicated that I won't be making the edit as you worded it, but if you feel differently you can do so. GirthSummit (blether) 15:56, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Placebo−

Placebo

A fresh outbreak of "how dare Wikipedia say the placebo effect is not a real, powerful thing", with the usual walls of text, Chinese studies, Kaptchuk and the rest. Guy (Help!) 06:53, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:32, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Protected for 10 days. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:35, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Ketogenic Diet for Epileptic Seizures

Hello, I am a medical student from Queen's University and I am editing the "Epileptic Seizure" page as part of a project. I was thinking about editing the "Management" section and including more information about the ketogenic diet and I was just wondering if that would be a useful addition to the page? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rubab Fatima QMED (talk • contribs) 21:50, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I wonder why we have a page on Epileptic seizure at all, separate from Epilepsy...much of the content overlaps but is not synced, which is a bad thing. Jytdog (talk) 22:49, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
At a guess, I'd say that the "seizure" article is supposed to be about the acute and hopefully brief experience (e.g., triggers, drugs to stop seizures, etc.), whereas the "epilepsy" article is meant to be about the whole condition (e.g., classification, risk factors, differentiating epilepsy from other causes of seizures, seizure prevention, effects on employment, etc.). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
@Rubab Fatima QMED: I'd recommend looking through the Ketogenic diet article, which is strongly focused on the management you're interested in. Check the references there and see if there is sufficient quality content in them to improve the single sentence about the diet in Epileptic seizure #Management, bearing in mind that the sentence is sourced to a Cochrane review, Ketogenic diet and other dietary treatments for epilepsy, which is far from a ringing endorsement of the KD as management. --RexxS (talk) 23:26, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Yup epilepsy and seizure are not the same thing though they are often confused. The ketogenic diet is used for epilepsy NOT for a seizure itself. Seizures also occur outside of epilepsy. Epilepsy being a long term predisposition to having seizures. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:15, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Yeah but the article is not about seizures generally, but rather Epileptic seizures and there is a bunch of overlapping, non-synced content. I will just fixit Jytdog (talk) 01:53, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Agree fair bit of overlap. Hypoglycemia can cause an epileptic seizure but not epilepsy etc. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:02, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Hypoglycemia can cauze seizure, but not an epileptic seizure, no..? --Treetear (talk) 21:28, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

So definition from the ILAE are:

"An epileptic seizure is a transient occurrence of signs and/or symptoms due to abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain."

"Epilepsy is a disorder of the brain characterized by an enduring predisposition to generate epileptic seizures and by the neurobiologic, cognitive, psychological, and social consequences of this condition. The definition of epilepsy requires the occurrence of at least one epileptic seizure."

Epilepstic seizures can be either "acute provoked" (as in hypoglycemia, alcohol withdrawal, electrolyte problems) or "unprovoked" (as in epilepsy)[18]

These types of seizures are in contrast to Non-epileptic seizure which are generally physiological (like fainting) or psychological.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:13, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Overmedication

This article seems to need extensive work: it has a limited POV, and some very poor references. . both to add better references . Most of it was written in 2007 by a single editor. There have been many small edits since then, none of which have dealt with the major problems. Probably it needs complete re-writing, something I do not now have time for. DGG ( talk ) 14:23, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I removed some unsourced material, but the article is still very unbalanced, and I agree that it should probably be rewritten entirely. I'll try to work on this when I get a chunk of time if no one else does first. Natureium (talk) 14:33, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Exposome

Could use some more eyes - academic spamming and primary sources. Jytdog (talk) 19:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

[19]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:28, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

DYK linking to medical claims on smoking

May I request some eyes on Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany, which has a fair amount of medical content? It will be linked from the mainpage in 22 hours (as part of another hook), and it would be good to have a check that the medical claims are correct, and the historic medical claims clearly demarcated as such. HLHJ (talk) 02:31, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

the article is FA(very high standard)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:02, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment, Ozzie10aaaa? A bunch of new sources have come out since the review, so I've updated it; that's why I wanted a check, as no-one else seemed to be active there. DrKay gave a review; I've had a go at fixing all but one of the issues he raised, and inline-tagged some other problems. HLHJ (talk) 04:52, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
what I meant by the article is FA(very high standard) is that as your 'original post' asks to check that the medical claims are correct a FA should already be top quality(though this one did have issues)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:16, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
In reality, FA doesn't guarantee much. Alexbrn (talk) 12:13, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Zeaspora

Very poorly referenced. Not much on the topic at all... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:32, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:13, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Not a human disease. Looks like it was a joke... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:17, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
I have moved the page to "Diheterospora zeaspora". Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:21, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:40, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
good idea[20]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:35, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Whitewashing at Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine

Please keep an eye out on this. I have a feeling there's a long term edit war in the brewing here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:54, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I reject your characterization of my edits as whitewashing and your use of this term, I would say, further shows that there is bias in the editing of the JACM page. I gave a discussion of my rationale for my edits and they were rejected based on bias (calling the journal "spam" which is illogical at best and ridiculous at worst) not well-reasoned arguments. I retained the listing of the journal on the Quackwatch page, though the impartiality and legitimacy of this source could be questioned (for example, as this page resorts to name calling and other rather full-throated but not very scientific attacks on its targets). Attacking a single article that was published in a journal based on an expert's blog hardly seems relevant to a Wikipedia article about an entire journal. Show me an analysis as well-reasoned as that on the Wikipedia entry for the Lancet, which has clearly published far more damaging and dangerous information than anything in JACM. Just the fall out from the fraudulent Wakefield autism vaccine paper alone is far worse.

The use of the journal's impact factor alone to suggest it is not credible is ludicrous. I have addressed that issue in more detail on my personal talk page, but a critique by greater experts than I is readily available (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/11/062109). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eric Yarnell (talk • contribs) 05:33, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

It sounds like the locus of this dispute is whether:
  • a paper about a simple survey of homeopathy clients
  • published 13 years ago
  • that resulted in a 300-word BBC news article and an interview of the author on television
  • which in turn prompted a 275-word blog post from a subject-matter expert
is worth writing ~100 words in this article about.
As "Should we dedicate this much space to this seemingly minor event?" is a question of WP:DUE weight, it sounds to me like this is a question for the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:43, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Our article Impact factor already gives considerable space to discussion of that metric's problems and to alternative metrics. It is hardly news. That in no way means JACM has merit. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:38, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
The actual focus of the disagreement is whether Wikipedia should give credence to a journal like JACM by omitting the significant fact that it publishes articles on topics that are not medicine as the mainstream understands it. When a subject-expert expresses an opinion critical of such a journal, it is indeed quite important that our readers are made aware of it. The number of words required to establish the point that journals like these are not taken seriously by anyone interested in evidence-based medicine will depend on the precise topic, but I wouldn't expect the number of words extolling the credentials of the journal to be any greater. Otherwise, someone really is attempting to whitewash it. --RexxS (talk) 18:27, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I don't think so. The blog post is specifically about "Dr Spence's paper" and doesn't say anything directly about the journal. His statement that "Papers like this do not add to human knowledge" isn't about the journal. It's about papers that report uncontrolled survey results and then saying that "Half the people self-report feeling better" means "treatment is a valuable intervention" rather than meaning "Half the people self-report feeling better, and we have no idea whether they would have felt better if nobody'd done anything". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
JCAM is also on Quackwatch's list of fundamentally flawed journals: http://quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecperiodicals.html.Lucleon (talk) 19:49, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
yes it is on there[21]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:38, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Near as I can see, acute flaccid myelitis and polio-like syndrome are synonymous. Which one should be merged to the other, if at all? Abductive (reasoning) 21:11, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

[22]“poliomyelitis” or ‘polio-like syndrome” were used to refer to this clinical presentation. In order to avoid confusion with disease caused by poliovirus,...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:47, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Sanity check

Is Human rhinovirus A71 the same as Enterovirus 71? HVA71 is the one in the news for causing acute flaccid myelitis in children. Abductive (reasoning) 21:06, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

might want to post at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Viruses as well--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:08, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Ioannidis 2016 piece on reviews and meta-analyses

I don't see that we discussed this here or at WT:MEDRS. Interestingly, it was published just a few months after we had a discussion here about a more formalized MEDRS decision tree.

But what are folks' thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 00:14, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

We need to make sure the systematic reviews we use are published by a reputable source. Article type is only one factor among many. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:44, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Internet addiction disorder

Just noting Internet addiction disorder (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) here for anyone interested. The article is currently on my watchlist, but I don't pay it much, if any, mind. Will probably take it off my watchlist. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:44, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:38, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

"Heat-not-burn" tobacco products again

May I ask for comments on a recent change to the Heat-not-burn tobacco product article? HLHJ (talk) 00:21, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


Escalpelamento

The description of Escalpelamento doesn't include the word escalpelamento, which from what I can find simply means scalping in Portuguese. Is there a reason this is separate from scalping? If so, it probably needs a better description. This isn't entirely medical, but I found it in the disease stub category, and I don't know where else to ask this. Natureium (talk) 21:21, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

The entire Escalpelamento article is concerned with the accidental damage caused when a person's long hair is caught up in the propeller of a boat, which seems to been recorded as happening on the Amazon river. Our article on Scalping doesn't admit to the possibility of this sort of accident bring categorised as "scalping". So either we merge Escalpelamento into Scalping, with a major re-write of the latter; or we leave things as they are. --RexxS (talk) 22:04, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
We use the term "scalping" or "scalped" when someone has had part of their scalp pulled off from trauma. Have merged. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:53, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Natureium (talk) 02:06, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Circumcision controversies

Needs eyes. thx Jytdog (talk) 19:26, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:10, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

ADHD

Reduced brain volume on the left side from ADHD

I noticed this recent edit by a student from Miami. I moved it out of the lead and added citation needed tags for now but it needs more work. https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder&type=revision&diff=862321217&oldid=862319906&diffmode=source

I will add this educational initiative to the list but they do not all appear to be related to medicine: https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Miami_Dade_College/First_Year_Experience_Seminar_(Fall_2018) JenOttawa (talk) 17:36, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

This verywellmind.com is not a reliable source. Have trimmed and provided feedback. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:56, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Students, in my view, should be encouraged to edit B-class and start-class articles rather than dive into a well developed good-article status article. A recipe for disaster and headaches.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 03:29, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
GA-class articles are generally mediocre. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 19:54, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
not always...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:56, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for check it out James. I agree with Literaturegeek, these can take a long time to clean up. Perhaps I should have moved it all to the talk page right away. This course is supported by Wiki Education not sure if there are any med editors helping. JenOttawa (talk) 12:52, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

According to https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/users/Shalor%20(Wiki%20Ed) one of the Wiki Ed Staff supporting the course has completed the training modules for Assigning Medical Topics and Wikipedia policies, so ought to have a working familiarity with RS and MEDRS. --RexxS (talk) 13:56, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Have pinged them User: Shalor (Wiki Ed) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:26, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Endometriosis#Further_reading

Endometriosis of ovary

Others thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:41, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Suggestion; if it can include a variety of circumstances as some are diagnosed correctly....notable cases or notable people with this condition as is in some other articles eg Poland syndrome- lists notable people with this syndrome. Notable cases of endometriosis...I'm not sure but good discussion. Whispyhistory (talk) 20:32, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
The question here is whether ==Further reading== can include books that describe patient experiences (e.g., a book about women living with endometriosis). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:07, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
I think the right book on further reading with "a book about women (not just one woman) living with endometriosis" may make the article appear more humanistic and therefore a good idea. Whispyhistory (talk) 18:05, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes a book about experiences generally rather than one specific case would be better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
I saw this and assumed that the problem originally raised was that a human interest story (frowned on by WP:NEWSORG) was used in a context where it was likely to used as a MEDRS, that is, used by readers to inform themselves about the condition. Narrative accounts of living with the condition no doubt vary in suitability for inclusion here (for an extreme example, a story sponsored by a quack cure would be highly unsuitable). What criteria are we looking for? HLHJ (talk) 04:55, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Appropriate external link?

I notice that rahulgladwin.com, which appears to be the personal blog of a medical doctor, has been added as an external link to dozens of articles (see this search). I would like to ask that editors with medical experience have a look. Is this source reliable and/or appropriate? Or is this just spam or self-promotion? Deli nk (talk) 12:33, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I've taken a quick look at his blog site. As he says on his home page[1] the medical content consists of his 'academic notes'. Broadly they are pretty accurate, and appear to be largely undergraduate standard. However, no source for them is given, and in that sense, they represent a primary source. I cannot know for sure, but I get a sense from the tenor of the blog as a whole that it is done out of a sense of sharing information which he has found helpful. The same information could be sourced from published undergraduate medical textbooks. Maybe it would be sensible for an editor to post a reply to him asking that he cite published references, rather than his own unreferenced personal notes, might be more in keeping with Wikipedia's first 'Pillar'? Kitb (talk) 13:25, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

  1. ^ Gladwin, Rahul. "RahulGladwin.com: Personal Website of Rahul Gladwin". www.rahulgladwin.com.

Preprint of academic article on wiki in physical therapy class program

Hello,

I have a preprint of an article about Wikipedia editing a Wikipedia class. Please see

The journal where this was submitted, Journal of Medical Internet Research, has been friendly to publish wiki research. This paper is not yet accepted and is still pending review. They have an interface to take comments and questions - I regret to say I have had challenges using it. If anyone has feedback on this paper then feel free to post in that journal's own interface, or message here, or message me in any other wiki channel such as at Wikipedia talk:Touro.

This article is about student editing at Touro College. See records at

Every year this school teaches a class on communication between clients and physical therapists. Part of the class is interpreting medical literature. In each year of 2016, 17, and 18, the students read WP:MEDRS sources and seek to make them understandable to patients. This class has been a good fit for wiki editing.

In August 2018 I came to this board to request support for a Wikimedia Foundation grant request to pay the open access fee for this publication. The WMF approved this funding request in late September.

I think WikiProject Medicine should care about this study because unusual characteristics of this cohort of students include the following:

  • They are health care providers, but physical therapists. We have had medical school participation but no precedent that I know from other health care providers.
  • This sector seems to have great interest in patient-provider communication. They say that often physicians have less time to talk to patients, but this group spends more time and has more regular conversations.
  • This has been a steady program for 3 years with participation from faculty, librarians, and the department head. This wiki program is integrated and they have plans to repeat it next year.

I have something else to share. Check out the Wikidata profile for that journal in d:Wikidata:Scholia. This profile is a set of visualizations of data in Wikidata derived from 1000 articles from this journal in Wikidata. In checking out the profile for the journal, you can see what kind of articles they usually publish. I hope that in the future we can use this system to judge reliability of sources in Wikipedia and also as an off-wiki tool to help anyone identify journals where anyone can publish.

Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:38, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

thanks for post[23], Bluerasberry(BTW Scholia is excellent)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC)


Finasteride Talk

Hello, all. I recently reverted an edit by an IP user on the Finasteride page detailing new on-going lawsuits with Finasteride. I was reverted by an another IP user who took to the talk page to make his/her case after another revert. I noted on the talk page that I would take it up with some WikiMedicine folks to get your takes.

You can find the discussion here.

The finasteride article is definitely hard to keep well-edited with all of these advocacy groups, but perhaps some of you have experience with some controversial medicines and could provide your POV either here or on the talk page on the issue. Thanks, guys and gals! Jojomuju (talk) 07:55, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

This is probably Brainbug666 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) or similar. Guy (Help!) 08:45, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Medication prices

"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has proposed requiring that direct-to-consumer television ads for prescription drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid include the list price of the drugs."

This is really amazing in my opinion.[24] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

yes it is--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
I heard about this in the news. Seems like a great common-sense step--though they may already be doing it in Canada Doc James. IntoThinAir (talk) 04:32, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
Only two countries as far as I am aware allow direct to consumer advertising of medications User:IntoThinAir and they are the USA and Israel. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:30, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Watch Lung cancer

I noticed numerous vandalism attempts this evening. Just wanted to flag it so more can watch. Thanks. JenOttawa (talk) 01:56, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Accounts blocked and page protected thanks to User:Enigmaman. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:13, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Scholia at Wikidata

User:Daniel Mietchen appears to be adding links to Scholia at Wikidata to boatloads of articles. This is the one that caught my eye, added to Radiation therapy.

I am not sure that this is a good thing. Jytdog (talk) 02:35, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Scholia[25] is a good idea...IMO(though I understand if you may have any reservations)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:37, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
@Jytdog: I'd appreciate comments as to why this may not be a good thing, or what could be improved about it, or criteria for pages where it absolutely should not (or maybe even should) be added. Also, it's not boatloads for the time being (full list here), since each of these Scholia profiles is currently curated manually. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 17:42, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for replying, Daniel. Looking at [This the scholia entry linked above], how is it that Marcel van Herk is far and away the most-cited person there? Similarly Suresh Senan seems to be the most prolific. Do these statistics reflect somebody entering a bunch of those people's works into Wikidata, or are those actual reflection of the field? Jytdog (talk) 21:37, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
@Jytdog: I'm not aware of anyone working on these people specifically, and Wikidata is currently very incomplete in terms of publications, authors, authorship and citation information (see also the note on top of the Scholia homepage as well as the FAQ). So what this tells us at the moment is that these two people (as well as others listed on the page) are likely highly knowledgeable about the subject (and probably about the field), as they have published about it multiple times and those publications have been cited. For Wikipedia editors, having such a simple way of finding subject matter experts helps to reach out for expert opinions when they are needed. It is quite possible that some major figures in the field do not show up on the page yet, e.g. because they may not have an ORCID, or their publications are not indexed yet in their ORCID profile or in Wikidata, or their authorship has not been tagged on Wikidata yet (what we get from the databases is author name strings, which then have to be matched to the actual authors), or the publications have not yet been tagged in Wikidata as being about radiotherapy etc. Yes, we have bots and tools to help with all of that, and the WikiCite community is on it, so things are changing rapidly (cf. e.g. slide 23 from this recent presentation), but lots of work still to be done, and help with this is most welcome. When I am adding a Scholia template to a Wikipedia page, this means that I have checked the corresponding Scholia profile and think it has reached a point where it is becoming useful. For an overview of topics for which this may be the case, see this query. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 07:32, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
So the answers to my questions, are "I don't know".
In my view, an analysis of what is in Wikidata, which may or may not correspond with reality, has little to no value in Wikipedia and indeed should not be in Wikipedia.
The mission of Wikipedia (this is Wikipedia) is to summarize accepted knowledge -- not to summarize Wikidata.
I don't think you are respecting the differences between the projects.
You should probably get input at WP:EL before continuing to add these. Jytdog (talk) 12:43, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
@Jytdog: I will answer. I am organizing Scholia with Daniel at the Data Science Institute at the University of Virginia, along with other projects at meta:University of Virginia.
Jytdog - yes, you are correct, Scholia reports the arbitrary slice of the academic literature in Wikidata. Wikidata is 50 million items right now. 25 million items in Wikidata are citations to academic journals. 15 of those 25 million are from PubMed. PubMed has about 25 million papers total. CrossRef reports that there are 200 million academic papers total.
Somehow Wikidata will eventually have all the papers. Barriers right now include computation and storage limits (a hardware problem which will go away with Moore's law), various publishers being opposed to open citations, and the social challenges in Wikidata which right now concern humans who edit Wikidata not wanting to encounter bots who edit citations.
Wikidata / Wikicite collections can be better for some topics. For example, it is easier to verify in biographies if Wikidata has indexed all of one person's papers. For some more narrow topics a human can make as sure as any competing service that Wikidata has indexed all papers to a point in time.
Right now this is still experimental. The biggest barrier in all of this will be making citations open. No one has open citations but when we find those somehow the quality of this or any interface will improve. As you say, a large roll out would require wiki community review. I am expecting a future when things like bibliographies in Wikipedia link out to Wikidata, but we are not there yet. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:57, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your note. It seems like a great project and i wish you and those working on it well. Jytdog (talk) 15:06, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Suggestion of Changing of Oral Melanosis to Oral Pigmentation

I'm suggesting that if you can change the title of the page of Oral melanosis to Oral pigmentation as both are referring to the same thing but Oral Melanosis is misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosebud Babybreath (talk • contribs)

Doc James[26] took care of request--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:09, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
pigmentation has many causes besides melanosis. These terms are absolutely not synonymous. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 18:06, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
Oral pigmentation is a broader term that includes oral melanosis. What do you suggest Matthew Ferguson Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

some new med articles from one class

One large class has inappropriately listed dozens of articles at peer review. I am highlighting the med-related ones here for your info.

It's, you know, entirely possible that we already have related content (Semantic Amnesia has already been redirected...).

Core
Further afield

Outriggr (talk) 02:05, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

More information on this: The class is Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#OLES2129 at University of Sydney, the instructor is User:Fransplace, and the class has 296 students enrolled, as mentioned on the education noticeboard.Dialectric (talk) 14:29, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
The ACOX1 deficiency article needs some work, and removal of primary sources - but it isn't terrible. It doesn't exist as a stand-alone article, and based on other genetic disorders with articles, it is needed. Wikipedia peroxisomal disorders are kind of a hodge podge right now, and starting to break out the individual disorders from Zellweger spectrum would add clarity. Canada Hky (talk) 15:16, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
The students need instructions on proper sourcing. Google search and Wikipedia pages are not proper sources. Gah... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:43, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
I had to revdel a chunk of allostatic load because it was copied/close paraphrased from this article (PMC 5266697) without appropriate attribution. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:58, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
While cutting and pasting is a terrible practice when writing articles, the source article does say "This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY)." so it just needs attribution. Natureium (talk) 15:54, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
And Frontiers is not a very good journal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:54, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Diastolic orthostatic hypertension was associated with a decreased cardiovascular risk

https://cardiab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12933-016-0399-0


This study evaluated associations between different orthostatic blood pressure responses and markers of subclinical cardiovascular organ damage.

This study concluded that :

1.Diastolic orthostatic hypertension was associated with a decreased cardiovascular risk

2.whereas diastolic orthostatic hypotension was associated with significantly increased degree of sub-clinical target organ damage.

(Subrahmanya preethamm (talk) 19:31, 15 October 2018 (UTC))

its not a review should followWikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:17, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
@Subrahmanya preethamm: I think what you meant to say was:
A study among a group of Swedish people with type 2 diabetes evaluated associations between different orthostatic blood pressure responses and markers of subclinical cardiovascular organ damage.
The study concluded that :
1. Diastolic orthostatic hypertension was associated with a decreased cardiovascular risk within a particular group of Swedish people with type 2 diabetes
2. whereas diastolic orthostatic hypotension was associated with increased degree of sub-clinical target organ damage within a particular group of Swedish people with type 2 diabetes.
I trust you appreciate the significance of the omitted qualifications. --RexxS (talk) 01:43, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
Some more information about Orthostatic hypertension by ncbi:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4826894/

Conclusion by NCBI :

Hospitalized elderly patients with Orthostatic hypertension had a better survival rate than those without Orthostatic hypertension .

(Subrahmanya preethamm (talk) 17:57, 22 October 2018 (UTC))

This is the "conclusion by the six authors of one paper in Chinese medical journal". Attributing this research to NCBI is like writing "conclusion by Google". NCBI runs library database software. They do no medical research. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
@Subrahmanya preethamm: I think what you meant to say was:
Some more information about Orthostatic hypertension from the Chinese publication Journal of geriatric cardiology (not currently indexed for MEDLINE):
In a group of very elderly patients, it was found that the subgroup classified as not having orthostatic hypertension had a lower BMI, were more likely male and smokers, had higher rates of Parkinson's and lower rates of congestive heart failure. They also had a worse survival rate.
I trust you appreciate the difficulty in extrapolating from a single study to the general population, and the difference between correlation and causality. --RexxS (talk) 20:57, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
A left atrial volume indexed was found significantly lower suggesting that Orthostatic hypertensin is not a harmful phenomenon.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4452846/

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ije/2015/463487/

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/820786

Orthostatic hypertension is clinically not an impotent factor , till today Fda not approved any drug to treat Orthostatic hypertension.

But Orthostatic hypotension associated with significantly increased degree of sub-clinical target organ damage and also some other complications.FDA Clears Droxidopa for Neurogenic Orthostatic Hypotension management.

(Subrahmanya preethamm (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2018 (UTC))

Adolescent sexuality and Adolescent sexuality in the United States articles

I could use some eyes at Adolescent sexuality (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Adolescent sexuality in the United States (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Years ago, the adolescent sexuality articles were plagued by an editor who would stuff the articles with just about any and everything, and usually with negative information on adolescent sexuality. WP:INDISCRIMINATE applied to this editor's edits times over. See Talk:Adolescent sexuality in the United States/Archive 4#Section break and Talk:Adolescent sexuality in the United States/Archive 5 for examples. Although a lot of or most research on adolescent sexuality is negative, there were some POV concerns regarding the editor's edits. I believe that the editor has returned, but with an older Wikipedia account, or that it's an editor who contributes like the editor in question. I was wondering when the editor would return since this editor always comes back to these articles eventually. The editor will draft up a lot of content in their sandbox and then stuff the articles with it. AndyTheGrump is no longer there to help, and EBY3221 is indefinitely blocked. But Maunus and NinjaRobotPirate are still around. Not sure if Maunus and NinjaRobotPirate are still willing to help, but maybe some WP:Med editors are. Some of the content, like birth control, obviously falls under the WP:MEDRS and WP:Med scopes. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:46, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Illuminato back again? That would not be good. You should consider going to WP:SPI if you think you've got enough evidence. I remember Illuminato was very fond of quoting one author in particular. Mark Regnerus, I think. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:34, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
NinjaRobotPirate, the Illuminato account is not blocked, though. If Illuminato simply switched over to an older account and no longer uses the Illuminato account, I don't see what can be done on the socking front. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:59, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
It'll still might be avoiding scrutiny and so an WP:ILLEGIT use of another account, though it depends on whether he is open on it or not.. The history of Kailani's user page makes it obvious Kailani is an alternative account of Illuminato. (plus this and this consecutive diffs, found through interaction analyzer) Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:33, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
Galobtter, yes, I considered that Illuminato is using the Kailani account to avoid scrutiny. Still, I can see editors arguing that as long as Illuminato sticks to one account and is not switching back and forth as though two different people, it's fine. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:03, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Dietary life style factors and Colon cancer

Further input helpful here Talk:Colorectal_cancer#Lifestyle Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:23, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:40, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

What to do with the lotus seed pod image at the Trypophobia article?

Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Trypophobia#Should the image be removed, retained in the lead but collapsed, or moved down?. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:51, 26 October 2018 (UTC)


There is a move discussion

Monoclonal gammopathy

at Talk:Paraproteinemia#Requested_move_18_October_2018. Flooded with them hundreds 14:42, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:25, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Organic food

If you see enthusiastic new people adding information from the recent "Association of Frequency of Organic Food Consumption With Cancer Risk", then you might want to point them at https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/eating-organic-food-linked-lower-cancer-risk/ WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Or don't, because this study was poorly controlled and means nearly nothing. Natureium (talk) 01:02, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
But first, read Ioannides' [1] excellent critique of nutrition studies (via Eric Topol on Twitter)!

References

  1. ^ "Eric Topol on Twitter". Twitter.
--Kitb (talk) 10:00, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
I suspect that people who are excited about this study will be more receptive to learning about its limitations from an authoritative source such as the NHS than from some random person on the internet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
I would respectfully suggest that a professor of both medicine and of statistics at Stanford University is hardly 'some random person on the Internet', and that the Journal of the American Medical Association (which 'has a 2017 impact factor of 47.661, ranking it third out of 154 journals in the category "Medicine, General & Internal"'), in which his fully referenced paper appeared, is hardly a dodgy source! 😉 Kitb (talk) 22:12, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
It’s not WP:MEDRS either way. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:25, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
I was following the WP:MEDRS entry: 'Ideal sources for biomedical information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals', of which this is one. Should I disregard that entry, or should should the entry be clarified to explain when it doesn't apply? Kitb (talk) 22:35, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
This cohort study is a primary study, not a review. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:45, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
It is, indeed! I thought that Prof Ioannidis's [sic] excellent review of the limitations of nutritional studies in general was a good briefing paper in this context. Kitb (talk) 13:13, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Let me spell this out, so we can quit being confused:
  • If you see someone who is excited about this, please remember that Wikipedia editors are not reliable sources, and, if you argue with them, they're going to think you're just some random idiot on the internet and/or a shill for pesticide manufacturers.
  • Instead of saying "Hi, I'm some random idiot on the internet, and that study doesn't meet my personal standards for scientific evidence", please instead say something like "Have you read any of the evaluations of that study, such as this one from the highly respected NHS website in the UK?"
WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:26, 27 October 2018 (UTCry, I
Sorry, I get what you're saying now - thanks! Kitb (talk) 19:49, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
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