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Upcoming research newsletter (June 2015): new papers open for review

Hi everybody,

We’re preparing for the May 2015 research newsletter and looking for contributors.
Please take a look at: WRN201506 and add your name next to any paper you are interested in covering.
As usual, short notes and one-paragraph reviews are most welcome.

Highlights from this month include:

  • An Examination of Health, Medical and Nutritional Information on the Internet: A Comparative Study of Wikipedia, WebMDand the Mayo Clinic Websites
  • Medical student preferences for self-directed study resources in gross anatomy

If you have any question about the format or process feel free to get in touch off-list.

Masssly, Tilman Bayer and Dario Taraborelli

Research:Newsletter
—M@sssly✉ 16:03, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

good info--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Interesting [1]. They found that Wikipedia is as complete as WebMD and Mayo Clinic. But more difficult to read.
WebMD and Mayo however are plastered with advertising and give the actual content so little room. They also like clip art. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:55, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
more difficult to read, because more thought has been put into the articles, though the lede is being made simpler (when an opportunity arises with each article)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:59, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Dr Google

A pertinent read (imo) from the Guardian today, written by a thoughtful oncologist called Ranjana Srivastava [2]:

The modern cancer patient has typically Googled the diagnosis, the oncologist, prospective treatment and a whole lot more before setting foot in the office. This can mean that serious, life-changing issues compete with the frankly nonsensical.

Last week, between cajoling a patient to enter a hospice and treating a homeless man I heard a discourse on Mexican garlic, another on healing spinach juice and a patient demanded scans recommended by a popular blog.

I resent Dr Google being the silent spoiler in my life but only until I recognise how the internet has allowed patients to seek counsel that would have been unthinkable in another era, and access to often high-quality information written with the patient in mind. My last few patients have probably learned more about clinical trials from the internet than from me.

But look up “best treatment for cancer” and you have an astonishing 300 million offerings. Right there with rigorous, evidence-based sites there are those offering fermented foods and DIY cancer cure kits. ...worried patients need help to distinguish between sensible advice and fanciful claims.

109.155.60.103 (talk) 08:50, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

the "popular press" (the Guardian)is not interested in facts ( worried patients need help to distinguish between sensible advice and fanciful claims )[3]...though in this case I must admit the patients situation was difficult--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:37, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
(huh? - fwiw, this thread was intended as a reflection on the role of Wikipedia's medical content within the broader scheme of things) 109.155.60.103 (talk) 11:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Medicine is definitely changing. Patients now have decent access to health care information even though much of it is poor in nature. I; however, think this is generally a good change. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Camel urine/blood and MERS

Hello, we've had someone asking us (editors on the wikiproject sanitation) about cultural practices relating to the consumption of camel urine and/or blood in the Middle East. It isn't really our focus, however, I have been talking to a virologist who says that this is considered to be a source of MERS. In briefly investigating wiki pages, I have not been able to find this mentioned on Urine therapy or the main Camel page. I don't think it is really my place to get into Middle East respiratory syndrome or any of the (possibly relevant) medical pages, but I was wondering if anyone might consider whether this should (or quite possibly should not) be added to some of these pages? There are a number of strong looking reviews talking about the link including this one in The Lancet. Thanks! JMWt (talk) 09:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

to begin the Lancet ref you indicate does not have full access...the closest I found was this [4] but I would prefer a better quality reference to comply with Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:49, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Ozzie10aaaa, the NLM already has the Lancet "Seminar" article listed as a review (per PMID 26049252, publication types). I don't have access to the full paper, but I suspect it could be a strong candidate MEDRS, especially given the fast-moving circumstances. 109.155.60.103 (talk) 11:37, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
your right,...but we could use full access--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:58, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
is it not full access? I'm pretty sure I didn't need to login to see it. Edit: sorry, nope I was logged in without realising. JMWt (talk) 12:06, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
JMWt, while open-access is always nice, it definitely *isn't* a requirement for MEDRS. 109.155.60.103 (talk) 12:14, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I thought it was a bit sneaky for Ozzie10aaaa to edit his/her comment to take out the claim that it was not a review. But anyway, as far as I can see (reading the whole paper) it is a secondary rather than a primary source. JMWt (talk) 12:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
it didn't look like one (theres nothing "sneaky" about it, for any article you need to show the reader what the reference is that supports the statement) because there is no full access you so indicated here [5]....MEDRS is very clear Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Excuse me, I am not writing any article including this paper, I am just highlighting that maybe it is something that should be addressed. Wikipedia:MEDRS does not specifically say that open access is needed, it is not my problem that you do not have access to the journal. Get access, or don't. It isn't my paper, I don't much care. JMWt (talk) 13:32, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
@Ozzie10aaaa: Please see WP:REDACT - the guideline on how to edit your own talk-page contributions so that threads subsequently remain fully comprehensible to readers. 109.155.60.103 (talk) 12:32, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I do have a question for you in regards to this User_talk:109.155.60.103 ...(Thanks Ozzie10aaaa! This logged-out editor isn't actually altogether "new". So I hope you don't mind me trimming your kind welcome message so as to avoid possible third-party misunderstandings. Best, 109.155.60.103 (talk) 19:27, 20 June 2015 (UTC))...I was under the impression only one account can be used?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:35, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Sometimes people get logged out by Wikipedia and thus are switched over to an IP. Typically it is not a big deal as long as someone is not trying to hide edit warring or get an extra "vote" in a discussion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:38, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
OK, I'll leave it to you to think about. JMWt (talk) 11:02, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
A cultural practice such as drinking camel urine or blood is not a medical claim and therefore does not need a MEDRS compliant source. Thanks User:JMWt for bringing this here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:36, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
OK, but clearly the risks of MERS from camels is a medical claim. JMWt (talk) 13:38, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes agree. By the way this is an excellent source [6] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:39, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

→ Just in case anyone does want to look into this, my virologist contact has also offered this paper which might (or might not) be relevant. JMWt (talk) 13:46, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

chromosome interactions/condensin

[7] recently published,i deem this a good read, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:52, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia + Reddit

A bit ago Lane posted an idea to try to integrate Wikipedia with Reddit. Just today I have formalized a draft proposal with the basic ideas which I would like some input on from anyone. The basic idea is I think we should make content such as videos and other other interesting content for people to enjoy. the overall goal is to educate the public on how Wikipedia works behind the scenes to provide good content. We have seen many studies where a vast majority use Wikipedia in the healthcare sector but do not state they trust it. While this is meant to improve brand image, it also would serve as an editor recruitment tool. While most of the time we try to actively tell people to edit Wikipedia with little success, perhaps we should want them to do so organically?

Look forward to hearing everyone input! Peter.C • talk • contribs 16:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

sounds like a great idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:09, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Financial toxicity/cancer merge

Hi all, I'm suggesting that the stub on Financial toxicity be merged with Cancer's section on economic effects. Cancer is protected so I've held back on moving forward. The page on financial toxicity has minimal sources, both articles by the same co-author, but I'm not super familiar with medicine, so I thought I'd bring it to your attention. Your help is appreciated! Fuzchia (talk) 22:57, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks like a neologism of questionable merit to me. And the 'Economic effect' section in the cancer article needs globalising, if it is merited at all - our readers aren't all from the U.S. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:07, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:37, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
I think we need a good general article on the financial effects of illness. Cancer isn't the only expensive disease out there (for example, dialysis due to kidney failure). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I was involved in some research on financial aspects of cancer once. While I've not heard term financial toxicity, there is a bit of literature on tjhis topic. Really should be dealt with in society and culture section of disease articles, but a dedicated article would also be valuable imo. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 09:40, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Jfdwolff redirected it. Jytdog (talk) 11:58, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog Yes, it was a good candidate for WP:BOLD. JFW | T@lk 12:00, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
agreed! was just noting it. Jytdog (talk) 12:01, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone, for your help! I'll be bolder in the future. Fuzchia (talk) 15:06, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

JAMA and dopecruft

SandyGeorgia and anyone else facing dopecruft edits might like this week's JAMA. Several reviews on medical cannabis and related evidence or lack thereof. JFW | T@lk 18:25, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

She said she was travelling, I think for about that time, so we can hope for her return. Johnbod (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Have updated a bunch of pages based on the one review. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:35, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Re-writing an article?

Hey, I need some people to help with the article for Litten's sign (lung). It'd been tagged as a hoax but from what I can see this is a term that's used. That's about the extent of my knowledge of this as I don't really know what to put aside from that and this desperately needs to be edited by someone who is familiar with the term as it applies to lungs. I have no problem with this being merged into the main article for Litten's sign, which is currently only about the term as it applies to eyes. It looks like this term was applied to both, so maybe they can be merged? Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:50, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

the Litten's sign (diaphragm phenomenon) article does have a good MEDRS #1 reference, however it is dated (old)... (the #4 is in Spanish, and 2 and 3 are non-MEDRS compliant)... In regards to merging [8]they are different anatomical ailments. thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:42, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Nothing on Pubmed for Litten sign. I think it is too obscure for its own article. JFW | T@lk 12:00, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
hm there are a whole slew of these that i didn't know existed, and even a template for them: Template:Eponymous medical signs for respiratory system. Jytdog (talk) 12:02, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Oy gevald my eyes. Most of those "signs" are diagnostic tests (e.g. Kveim test) or X-ray findings (Hampton/Westermark/Kerley). That template really needs renaming. JFW | T@lk 16:36, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
and most of them are stubby. i wonder if we should merge/redirect each of them into the condition they are used to diagnose or something similar. Jytdog (talk) 16:47, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
@Jytdog: I suppose that depends entirely on the nature of the sign. If a sign is "pathognomonic" for a certain condition there is little point in having a separate article and merging might be entirely appropriate. JFW | T@lk 21:54, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Guillain-Barré on GAN

Having had a bit of a Wikibreak I have now been spending some time on Guillain-Barré syndrome and I've just nominated it for GA. It would be great if we could take it to featured article before 2016, when the original report is exactly 100 years old. Many thanks in advance to whoever decides to review it! JFW | T@lk 21:54, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

a very interesting article (nervous system disorder)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:35, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Vitamin D and cardiovascular disease

New article just landed:

Side gripe: the {{al}} template now expands with a link that uses the "visual editor" - take care! Alexbrn (talk) 06:27, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

in regards to references #2, 3, 13, 14, 16, and 17 are non-MEDRS compliant, further #6 is cited twice...aside from that the text could use some trimming, thank you --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:48, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Copied and pasted from sources same as everything else this user has created. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:25, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Merge mepirodipine with Barnidipine

Please merge mepirodipine with Barnidipine. Snipre (talk) 14:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

since they are both calcium channel blockers it might be best to place them atCalcium channel blocker, mepirodipine appears to be the generic name of the latter [9]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:07, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Kombucha again

There are efforts to extensively use a non pubmed indexed review to support medical content at the Kombucha article. This review also appears to misquote / overstate the position of the FDA. I have removed it but it appears to be controversial. Wondering what others opionions are? Talk:Kombucha#Non_pubmed_indexed_source Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:22, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Fundamentals of Robotic Surgery

Laproscopic Surgery Robot

Peoples thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:57, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

seems interesting/important [10]...however the article could use more prose and less numeration, also the references with the possible exception of #2, need attention...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:29, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Not an encyclopaedic article, and not a topic I'd expect to see in an encyclopaedia. Robotic surgery is clearly a topic meriting coverage, and (given sufficient coverage in third-party sources) the teaching of robotic surgery might well be - but an article on a curriculum for the teaching of robotic surgery? Surely not. Wikipedia is not a web-hosting service... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:37, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
I don't see why we don't apply WP:Note here. If the "curriculum" is notable it deserves an article. That said most of the sources are self-referential and could do with pruning. Also I would agree with Ozzie, it's far more important that we bring Robotic surgery to a decent standard, so if nothing could be salvaged here we can just redirect the page. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 05:44, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes I would propose deleting most of it and merging the little bit left into Robotic surgery. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:26, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
👍 Like..that is exactly what I proposed in the discussion.   Bfpage |leave a message  18:57, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Reference meets WP:MEDRS but...

Okay, I'm still learning the intricacies of proper sourcing. I have found a review article that is quite fascinating. I was searching for info on STIs and this article proposes alternative, successful treatments that I've never heard of. And its not the only article that refers to these treatments. Now aren't there about a billion people in China, and wouldn't they consider these therapies valid, especially since their efficacies are evaluated with these reviews?

  Bfpage |leave a message  18:51, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Impact factor is not very high. Thus not a very good source. We should generally stick with sources from reputable publishers with a significant track record of publishing high quality research. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:01, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree except this review-level article is just the tip of the iceberg. These Chinese therapies ARE showing up from reputable publishers. And the impact? Well, since a billion people might be using these therapies I would say the impact could be quite high. If I find other review-level articles from reputable publishers (is there a list of these?) on the same topic with the same or conflicting conclusions, would citing these articles then be appropriate?
  Bfpage |leave a message  19:14, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
A list of high quality journals include: JAMA, NEJM, BMJ, Lancet, Cochrane, Circulation, Pediatrics, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Often I specifically look for reviews from these publishers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:18, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Input wanted for a small blinded study of the quality of WP:Med articles

Hi. I am planning on doing a small study of the quality of or cardiology articles with C- or B-status. A random sample of the articles will be selected, anonymise by reducing them to a text-only version, and be reviewed by blinded (MDs incl. cardiologist) reviewers (the do not know the articles come from Wikipedia). After each article they will be presented with a questionnaire with a couple of questions. The reviewers can chose an answer based on a 1 to 7 scale (3 increasing positives, 1 neutral and 3 increasing negative) e.g. Excellent, Very Good, Good, Neither good nor bad, Poor, Very poor or Terrible.

I am looking for input for the questions on the questionnaire. This is what I had in mind:

Please rate your overall opinion about the quality of this article
Compared to medical textbooks, such as Medicinsk kompendium (Danish golden-standard-textbook for internal medicine) or Harrison´s Principles of Internal Medicine, how would you rate the quality of this article
Compared to medical textbooks, such as Medicinsk kompendium or Harrison´s Principles of Internal Medicine, how would you rate the readability of and language used in this article
Are there important omissions or errors in the article?
Is the article adequate in its coverage of the subject?
Would you recommend this article to a source of patient information?
Would you recommend this article to a colleague?

Do any of you have suggestion to changes or comments to the questions? If so please let me know. By the way there will also be pre- and poststudy questionnaires. I know it is not the best study design and I was planning on doing a study with control articles taken from textbooks or e.g. NHS or WebMD (if very interested there is a previously post) but it turned out to be too much comparing oranges and apples. Kind regards JakobSteenberg (talk) 19:47, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

As part of the post study questions would be good to determine how well the blinding worked. (ie ask the question "where do you think the content was from?") Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:54, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
Yup, good suggestion by Doc James. Effectively 'anonymizing' articles extracted from a publication with an editorial format/style as familiar as Wikipedia's could be a challenging task. 109.155.60.103 (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
the questions seem to be objective as is the rating scale--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:57, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
Jakob, did you consider trying to use a regular medical encyclopedia as the control? Also, rather than (or in addition to) asking "Are there important omissions or errors", it might be useful to ask "What's missing or wrong?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Just a few quick thoughts about the *focus* of the questionnaire/survey. The questions seem to be aiming to assess doctors' expert opinions as an indicator of "quality" – an approach that has some intrinsic limitations as you're no doubt aware. The first question seems to be the most resonant one, but ultimately perhaps the most potentially misleading because of its extreme subjectivity ("quality" in what sense/context?). "Textbooks" like Harrison´s and "patient information" are normally two very different types of publication (and this sort of questionnaire will inevitably provide a "doctor-skewed" view). I wonder what your precise research question is. 109.155.60.103 (talk) 09:24, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
  • JakobSteenberg Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Research publications for what research has come before. My biggest objection to most Wikipedia health critiques is that Wikipedia articles are often compared to imaginary ideal sources rather than any existing comparable source. You say that you would compare Wikipedia to a medical textbook, and I think that is fine, but during the research I think you should dictate that to which Wikipedia is compared.
If possible, it would be nice if a given topic in Wikipedia could be compared 1:1 with a given source, but I recognize that to read Wikipedia content it is required to jump from article to article through links and perhaps in a textbook one would also need to check several chapters to cover a concept. If it were possible, I would prefer a solid comparison with a defined source. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Agree with Blue. There is no perfect source / no gold standard. All sources contain errors / become out of date. The problem with using a rating scale is it needs to also run on a comparator. I do not think their is a way around this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:41, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Please, pleeaaase include at least one control source. I've read several studies that assess Wikipedia's content in comparison to, well, nothing, and I've found every one utterly worthless. They come up with some sort of number at the end, but there's no way of knowing whether that number is good or bad, and after a critical reading you feel like the whole thing was a waste of time. If you want to know whether Wikipedia is a good source for patients, compare it to WebMD or Mayo Clinic. If you want to know whether it's a good source for students, compare it to a textbook or some content from a MOOC. Just asking for a subjective comparison to a textbook isn't worth much if the reviewer has not also done a blind critical reading of the textbook content; you'd be largely testing their faith in the textbook. This is an outstanding example of how to conduct a study, though I recognise they had more resources available than most groups. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 00:00, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
[fwiw]...fully concur with Adrian's observations; if there's no blinded comparison (textbook / website ?) the survey will inevitably regard doctors' *attitudes* to the content, and there'll be no way of disentangling the objective from the subjective. 5.80.198.100 (talk) 15:42, 24 June 2015 (UTC) (=109.155.60.103 above)
I also just wonder whether Jakob has considered the possibility of adopting a more exploratory approach (to explore perceived issues rather than simply assign "quality" rating/s). 109.155.60.103 (talk) 14:53, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes would be good to get concrete ideas of how to improve Wikipedia further. Would be good if those involved with the study were also improved with making the improvements. One could than finish the paper with, "and these issues have now been fixed" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I echo comments made by others. Important to test whether the blinding has worked. And what is the appropriate comparison? Is it a medical textbook, i.e. is Wikipedia trying to be a medical textbook? Or should it be compared with, say, a website aimed at the public? Bondegezou (talk) 17:11, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

First, thank you for your responses. It it much appreciated.
Blinding and improvements questions: I like the idea and will try to include a "where do you think the content was from?" and "what can be improved about the article"-type of question into the questionnaire. I think the first question should only be addressed in the post-study questionnaire while the latter should be part of the questionnaire immediately following the article/it review.
Yes, there should be a control group: I completely agree with you here. This was also my initial approach. But I have spend a couple of weeks looking for a control group (textbook, on-line source like WebMD and what have you) but I could not find any where it would make sense do a a 1:1 comparison even when if I have used a non-random sample (I tried looking up "main"-articles like acute coronary syndrome, angina pectoris and atrial flutter but still it was also to much oranges and apples to make any sense). That being said I will still try to make such a study but it is somewhere down the line.
For doctors or patients? ...and what the hell is quality anyway? As stated above quality should be measured against a control and being that Wikipedias is neither for doctors or patients in some sense this poses a problem. That is why I am trying to measure both parameters individually with the latter questions but also in a way combined with the first question.
To sum up: It is no where near the best methodology in the world. It is actually kind of shitty. It is however the best I can do at moment since I am only postgraduate student with very limited research experience who is doing this in my very limited spare time and have a tight deadline; for several reasons this study has to be done by fall. In my opinion it is still better than nothing and being that the research being conducted on the quality of Wikipedias medical content only amounts to a very limited number of pub-med indexed articles a year that mostly measures bias towards Wikipedia as a concept I still think it can provide some information of value.
Again, thank you for your responses and keep them coming. All help and comments are appreciated. Kind regards JakobSteenberg (talk) 16:57, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Jakob, just wondering (again!) whether you might not be better off shifting your focus from "quality" to "attitudes"/"observations" of a certain relevant type of reader (eg some cardiologists). Personally, I feel it's always good to try to design a study capable of generating, after all limitations have been taken into account, some incremental/useful information, rather than just repeating... So I'm wondering whether it might be worth adjusting your aim (literally!). I'm sorry if I haven't expressed this very well. Best, 5.80.198.100 (talk) 17:41, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Jakob, how many articles and reviewers are you going to attempt? Also, do you need to review whole articles, or could you give them only, say, the ==Diagnosis== or ==Treatment== sections? (It'd save your participants some time.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
...(@WAID) hum, I think it could be hard for a reader to gauge, say, adequacy of coverage from an isolated (decontextualized) section. Pertinent content may be spread across different sections (even in articles that have reached FA, eg here/here). Also, judgements can vary on what constitutes, say, "Diagnosis": just relevant tests (and their predictive value) / or also clinical suspicion based on signs and symptoms etc. 5.80.198.100 (talk) 09:19, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
I apologize if I am making a suggestion in the wrong thread, but I believe a question should be in the evaluation that asks the cardiologists for whom do they believe the article was written? answers could be, the public, a person who has just been diagnosed with a cardiac condition, nurses, nurse practitioners, PCPs, or cardiologists. The audience matters! We are not writing for medical practitioners and I don't think we should be evaluated to that standard.
  Bfpage |leave a message  19:08, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Imo, Bfpage's suggestion regarding doctors' *perceptions* is a stimulating one... Imo, so much more interesting to go down that sort of *qualitative* research route than to attempt something that doesn't really seem feasible in the circumstances (ie reliable quantification of "quality"). Then you'd find yourself better placed to invest *creatively* in the relevance/originality of the research question/s. (Could I perhaps suggest also trying to contact User:HenryScow, who I happen to know has himself supervised readability research?) 5.80.198.100 (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Hi, again. Thanks for all you input in have tried to incorporate what I can. You been a big help. To quick things:
It will be a review of whole articles not just sections. It will (hopefully) be done for teen articles (5 C-class and 5 B-class).
Dear IP-User. I am very interested in what you have to say about a more qualitative study. But the design here was sort of locked in place with the time I have available (I will soon be leaving the ward where I work and thereby contact to my review group). I would however love to hear your suggestions and thoughts in more depth at a later time for (if possible) another study down the line. Is it okay, if I contact you directly on your talkpage when I get that far (perhaps in the winter)? ...By the way; why not register for Wikipedia? If you do please post your new user-name below so I do not try to contact you on an IP talk page you never will see or get notifications from. Sign up for Wikipedia and start drinking the Kool-Aid :)

Page move help

Can someone (probably need an admin) sort out a page-move problem for me? Sphincter of oddi needs to be moved to Sphincter of Oddi, and its talk page, Talk:Sphincter of ampulla, should be moved to Talk:Sphincter of Oddi. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Done. We should really make you an admin :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:42, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Jmh649 WhatamIdoing Hear hear. JFW | T@lk 17:34, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:42, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I thought you were an administrator.   Bfpage |leave a message  19:02, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Hey, I've been meaning to ask: How's your plan for the Haitian Wikipedia going? I see that you've been working on a couple of articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm making progress, I think but not as quickly as I would like. I have started the translation of two of Project Med's priority articles that have been identified as needing translation: Female genital mutilation and Yellow Fever. Female genital mutilation is a long, and heavily referenced article in English. Even the references have to be translated because they contain so many notes. It is a featured article in English and I have been in contact with the major editor who brought to featured status. As for building community, I thought I would wait until I had a significant number of edits and then start looking for those editors who are active. The translatewiki.net 'people' first rejected my application. Then I reapplied and submitted 20 edits to show that I could translate. Then they 'accepted' me as a translator. THEN a few days ago I was informed that I was rejected (again) and unable to contribute. Translatewiki.net has only translated one medical article to haitian. I don't need to be a part of translatewiki.net (their loss, I suppose) to keep working on translating med articles. So far, no other active editor on the ht:Wikipedia has reverted any of my edits, but then again I am not sure I am getting any page views, either. Would you like me to keep you informed on my activities on the ht:Wikipedia with some kind of periodic report? I could just leave an informative weekly or biweekly message on your talk page. I could ping Doc James so he knows the progress that is being made on the translation of high priority med articles. Best Regards,
Do you want to get nominated to be an administrator? It looks like you have at least four editors who would support your nomination. I personally think it is a 'dirty' process where everyone looks for your 'Achilles heel' and all your past mistakes. I also think nomination is a spectator sport. But I am sure you would be a good administrator, especially when settling disputes.
  Bfpage |leave a message  14:08, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
I would just translate the leads (first three or four paragraphs) of articles. Will allow you to create a broader coverage of content in less time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:13, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Eculizumab

has been the subject of some non-WP:MED not-to-mention-ax-grindy editing. my cleanup project for the weekend... Jytdog (talk) 16:56, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Have tried to summarize and update some of the medical aspects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:54, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

diabetic nephropathy

did a few edits on this article, any help would be appreciated.thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:51, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Coherent Breathing

I was about to AfD this article, entirely based on self-published single source. I suspect it is a quackery, but decided that you may know better what to do with it. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:03, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes. It is just a single persons idea. No idication it is even significant in the alt med world.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:07, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
no references (at least not usual ones)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:17, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

MEDRS issues

Euphorbia hirta NP

Euphorbia hirta seems to me to need attention by someone who understands WP:MEDRS. Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:05, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

the references (in the medicinal uses section) #3-8 are non MEDRS compliant,(inline citations have been placed at each).--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:46, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I've removed the "Experiment" section, which was egregiously out of place, but other improvements could probably be made as well. Looie496 (talk) 11:51, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

AfD on Stem cell educator

I've nominated this for deletion here: [[11] Jytdog (talk) 19:23, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

give advise(I gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:36, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Predatory / poor quality journals

This morning I was invited to be on the editorial board of the "Journal of Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care". I looked into the Elyns Publishing Group and it is out of some guys apartment per [12]. They appear to be a money making scheme.

This one has an impact factor of 0.11 [www.scirp.org/journal/crcm/[predatory publisher]]. There are; however, companies that award bogus impact factors [13]

Anyway interesting stuff. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:36, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

unfortunately there is good/bad in everything (OMG)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:48, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
yup it's possible to find a journal for pretty much anything these days! (and then to find a Wikipedia editor arguing for using it, he added cynically) Alexbrn (talk) 13:08, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes. These are the issues that Kombucha exemplifies. Wikipedians trying to push extraordinary claims using questionable sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:42, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
For me, the issue that the Kombucha discussion exemplifies is a different one, namely the opacity of MEDRS to many editors coming from outside of wikiproject medicine. Some may intentionally boost a bad review to promote their POV, but for others, a significant part of the problem is that MEDRS doesn't put forth a clear framework for evaluating reviews that are on the borderline - impact around 1 to 2. These would be RS in other parts of the encyclopedia, but as long as project medicine is setting medical refs to a higher standard, it should make that standard transparent and as objective as possible.Dialectric (talk) 19:21, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Sure so a step by step process for finding reliable sources? I will begin drafting one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:36, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Good luck, but, ack. This is the kind of subtlety you either already know or won't fully understand from a wiki FAQ. The best guideline would leave it at "If you're not absolutely confident that both your source and your understanding of its conclusions are impeccable, you should discuss it on the talk page instead of editing the article." Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:30, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
The guide sounds like a step in the right direction. Opabinia regalis, your guideline is going in the opposite direction with something of the same goal. There will always be a few editors who think their understanding is impeccable, and setting some outer bounds on acceptability shouldn't limit editors - what I would ideally like to see is a hard position taken on specific quality indicators, ie. review sources with an impact rating less than 1 should not be used. The 5 year point called out in MEDDATE is a move in this direction, and if there were just a few more criteria agreed upon by a majority, it would make sourcing less of a grounds for endless argument. And Sword and Skeleton is a lot better than it was a few years ago. They ran an excellent piece recently on the role mummies played in Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.Dialectric (talk) 22:11, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
I suspect the people who don't know what they don't know also don't know the underlying reasons for journal quality metrics like impact factors. You'll just end up with someone arguing their source is fine because the journal IF is 1.5. I'm generally not in favor of trying to reduce pointless arguments with arbitrary numerical criteria. Make the rules simple to follow and simpletons will manage.
Besides, I wasn't convinced by that mummies piece. They didn't do anything to address the evidence in favor of alien abductions. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:40, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

It should not be to hard to list a bunch of sources that are definately okay and than a bunch of sources that are definately not okay. We will still have a grey area but it will give people a starting point Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:06, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

A list sounds less useful than a guide. Over 5000 journals are indexed for Medline.Dialectric (talk) 16:34, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes and maybe 100 are of very high quality. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:44, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

An officially "reasonable" medical option?

The United States National Institutes of Health says "acupuncture appears to be a reasonable option".[14] Here is some of the history[15]. Wikipedia has an article on reason. Please comment and contribute to changing the lead first paragraph of the acupuncture article here. note: I modified this opening comment with the intended link to where to comment and participate, after User:AndyTheGrump commented immediately below. FloraWilde (talk) 16:59, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has articles on many things. None of them are relevant to our article on acupuncture however, since we don't cite Wikipedia as a source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:27, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
very interesting...The effects of acupuncture on the brain and body and how best to measure them are only beginning to be understood. Current evidence suggests that many factors—like expectation and belief—that are unrelated to acupuncture needling may play important roles in the beneficial effects of acupuncture on pain.[16]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:30, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
@Ozzie10aaaa, what I am not understanding is that each of the "systematic reviews" showing some mysterious new "energy" source or proposed "biomechanism" for the "effects" (which TCM practitioners just happened to have come across by application of incorrect traditional Chinese anatomy, Chinese Astrology, and numerology, to start sticking needles in people to fight disease), notes that there was not a single truly double blinded study included in the systematic review, yet they went ahead and published the review as if there were such studies, and got the "efficacy" conclusion published in the abstract, without mention that the review included zero double blind studies, as if there were real double blinded studies being reviewed. FloraWilde (talk) 16:54, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
I understand and agree with you, however now NIH is stating the above quote. In other words though one might be of a different opinion, NIH is starting to take a position on this( and who knows what else)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:13, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
There appear to be two different voices speaking for NIH, one made by biomedical science spokespersons, the other made by alt med promoters and practitioners, per this history[17]. FloraWilde (talk) 17:18, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
to be clear, the site linked above is the NCCIH which is not exactly the same as its sister institutions nor the NIH per se. it is useful to attribute accurately. that said, i do think they are expressing the medical consensus that one finds stated more and more frequently - acu is useful and safe enough as an adjunct to conventional med for some pain conditions and some side effects of chemo... situations that conventional med doesn't handle well and where placebo is powerful. it is not that big of a scandal. Some people are horrified by that and others want to take that and run way too far with it... but WP deals with the world as it is, not anybody's ideal world. Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
I am unclear how the NCCIH part of NIH, that is by lawdominated by WP:NPOV violating alt med promoters and practitioners and is "independent" of the biomedical part of NIH, can be accepted as MEDRS, when it admits that the "reasonable" systematic reviews it relies on, did not find a single correctly double blinded study to include in the review, yet analyzed the defective studies showing efficacy as part of a "systematic review" anyway. By definition, a systematic review can include only correctly double blinded studies. Then this NCCIH body made of political appointees picked to promote and practice alt med, makes a declaration under NIH's banner that this is "reasonable". This makes no sense under WP:MEDRS standards. FloraWilde (talk) 18:35, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
well for starters NPOV doesn't apply to anybody but WP editors. :) I know you are frustrated, I hear that. And if you search the archives for "NCCAM" you will see that the point you are raising has been raised before. There has always been some tension between whether our articles should emphasize evidence (the "biomedical reviews" part of the definition of "secondary" in MEDRS) or consensus (the "statements by major medical and scientific bodies" part of the definition of "secondary"). Generally those two align, but in cases just like this, what I have seen quackfighters do is emphasize evidence when discussing sourcing. Jytdog (talk) 19:03, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
hmm...with some CAM interventions such as acupuncture (unlike with, say, homeopathy) plausible biological mechanisms beyond placebo do exist[sorry, I don't have the RS to hand] other than the traditional/quack theories/explanations. 5.80.198.100 (talk) 21:19, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
What is the plausible biological explanation as to how acupuncture treats various cancers, assorted bacterial infections, viruses, and all the other diseases it claims to treat by sticking needles in specific locations? What biologically plausible explanation would lead anyone to ever first think of sticking an acupuncture needle in a specific point to treat a runny nose or ear infection, etc.? FloraWilde (talk) 22:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
@FloraWilde: sorry, poorly expressed... I meant "intervention" within a PICO context. What I meant was that *certain* claims for acupuncture may be biologically plausible, whereas for homeopathy no clinical claim is plausible beyond placebo (or talking, etc). I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that's why WP rules about editing homeopathy content are so tight. 5.80.198.100 (talk) 09:14, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes agree. It is a significant effort to keep our alt med content well references and reflecting mainstream scientific opinion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:03, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

this is getting way too long. acu-proponents wave their hands at neurotransmitters or neurohormones as possible mechanisms and some even murkier stuff. there is no scientific explanation for meridians/qi etc. the evidence for the indications the NCCIH mentions are from empirical studies with problematic placebos and results were barely significant over placebo. but both placebo and acu were much better than standard of care. and nobody serious talks about all those things you list (viruses etc) - that is what quacks push and they are pretty much strawmen/big waste of time in any serious discussion. but we constantly have to deal with people making those claims and with other people over-obsessing on them. Jytdog (talk) 23:11, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

You know, a web search engine can find someone saying almost anything, so there probably is someone who thinks that acupuncture cures the common cold, but it's my impression that people mainly see acupuncturists for pain and fatigue. Fatigue is probably helped quite a lot by lying still on a table for an hour, and pain is notoriously affected by expectations and theatrical elements like the mood of the provider. It probably "works", if by "works" you mean "the patient feels better (for a little while) afterwards". And the side effects of conventional treatments for serious pain are not to be overlooked: Acupuncture isn't 100% harmless, but fentanyl kills people.
Also, it's worth remembering that systematic reviews don't have any standards at all, except for what's declared in the methodology section. You could do a systematic review of the number of words in the abstracts of acupuncturists whose first names start with "E", if you wanted to. "Systematic review" is not just some fancy spelling for 'good source'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:21, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Among many epidemiologists at least, Bradford Hill's position remains, I think, a fairly widely respected scientific POV:

It will be helpful if the causation we suspect is biologically plausible. But this is a feature I am convinced we cannot demand. What is biologically plausible depends upon the biological knowledge of the day. [18]

The fact that a proposed mechanism is nebulous does not logically disqualify the possibility that one may exist. In such cases, failure to source/reflect the best available evidence – complete with limitations – would, imo, ultimately be a failure in NPOV. 5.80.198.100 (talk) 12:51, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
WAID you know i was talking about people coming to WP and wanting to add those kinds of claims to our article. the POV-pushing is all around on those articles. Jytdog (talk) 13:49, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
I think we all agree that POV-pushing is one of the more annoying and potentially destructive aspects of Wikipedia editing... However, I would argue that it can be humanly challenging for some very gf editors to realize when they may actually be inadvertently pushing a latent pov themselves. I think could arguably be the case here. The NIH patient guidance under discussion is based on available evidence of efficacy of the intervention in particular clinical contexts. The strength of that evidence is by no means conclusive, but the evidence is indeed based on a reasoned scientific approach, using established scientific (ie epidemiologic) methodology. From a strictly WP perspective, I feel the editorial challenge is to appropriately weight the emphasis given to (evidence of effectiveness of) acupuncture within relevant MED pages. 2c, 5.80.198.100 (talk) 11:25, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary—Featured Article Candidate

I have nominated the article for Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary—an autobiographical account of a man suffering from OCD—as a Featured Article Candidate. Please take part in the review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary/archive1! Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 07:49, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

give opinion (at FA--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:33, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Hum, Curly Turkey's invitation indirectly raises a pertinent question, imo... The Wikipedia pages linked in the lead on Scrupulosity and Intrusive thoughts both seem to imply, either directly or indirectly, that these (culturally-defined, imo) psychological descriptors are actually more or less officially recognized as a medical "diagnosis" or "condition". Are those implicit claims appropriate? Or should those pages be reframed? 5.80.198.100 (talk) 10:51, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
I have no medical background and wouldn't know what the issues are that you've raised—I've only reported what the sources have, and the sources are not coming from a medical background, either. If there are issues of any kind, please do discuss so we can find an appropriate solution. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 11:09, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Sure Curly Turkey. My query – which doesn't directly regard your candidated page – was really addressed to project regulars rather than to your own good self (sorry if that wasn't clear). 5.80.198.100 (talk) 11:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
My understanding is that intrusive thoughts are a symptom, officially recognized as a defining characteristic of OCD and some other conditions. Scrupulosity is a pattern of behavior which is the defining characteristic of "scrupulosity disorder", a subtype of OCD. In short, I don't see any serious problem here. Looie496 (talk) 13:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Looie496. I feel that it might be good to clarify those points in the main text (including the leads?). Fwiw I've requested a medical citation for the claim that "Scrupulosity is the modern-day medical *diagnosis*[medical citation needed] that corresponds to a traditional use of the term scruples in a religious context, e.g. by Roman Catholics, to mean obsessive concern with one's own sins and compulsive performance of religious devotion.[ref]". Also, to my layperson's brain, I'm puzzled by what the scientific basis could be for the claim at the end of the Intrusive thoughts lead that "Intrusive thoughts, urges, and images... can be divided into three categories: "inappropriate aggressive thoughts, inappropriate sexual thoughts, or blasphemous religious thoughts"".[ref] (surely a highly selective/incomplete classification?). 5.80.198.100 (talk) 15:36, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
I believe that material comes from the OCD section of the DSM-5. Unfortunately I don't have access to a copy so I can't check that. Looie496 (talk) 16:36, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
The OCD section of the DSM-5 mentions "forbidden or taboo thoughts (e.g., aggressive, sexual, or religious obsessions and related compulsions)." So they appear to be examples rather than an exhaustive list. KateWishing (talk) 18:42, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for that Looie496 and KateWishing. The present conclusion to the lead, saying that they "can be divided into three categories", does implicitly suggest an exhaustive list. (Fwiw, I have to admit to having little confidence in psychiatry's history of pathologizing the "taboo" – but that's not the editorial point here.) 5.80.198.100 (talk) 19:51, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
I reworded it after checking the source on Google Books, which says such thoughts "almost always fall into one of three categories." KateWishing (talk) 20:09, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Ramadan Health benefits

Hello, there is a medical issue in the Ramadan article, and I have been advised to seek your opinion on the matter. There are extremely dubious medical claims on that section titled as Benefits Here you can see those claims and they cite such sources as realbuzz.com for them. I had tried to remove those and add some scientifically backed content, but my changes were not accepted, because of no consensus. You can see the relevant discussion here. I tried an RFC for more comment on the issue, but I'm afraid it has not been effective. There are some users there that are too quick to revert and really reluctant to address the issue. Note that I am not against keeping the content if and when they can bring quality source that could meet the requirements for WP:HEALTHRS since the nature of those claims are clearly medical, and since I don't want an edit war, I am trying to find people with some expertise to comment on the subject. Darwinian Ape talk 19:28, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

reference #57 is non-MEDRS compliant Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:32, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Green tickY Thank you for prompt response, the issue seems to be resolved. Though, of course you are welcome to review further, I am content. Darwinian Ape talk 00:25, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Request upload

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/infographics/index.htm#poison see http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/infographics/pdfs/e-cigarette-poison.pdf QuackGuru (talk) 20:19, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:File_Upload_Wizard--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
If they're public domain (they probably are if they're made by the CDC) you can upload them at commons. Sizeofint (talk) 22:53, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't know how to upload this particular image. QuackGuru (talk) 04:14, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

 DoneQuackGuru, see commons:Category:Electronic cigarettes. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 09:58, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Template:oral pathology layout change

This nav template was getting out of hand so the layout has been tweaked with collapsing sections. I feel this is an improvement and could be used on other similarly large medicine templates. Only concern is it is not immediately obvious what the template has to offer readers in its completely collapsed state, which would be the default appearance. Thoughts? Matthew Ferguson (talk) 07:18, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

looks like a good idea, but as you indicated not immediately obvious what the template has to offer readers --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:42, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
I changed one of the parameters to "autoexpand" and this seems to have done the trick. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 21:39, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
An interesting change, and a good way to sort a navbox into categories when they are many and varied. I worry some titles may not be accessible to lay readers, such as "Periapaical, mandibular and maxillary hard tissues" (I suggest "Hard tissues of the upper and lower jaw"), "muscles of mastication" ("chewing"), "Orofacial soft tissues" ("Soft tissue of the mouth and face"), "Peridonteum" ("Supporting structures of teeth"), and if "Gingiva" is retained ("gums"). The benefit here is that users who do not have technical training will understand the contents of the navbox. I'm sure you've put a lot of thought into the navbox and may be actively working on it, so I won't go ahead and boldly make these edits. @Matthew Ferguson 57, thoughts? --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:11, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
LT910001 yes good point. I think it would be good to add "layperson" explanations in brackets after these terms. Thanks for feedback and for initial suggestion of collapsing sections. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 10:08, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

medical advice on the refdesks

Posting here because I wonder if any of you have experience dealing with people giving medical advice on Wikipedia. In articles it seems rather straightforward, but what about on a talk page or other non-article venue on Wikipedia? On the reference desk talk page there's a discussion of what constitutes medical advice and the kinds of medical advice that should not be allowed on the reference desks (or on Wikipedia).

It started with this thread (linking to old version of the page because someone has since removed the advice, but well after the OP responded in a way that clearly took it as medical advice): Possible to stop eyes from watering?

The gist: a user posted a question explaining that he views himself as unemotional and wanted a method to avoid having his eyes water during emotional parts of films per expectations of masculinity. Clearly any direct answer is going to be fraught, but a refdesk regular quickly responded with simply "SSRIs should work well" and went on to defend that as not being in conflict with Wikipedia's medical disclaimer.

Seeking additional eyes/thoughts, especially from those who may have more experience dealing with medical advice on Wikipedia. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:02, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Note, I just defended the statement in the context of the discussion there (i.e. that the OP should of course always stick to whatever his/her doctor prescribes). The issue is then simply mentioning that X can help with condition Y as a statement of fact instead of saying that "you should use X as a cure for Y". The latter is clearly not allowed. My problem with not allowing the former statement is that this amounts to censorship. There may still be problems with the way I suggested that SSRIs could help with the condition, but the objection to my statement suggests that even mentioning something more clear cut like e.g. that antihistamines can help to deal with allergies wouldn't be allowed because only doctors are in the business of prescribing antihistamines. That sounds over the top to me, as we're not prescribing medicines, only doctors can do that. Count Iblis (talk) 19:19, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
You don't know that X is a good way to treat "condition" Y because condition Y is "my eyes water during emotional parts of movies, and I'm a guy so I don't want that to happen". As far as I know, there is no medical literature on the use of SSRIs to enhance one's performance of masculinity by preventing eyes from watering....
So your statement of "fact" is bogus, first of all, but the distinction you're trying to make doesn't hold water either, because you're comparing "statement of fact" as though in a vacuum to a more explicit recommendation. Your "statement of fact" was presented as an answer to a particular person who asked for treatment advice for a particular problem. By saying "SSRIs should work well", the "...as a treatment for what you asked for help with" is implicit.
Cry censorship if you like, but it's still [lousy] medical advice and thus inappropriate. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:45, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

no medical advise to anyone,at anytime--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:05, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

One however could say X source states Y but should one should not give medical advice. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:09, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
What Doc James said is essentially how arguments on medical topics are communicated on talk pages. It seems a bit inappropriate when the relevant topic/issue is about a single person though. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:30, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Not only is it medical advice, it's terrible medical advice. The idea of taking drugs with a whole range of negative side effects because your eyes water at emotional movies is completely absurd. Looie496 (talk) 13:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
It's not medical advice, because I didn't advice him to start a medical treatment using these drugs (and saying that it still does, doesn't make it so, no matter how large the consensus is that says so). Thing is that in the very same thread there were other contributors who on the one hand argued that what I wrote amounted to giving medical advice, but then they had no qualms about writing what you wrote here, i.e. that a treatment of such a problem using SSRIs would be a bad treatment. That sounds a lot more like giving medical advice to me, because if someone was prescribed by his/her own doctor to use SSRIs for such a problem then that person could read here that this is not good.
What this demonstrates to me is that this whole brouhaha about "Medical Advice Blaaargggh" has nothing whatsoever to do with any real potential problems, that the people who make a big fuss about it have other motives, wanting to play the boss, wanting to censor information they disagree with or whatever. Thing is that I'm really not interested in anything that comes out of this nonsensical discussion here or elsewhere, I'll continue to violate any stupid nonsensical rules that have little to do with reality. Count Iblis (talk) 20:05, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

For anyone interested, the thread at the refdesk talk page led to this ANI thread. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 05:10, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

Draft:Hemodynamic Management. Care to comment? Best, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

in regards to the references #1-8 are non-MEDRS compliant ( it is not clear where the statements the references are referring to are marked in the article)...also a conclusion section is unusual to see in an article per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles. thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:28, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
But what do you make of the article overall? Also Draft:Osteomyoplastic Amputation Reconstruction (2). Best, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:50, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
aside from the two aforementioned reasons I would add [19] which indicates the same copyvio as the prior reviewer had indicated...therefore decline.thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:22, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
BTW...[20] indicates Draft:Osteomyoplastic Amputation Reconstruction (2) is a copyvio from a brochure therefore decline . thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:30, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

visually impaired/FDA

The Food and Drug Administration today allowed marketing of a new device that when used along with other assistive devices, like a cane or guide dog, can help orient people who are blind by helping them process visual images with their tongues . [21] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:12, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting, maybe something for Human echolocation or Sensory substitution? -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 08:48, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
very good idea, those could be possible articles for this information--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:00, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Not really a medical topic, it's a better fit at WikiProject Disability. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:43, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Amyloid stuff

Should Amyloid degeneration redirect to Amyloidosis? The latter doesn’t seem to mention any of the key words from the old stub. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, spontaneously I think it should redirect to Cachexia, but that might be just as wrong. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 08:45, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
The redirect to Anyloidosis is a sensible. Since some of the content of the old stub might be relevant [22] to ==History== I'll copy the stub to the Amyloidosis talk page. 5.80.198.100 (talk) 18:20, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

New Cochrane evidence on treatment for DVT

Hi, I have updated Wikipedia:Cochrane Collaboration/Cochrane UK/Cochrane Reviews with the latest Cochrane evidence.

There is a new review out today on 'Oral direct thrombin inhibitors or oral factor Xa inhibitors for the treatment of deep vein thrombosis' (high quality evidence) see number 89 in the project table. To see the full Cochrane Review go to [10.1002/14651858.CD010956.pub2].HMill88 (talk) 13:42, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

very good review (abstract)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:07, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Tom Catena, DYK?

I created Tom Catena yesterday about a surgeon practicing in a conflict-ridden area of Sudan. The article is 773 characters says User:Dr pda/prosesize, I believe, while the DYK requirement is for 1500 characters of prose. If anyone would like to help expand, I think it would be a deserving DYK submission. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:05, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe the article meets Wikipedia:Notability#General_notability_guideline...however I have not found anything Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:39, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Lol. I doubt one would, as it's a biography about a physician. :-) Thanks for looking, though. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 23:25, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Really inspiring. I found a few other sources mentioning him at:

FT, the New Yorker and Foreign Policy and more or less pay-walled, but I have subscription access so I'll look into those articles and try to add something by tonight. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 06:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

I did some work and I think you'll find it is DYK-ready. I'm not really sure about the iamge I added, but I think it might be difficult to get any CC-BY-SA image applicable to the article.-- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:06, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Forgot to ping! Biosthmors. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 17:32, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
CFCF the article looks great--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes. Great job with the expansion CFCF. I see the article made the main page. Nice work. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 01:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Rigler's Triad

Not sure exactly what should be done with this stub-- I can't even decide what categories it belongs in. I suspect it should be redirected to gallstone ileus. What do other editors think? Everymorning talk 16:33, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
I've fixed it up with some references and context, but merge remains a possibility in the sense that it remains quite stubby. JFW | T@lk 17:12, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Dubious articles

An editor has written a series of articles on health-related topics. Although they do not appear to be WP:COPYVIO, they look suspiciously like WP:OR and are poorly referenced. I'm not sure whether to nominate them for deletion, try a clean-up, or just leave them alone. Any opinions or direct action will be helpful. WWGB (talk) 05:15, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Proteins and amino acids and OA signs are surely duplication of content already covered elsewhere. I'd suggest a merge of any useful content for these two, but as you point out the referencing and style are lacking. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 07:55, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
I see there were just deleted so never mind. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 07:56, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
The remaining article, Anti-inflammatory foods, sounds a bit altmed. Neither source is English so can't assess for Medrs. Needs a lot of work if kept. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 07:59, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
references 1 and 2 are non-MEDRS compliant (translated with Bing), it also does not follow Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:57, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
Searching PubMed for "anti-inflammatory diet" turns up several potentially useful reviews. I think that anti-inflammatory diet might be more sensible. The "foods" name makes me think it will be a plain list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
These articles are horrible. Should be deleted. Better articles can be created. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:55, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
WP:Deletion is not cleanup. But a bold blanking and stubbing might be an improvement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
The terms can be redirected. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:20, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

TheNNT

Meyershp (talk · contribs) added some content to hypertension- and cardiac arrest-related articles based solely on the summaries from the TheNNT website. While I support the principles behind the site, I didn't feel that the content was WP:MEDRS-proof.

I have now been contacted by David Newman (Meyershp's supervisor and the site's founder[23]), to see if some form of collaboration can be explored. He informs us that the site has a peer review mechanism, and that this perhaps could make it WP:MEDRS-compatible.

Any views from the forum about this? JFW | T@lk 09:32, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

[24] interesting this link uses Cochrane reviews as a source ( as do a number of other therapy reviews ) no other source?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:02, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
Best to stick with the systematic reviews IMO. I guess that these could be used as a lay summary link. Cochrane has their own lay summaries aswell though.
Have reached out to David as well. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:09, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
As a general comment, we've done a pathetic job of communicating the number needed to treat and number needed to harm to readers, and those numbers matter. We're so focused on "my source proves that it works!" part that we forget the "for just 1 in 12 treated patients" part.
Given what a lousy job we're doing on this particular point, and given the site's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (e.g., their peer-review process), I could see something like this being acceptable as an incremental improvement. It should, of course, be replaced by better information from a stronger source, but I would not revert it on grounds that it wasn't perfect on the first try. A combination might be particularly valuable: A citation to one or more reviews that support this information from the POV of a formal scholarly source, plus a |laysource= link to TheNNT's website for the sake of actual humans. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
Imo, WAID makes a strong point here. Like it or not, some Wikipedia readers will be gleaning information to help make personal decisions ("patient choices"). While evidence, or otherwise, of efficacy may sound helpful, by itself it doesn't say that much... NNT provides a measure that (unlike absolute risk reduction) is reasonably intuitive to understand for the general public. However, like all measures, it needs to be cited/deployed with care. If we have a good MERS available that is providing updated evidence-based information on this, that could be a considerable asset here, imo. 5.80.198.100 (talk) 21:23, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
Have spoke with David. Nearly all of these are backed up by systematic reviews. They are also going to be published by American Family Physician soon and pubmed indexed. I have agreed to work with User:Meyershp on formatting. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:47, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Sinclair Method

Hello there! I was doing my rounds yesterday, and stumbled upon a curious Third Opinion request. One thing led to another, and now we've nominated the Sinclair Method for deletion, given a) it is a construction by Sinclair himself (we're all familiar with WP:NOT), for which b) there are currently no extensive independent nor reliable sources available, as I detail in the linked discussion. I am afraid the AfD needs some experienced medical eyes, as one of the keep votes is a possible sockpuppet involved with the editing of the article itself. The same thing happened the first time around, when only one actual vote led to a speedy keep. I also need to point out that I am planning on creating an article about the use of Naltrexone for alcohol dependence in the near future. Thank you for your input. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:37, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

give opinion(I gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:01, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Molecular Therapy and Auger therapy

A couple of months ago I came across two articles that I'm not sure what to do with, but which need cleaning up (and maybe more scrutiny applied, depending on what exactly is going on). The articles are Molecular Therapy and Auger therapy. Both were created by User:Rbaker1793 in December 2013 and October 2012 respectively. Both are tagged (for merge to molecular medicine and for excessively intricate detail respectively). IMO, the current articles were created by a single-purpose account pushing a new medical technology, but I'm checking here in case opinions differ.

There are journals called 'Molecular Therapy' and 'Molecular and Cellular Therapies', but I don't think that is what these articles are about. They appear to be about a proposed form of radiation therapy and my concerns are that the references at the bottom of Molecular Therapy are to a patent filed in 2007 and 2008. If you switch over to the Auger therapy article, you see the same patents from CG Wang and Lawrence Helson. And some more patent applications from 2011 and 2012. I think the CG Wang that filed that patent is the same person as Chia-Gee Wang of Nanodynamics Inc. The same name crops up in the OTRS permission tag for one of the images (see here).

The nanodynamics website is at http://nanodynamics-88.com/. The whole auger therapy article appears to be a direct copy from here (I doubt it was copied the other way). Even if they have released that text under the appropriate license, there may be COI and notability and WP:MEDRS issues involved here. This may be all rather advanced cutting edge stuff (or maybe something else, depending on how cynical you are), so I am not entirely sure what to do here. I did read more about Nanodynamics here (Wang's name also appears there), which made me highly sceptical, but YMMV.

Any ideas on the best approach to take here? Carcharoth (talk) 05:20, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

With respect to auger therapy there is one review from 1996 [25]
It has been picked up by some textbooks [26] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:38, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
From a page naming and search ontology perspective, the two page names/search terms "molecular therapy" and "molecular medicine" should not fail to land on the same article. As for which one redirects to which, it doesn't matter, as long as the redirect happens. Regarding title case, the only smart thing to do with the title case "Molecular Therapy" is redirect it to that same common target as well. If anyone ever wants to make an article about the journal, they should name it "Molecular Therapy (journal)", not "Molecular Therapy". I perceive the content currently residing on the page "Molecular Therapy" as a partial content fork of the molecular medicine and auger therapy articles (a molecular medicine specialist could prove me wrong, but barring that, I don't see it). Accordingly each chunk of it should be merged into the molecular medicine or auger therapy article, as appropriate. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:42, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
While I tend to agree with Quercus' position above re journal titles, wp:DIFFCAPS has not usually been applied that way. We have many articles on publications that are distinguished from the similarly-named articles on subject matter only by capitalization, without the appended "(journal)". The place to make a change stick would be wt:WikiProject Academic Journals.LeadSongDog come howl! 22:10, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Ah, I see. OK, then an article about a journal could give a hatnote to the common noun (sentence case) to escape the wrong landing. That's good enough. Not the best IMO, but I leave it to the consensus of WP:DIFFCAPS, and this instance wouldn't meet the Jesus threshold described there. The first sentence of my comment, though, I would haggle to preserve. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:28, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I hope we don't get too sidetracked by the page naming issues. My main concern here is that Wikipedia ends up with pages that explain, concisely and clearly, what the terms 'molecular medicine/therapy' and 'auger therapy' refer to. The current pages are not easy to understand and my fear is that they present the perspective of specific companies/inventors rather than an overview of this subfield of nuclear medicine and the context it has with other techniques. Is this an experimental technique, still under development? That is not made clear enough on the current pages. Carcharoth (talk) 23:35, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

placebo effect/nejm

[27] I deem this a good read (very interesting read), enjoy--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:46, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Agree. This is exactly why not all herbalism is valueless just because it involves placebo effect. Value in health care includes making people feel less shitty, both physically and emotionally, even if the latter is only "in their head". I totally, totally get that we need to keep people from elevating pseudoscience and antiscience as if they were "equally valuable as" science. Wrong, wrong, wrong—they're not, they're 99% bullshit. But don't take someone's St John's wort, or its placebo effect, away from them if they really think it's helping them feel less shitty. It's helping them in some way and it's not harming the world, at least not enough to count. This is, of course, different from tiger body parts, bear bile, opium, heroin, and other bullshit that is not harmless—whether it's not harmless to the patient, the environment, the society, or any combination of those. No, those things should not be tolerated, because they harm the world more than they help it. The hardest part about talking about this topic sanely is keeping the loonies and bullshit separated from the valid aspects. Many people exhibit an attitude of "well you can't (keep them separated), so the only answer is to be radically extremist in the other direction, declaring all placebo effect worthless trash." Quercus solaris (talk) 22:06, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
The first author appeared in this documentary. Count Iblis (talk) 02:45, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

drug names (especially for generics)

i've been making it a habit to clear away all/most trade names for generic drugs and just provide a link to drugs.com where the whole laundrylist of names can be found - when I remove the list i always include that link. i do that b/c for generic drugs, names of drugs became spam-magnets. if a drug is still on patent i think it makes sense to include the brand name, and i think it makes sense to keep the original brandname after it goes generic... but after that it seems to me we have no justification for barring any one if we allow some names ... that's my thinking anyway. KDS4444 noticed when i did this on Acenocoumarol and expressed some concern, that folks should be able to easily see in the article if they are in the right place, by seeing the relevant brand names there. i hear that. the two of us just had a very nice discussion on my Talk page, and it seemed good to both of us to get wider input. i should stop doing that if folks generally disapprove. thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 22:34, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

for generic drugs, names of drugs became spam-magnets I think this statement is true, best to remove the brand name...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:50, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Dude, it occurs to me now that we might benefit by doing this discussion through a WP:RFC... which adds to the hassle, I know, but might get some more feedback. You were good enough to write this section up here on Wikiproject Medicine-- I'd be willing to turn it into an RfC if you think it'd be worthwhile to try. Thoughts on that? KDS4444Talk 05:16, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
This is more relevant to WT:PHARM than WT:MED. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
I think that the best answer depends upon the number of brand names. If it's just a couple, then include it. If it's a lot, then don't – unless (Tylenol!) a couple are particularly well-known, in which case include (only) those couple of well-known brand names. Also, you need to consider the reader's context: most people don't know what Trastuzumab is, but they might have heard of Herceptin in news stories (probably about how expensive it is). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Let's let this ride a bit... no deadlines here. Jytdog (talk) 05:56, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Maybe a collapsible box could contain them without distracting from the main text? It does seem reasonable that people will search based on the brand name. Even if generics accumulate namecruft, it's hard to see how that confers any real 'advertising' benefit. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:46, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Brought here from WT:WikiProject_Lede_Improvement_Team. There was an analogous debate about place names a little while ago. The concern was to avoid making the opening sentence hard to read, with a lengthy bracket between "Article title" and "is a ..." containing every conceivable alternative name. Insofar as there was any conclusion, opinion seemed to favour a horses-for-courses approach rather than laying down a universal rule: convey the naming information in whatever way is most appropriate for the content in the context of the particular article. Keep the bracket in the opening sentence if very few words: use the infobox, if any, or a separate sidebox as Opa says: or even a separate "Alternative names" section further down the page if some prose were wanted, such as "In Eastern Europe it is usually known as Xxxyz,(ref) except in Ruritania where since 2005 it has been marketed as Zzzyx.(ref)": Noyster (talk), 07:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
The list you replaced in that first edit looks more or less like what I'd imagine putting in a collapsed box. I don't understand the charges of "spam"; there's nothing inherently spammy about noting that X is also known as Y with no further commentary or links. I don't think there's much value in writing this stuff out in prose, and boxes if used should be toward the bottom of the page to prevent obtrusiveness in mobile view. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
you don't see this as obvious spamming? hm. Jytdog (talk) 22:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Okay, THAT was a big fat spam-fest if ever I saw one (in India)! Yeesh! I don't think anyone will disagree with that assessment. What I think we're really talking about here, though, are single mentions of alternate names, not that kind of repeated advertising. As per Noyster, I still feel it would be useful to include these, and agree that as long as there are only two or three reasonably well-known ones, it might make sense to include them in the lede because people are likely to search on these terms (often more so than on the generic name). But I am with you, Jytdog, in opposing laundry lists designed only to give free air time to pharmaceutical companies (oh, and yeah, per Seppi333, this is really not the right forum for this discussion, is it... I have never moved a section of a talk page before, and doubt that a cut-and-paste edit is the right way to do it; a little help to get us over to the pharmaceutical talk page mentioned above?) KDS4444Talk 04:56, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Seeing plenty of those kinds of edits is what started me doing this. I posted notice at WT:PHARM here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Pharmacology#generic_drug_names. Jytdog (talk) 12:04, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog, you posted three links and I referred to the first one. The first was not spam, the second was a list with an inappropriate link, and the third was spam. Yet you've listed all three as examples of removing spammy and unencylopedic content. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:13, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
PHARMMOS specifies a "Brand names" section. Could we not just link to that section in the lede? For example "Buproprion is an antidepressant and smoking-cessation aid marketed under many names." Sizeofint (talk) 13:50, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
I typically move the list of brandnames to the end of the article. And only leave one or two in the lead.
We should typically not put stuff in hide / show boxes. If we feel their is too much detail to be in the main article than a subpage is best. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:00, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
A brand names section works, though I maintain there is no point in presenting this stuff in pseudo-prose. Collapsed boxes are much superior to using separate pages IMO; they maintain the redirects to a main article in which the brand name is mentioned and incorporate relevant search terms into the text. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:13, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
I hear that people using screen readers do not like collapsed boxes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:18, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Two things that seem to have been missed in this discussion. First, any redirect (with in reason) should be bolded within the lead. This includes trade names. Of course, this is not practical if there are a large number of brand names. Second, {{infobox drug}} also has a tradename name section that can be used to store and display lists of trade names. Boghog (talk) 21:36, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I think we need a limit of 4 in the infobox drug though. We do not want dozens or hundreds added their. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:01, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Since the brand names are the names the drug is known by, they're an important tool for users looking for information, so we need to leave as many as practical in the article. I completely agree that we need to relegate them to the lower sections of the article, maybe to a multi-column list or something? For very common drugs we may need List of brandnames of morphine or similar; a list article with a high-regimented structure will make keeping the spam out easier. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:27, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Double check! and a little help. Fever of Unknown Origin

Normally I wouldn't ask to double check this, but I thought that I updated so crazy many causes of diseases that I would like to have more eyes on it, since it is a mid important wikipedia page.

page: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Fever_of_unknown_origin#Causes

I need some help with redirecting to other Wikipedia pages of the named diseases, I got almost all of them, just a few that I need help with. Also I hope the lay-out is ok? And also the sections are ok?

I updated the Fever of Unknown Origin because I thought it was just really sad to see so little diseases listed. After thinking about the best way to do it I have decided to pick a really good book for reference as a starting point (Harrison's). It seemed not really logical to choose articles, even good ones, because of the change to miss out on something.

I decided to put the reference behind each disease instead of on the top, so that one can truly see where it came from and also, to prevent future added diseases from other people to get lost in references that do not include those terms. It seems a little overkill, but I thought it would be the best way. If there is another way, please do change. Thank you! EllenvanderVeen (talk) 13:07, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I think that this assertive citation style will work well in that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Things like this, I don't know where to redirect these with:

  • Perinephric/intrarenal abscess
  • Prostatic abscess

EllenvanderVeen (talk) 15:37, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Urinary_tract_infection the former , and Acute_prostatitis the latter--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:51, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


Thx!! EllenvanderVeen (talk) 20:14, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Name of article question

Asked here by IP Talk:Severe_myoclonic_epilepsy_of_infancy Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:34, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


Hey James, I checked the medical textbooks online. Found 5 books using Dravet syndrome ( Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine 19th + Adams & Victor's Principles of Neurology, 10e + CURRENT Diagnosis & Treatment: Pediatrics, 22e + Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, 12e + Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, 13e)

2 books used severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy (Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine 19th + Adams & Victor's Principles of Neurology, 10e)

EllenvanderVeen (talk) 16:04, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I wonder what User:Colin recommends. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
[28] Dravet Syndrome--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:41, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
This is the major epilepsy textbook [29] and it uses SMEI.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:58, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
ok (however this is NIH)...in any event you are correct medicine is using less named terms so "severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy " should be used (a descriptive term is better)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:00, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes the USA often goes a different direction from the rest of the world. Thus they still use miles while the rest of the world uses km. They use STD while the rest of the world uses STI. Etc. Just something to keep in mind. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:17, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Concerns about a new article

The biography of Greg Roskopf has problems. It seems to me to be a WP:Coatrack advertorial for the subject's "therapy" and it doesn't cite any MEDRS-compliant sources. I'm not sure if it's fixable or should simply be sent to AFD. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:04, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes it is based simply on popular press. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:28, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Request white background for image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eri_merkkisia_sahkotupakoita.jpg

This image can be improved if the background is turned white like it was done for another image. Thanks. QuackGuru (talk) 20:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

this may be your answer[30]...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:48, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
If you look at the edit history that page is like a ghost town. QuackGuru (talk) 21:49, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
QG you're doing great work on the article, but I think that image is a lost cause. It just isn't going to look any good. The FDA has a number of images that we could use. I'll see what I can cook up for tomorrow. Good night, -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 22:11, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Gordonofcartoon

User:Gordonofcartoon hasn't been very active for a while due to health problems. I have posted the latest news on his talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:21, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks WAID Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:29, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Cancer of unknown primary origin

this article is in need of help, any assistance is appreciated, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:26, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Wow, I'll say -- right from the opening sentence. I will try my best to carve out some time for it. (Not this weekend, I'm guessing...) DoctorJoeE review transgressions/talk to me! 20:50, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:15, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
There's a (free) NICE guideline for anyone who wants to help out: http://publications.nice.org.uk/metastatic-malignant-disease-of-unknown-primary-origin-cg104 I really appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Nutrition-related biography article in need of eyes

Dear medical experts: Does nutrition and diet come under the scope of this project? Or is there another more suitable project for that material? I ask because I approved an article about Marilyn Diamond, who has written books about nutrition, and immediately promotional material began appearing, added by the subject herself. I have reverted some of it, but I don't know enough about nutrition to tell which claims should be removed or reworded. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:17, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

And yikes, we also have Fit for Life. Alexbrn (talk) 04:14, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
will keep an eye on it--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:40, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
And The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is just a minuscule stub. That's not right :( . Count Iblis (talk) 16:30, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
Anne Delong thanks as always for bringing this kind of thing to us! Jytdog (talk) 19:50, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Steroidergic AfD

The above article has been nominated for deletion. Your input is welcome. Boghog (talk) 06:41, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

give opinion( gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test

Dear medical experts: I left a message about this draft some time ago, but didn't received a response. Should it be merged with Beryllium poisoning? It will soon be deleted as a stale draft unless it is either (1) made into an article (2) merged or (3) made into a redirect. What should be done?—Anne Delong (talk) 02:25, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

it should be merged ...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:32, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Shingles versus Herpes zoster

Discussion here Talk:Herpes_zoster#Primary_name Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

important topic give opinion(I gave opinion)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:12, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

An excellent IP edit

We occationally have excellent IP edits like this one [31]

Our article had contained this low quality content since 2013 [32] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

yes, IP's do contribute very importantly(this one rooted out this article ref proven fraudulent using http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1457763/#!po=14.7436)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:01, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

New page

The genetic aspects of acute myeloid leukemia needs eyes. Formatting the references needs work, and although some of the sources seem to meet MEDRS, not all do, AFAICT. Everymorning talk 20:24, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

references #1,6,7,10 are non-MEDRS compliant...( User:CorenSearchBot/manual indicates it doesn't appear to be a copyvio, though its presentation is unusual)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:14, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
@Ozzie10aaaa: I am...concerned by the off-the-cuff declaration that the sources are "non-MEDRS compliant". I have said this many, many, many times before, but it seems that I have to keep saying it—sources aren't intrinsically reliable or unreliable. The (un)suitability of a published paper depends both on the publication itself (the type and date of study, along with all the other factors mentioned in MEDRS) along with the claims that it is being used to support. MEDRS is not a magic checklist.
Since the references in this article are broken in such a way that the footnote numbers aren't actually shown in the body of the article, it's virtually impossible to determine which claims are attached to which sources (if any). It is therefore entirely inappropriate to make a blanket declaration that particular sources are "non-MEDRS compliant". I would ask Ozzie10aaaa to explain his process for determining whether or not sources are correctly used, and to refrain from making any such judgements in the future until he demonstrates a firmer grasp of MEDRS (and WP:RS in general). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:09, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
it is best if you read MEDRS that way you can give a more objective interpretation of Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine) following this link,[33] Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content. Many such sources represent unreliable information that has not been vetted in review articles, or present preliminary information that may not bear out when tested in clinical trials and Look for reviews published in the last five years or so, with newer being better if you take the time to look at the references in question some are dated (old), some are not reviews ( one article had prior correction[34] ) thank you (should you have further questions ask Doc James)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:38, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
What you're saying, then, is that you are indeed (mis)reading MEDRS as a series of binary yes/no checkboxes, and basing your conclusion about reliability on that mechanical assessment. Please don't do that—especially when you don't know which claims are being based on which sources, or even if a given source is being presented to support a medical claim at all. (And incidentally, the fact that a published paper has an associated erratum – as opposed to a retraction or an expression of concern – does not necessarily reflect on its usability as a source for Wikipedia content. I'm not sure why you would bring that up.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:40, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
refer to prior answer (or ask DocJames) thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:49, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
@Ozzie10aaaa: Does that mean that you understand my concern, and that you will change your approach going forward? Or something else?
I'm not sure why you keep referring me to Doc James; he's not my keeper, and I'm assuming he isn't yours either. Neither is he the sole expert or arbiter of the application of MEDRS. (I suspect, however – based on my own experience with that guideline and the constructive interactions I have had with him about its development, use, and interpretation – that he and I usually aren't far apart on how MEDRS works.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:38, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
My positions is that we should be generally using high quality secondary sources. The use of primary sources should be rare and should only include very high quality ones. Low quality primary sources should generally be removed and replaced with something better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:49, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
The problem here is the word "generally". When someone says "not MEDRS" about a primary source, it's not clear whether that editor means "this is a primary source, and primary sources are bad" or "this is a primary source, but those are sometimes acceptable. However, in this particular case, and after carefully considering all of the facts and circumstances, I believe that this particular primary source is not acceptable for this particular statement". The first is sloppy work, and will have a 10% error rate. The second is important and valuable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
It's not clear why we need this oddly-titled fork of acute myeloid leukemia. The currently-very-brief section acute myeloid leukemia#Genetics would seem to be a better place. (Should the amount of material eventually grow to be unwieldy, we might eventually create an article titled genetics of acute myeloid leukemia or similar, but the amount of content available right now – if cleaned up and properly formatted and referenced – wouldn't seem to warrant doing so.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:09, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
in this opnion I do agree --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes would redirect it back to AML. Done Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:03, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

SB277

I started an article on California Senate Bill 277 which may be of interest to members of this project. I also created a related article on Trace Amounts, and antivax propaganda film that reportedly inspired Jim Carrey's SB277 Twitter meltdown. Guy (Help!) 10:44, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

both articles seem well sourced per WP RS (the only medical claim is reference #1 in Trace Amounts and it is well sourced [35] )--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:59, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Drawings for CPR

I came across these illustrations and I was curious about everyone's input on them. Overall, I like the idea of them but I think some improvements could be made to make them medically more accurate. Just wanted to know everyone's thought on illustrations v. picturesfor CPR and other articles. Also, while I am on the subject of CPR illustrations, I am working on procuring a video of a LUCAS machine in action. If you have never seen a LUCAS I highly recommend you watch it on Youtube. Very interesting to see in person. Peter.C • talk • contribs 01:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

These are based on the 2000 ACLS guidelines, we are now at 2010. Some of it is still applicable but some has changed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:26, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
Yep, would it be worth it to see if we could get updated illustrations? Peter.C • talk • contribs 12:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Informational video on breastfeeding

HealthPhone: Early and Exclusive Breastfeeding

I have received release of this video under an open license. It is in Hindi and IMO very well done. Wondering what peoples thought are on videos generally? I am trying to convince organizations that releasing them under a license we can use is a good idea for global health. Still working on a bigger release from the Khan Academy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:32, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

videos would be very useful in articles (as they would give more information to the reader)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
Really cannot comment on the content of the videos specifically because of the language barrier, however; it does seem very well produced by a reputable organization. Are the medical contributors at hi.wiki willing to incorporate it into their article on breastfeeding? Peter.C • talk • contribs 16:17, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
I have already added it here [36] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:47, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
Video content is something that has been requested by many readers. Did any of you catch the presentation at Metrics last week on the strategy consultation? (See here, starting 15 minutes into the recording if you missed it; slide deck is File:Community Consultation on Strategy, WMF Metrics Meeting July 2015.pdf. This section begins on slide #11, and some of the most interesting slides are 42 and 43.) The most common request from logged-out respondents was more video, audio, images, interactive features, and other multimedia. They also care about mobile functionality (e.g., that infoboxes are pretty busted on phones), the site's appearance (they want it to look more modern), and the ease of sharing with friends. As far as actual readers are concerned, more video = more goodness. But established editors basically hate videos: they're hard to make, hard to control, hard to edit, and hard to customize. And it's not one-size-fits-all: a good drawing can be used across most Wikipedias, and a good paragraph can be translated to any of them, but a good video may need to be re-created for every language and culture. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
I struggle with video used as sources as it makes actual VERIFICATION difficult. With regard to videos included as ELs, they often fall astray of WP:NOTHOWTO and spam. I understand that readers may want more "how to" but that isn't what we are about here.... That said, I would be very happy to see an alliance with groups like the Harvard BioVisions group to systematically include their videos in articles - that group's animations on what goes on in cells are super cool and informative. Check them out if you have never seen them! Jytdog (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't think that videos (e.g., a video of a television news show) are difficult for verification. They might be slow, and you can't search, but they're pretty straightforward.
However, the request from readers appears to be more like "systematically including videos in articles". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
With respect to HealthPhone their are no videos in English so does not affect En Wikipedia. There are many Khan Academy videos in English though.The Harvard one looks good.
I am generally against linking to videos but if people are willing to release them under an open license I am interested in including them as appropriate. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:21, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
By the way we do have these videos that explain doning of PPE for Ebola from the CDC [37]
The problem we have is that making videos is hard. And other people usually do it better than we do. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:32, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
very good video from CDC (I placed 3/13) at Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:19, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
There is a set about taking off the PPE that I have not uploaded yet if someone is intereted. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:58, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
I might very well add that , once available (not to go off-topic but with Liberia [38]kicking up again [Guinea and Sierra Leone ever present] its a topic which will not go away, ive been editing it for a year now, without stop, nor with a foreseeable end)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

sanitation 2.4 billion/WHO

30 June 2015 ¦ GENEVA ¦ NEW YORK - Lack of progress on sanitation threatens to undermine the child survival and health benefits from gains in access to safe drinking water, warn WHO and UNICEF in a report tracking access to drinking water and sanitation against the Millennium Development Goals [39]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:23, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Well we launched Wikipedia:WikiProject Sanitation in Dec of 2014 to try to improve our sanitation related content. We have one amazing sanitation engineer User:EvM-Susana who is leading efforts. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:57, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
yes I was looking at the project today,the Goal and objectives on the project page is impressive and User:EvM-Susana seems quite active (via the History), only good things can come of these efforts (your positive efforts, needless to say)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:14, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! :-) Collaborating with User:Doc_James on this has been brilliant! Now what to do with the new report by WHO and UNICEF? Time to update the Wikipedia articles on sanitation, Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, Millennium Development Goal, [[child mortality]...EvM-Susana (talk) 20:00, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
yet another example of only good things can keep happening...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:12, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

MEDDATE and the expiry of systematic reviews

I ran across an interesting little paper today (I thought it was mentioned on Retraction Watch, but I can't find it there now) that sought to quantify the reliability and robustness of the conclusions of systematic review articles as a function of time since publication. In other words, how much time elapses between the time a systematic review is published and the time a new (typically primary) study is published which may invalidate some of the review's conclusions?

The paper isn't new (it's from 2007), and because of the nature of the question the publications it examines are necessarily even older, but I thought it worthwhile to mention because I can't immediately locate anything more recent; I can't find a previous mention of it here or on WT:MEDRS; it's relatively short (and the terminally impatient can get the high points from the abstract and pictures); and it's free.

The median 'survival time' for a systematic review article was 5.5 years (95% CI, 4.6 to 7.6 years). Before patting ourselves on the back for the 5-year threshold in WP:MEDDATE – or worse, deciding to mechanically, blindly, and rigidly apply MEDDATE – we should also note the attached caveats and qualifiers, and the breadth of the distribution. For instance, 7% of systematic reviews were potentially out of date at the time that they were published. At the other end, about a third of systematic reviews were still valid after 10 years. Obviously, fields which were active areas for clinical research, with lots of money and trials, tended to see shorter review lifetimes—cardiology in particular was singled out as having particularly short-lived reviews. As well, this study did not attempt to track which parts, or how much of, any given systematic review was in question; scoring was all-or-nothing, so it is quite likely substantial parts of many older reviews were still up-to-date. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:42, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes agree with that. Some reviews in some poorly researched areas stay uptodate for a long time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:27, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
It's not clear to me why this would be an issue for Wikipedia in the first place. In medicine, primary research results that have the potential to overturn some well established consensus are typically large scale RCTs which have to be announced well in advance, typically there will be quite a few publications about these RCTs long before they start. So, everyone in the field will know years in advance when potentially new results could in theory overturn some consensus view that currently exists. Also, good review articles that draw their conclusions on what current and past primary articles say, will also discuss such planned research. Count Iblis (talk) 15:51, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
Medical consensus changes based on lots of little studies, too. Also, we don't tend to look in our WP:CRYSTAL balls and report things that might happen later. Sections on planned research get mentioned (if someone is diligent) in a ==Research directions== section, but not under treatment, diagnosis, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:02, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
Per WhatamIdoing. As well, in any moderately active research area there will almost always be one or more trials in progress—waiting for all the trials to finish means never writing a systematic review. And new trial outcomes don't always overturn the consensus on any given point (and very rarely do they overturn our understanding of an entire field); even a technically "outdated" review is still often substantially correct.
Finally, it's far from unheard of for a researcher to want to get his opinion out in print – or to add a bit of padding to his CV – now, rather than two or three years from now. Clinical trials aren't always timed correctly from the standpoint of any given individual's career. Worse, the publication process can be rather fickle and finicky at times. Some papers sail through the process from submission to acceptance to online 'print' in three weeks; it more often takes a couple of months, and can sometimes take more than a year. There are a lot of reasons why a systematic review or meta-analysis could be out of date less than a year from its publication. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:00, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

List of benzodiazepines dose equivalence

The list attempts to establish an approximate equivalent dose between benzodiazepines. User:LeadSongDog raised a concern about this at WT:PHARM#List of benzodiazepines with no response. I share in this concern especially since there don't appear to be a references. Sizeofint (talk) 00:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 02:03, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Thank you! LeadSongDog come howl! 14:41, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Post-Ebola syndrome

would appreciate anyones help as to how this article could be expanded ,thank you (on article talk page or here)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:43, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

spinal cord/review

[40] I deem this a good read (particularly the role of transcription factors)thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:06, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

cystic fibrosis /fda

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the first drug for cystic fibrosis directed at treating the cause of the disease in people who have two copies of a specific mutation.[41] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:44, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Opinion

I just added some controversial information to the prostate cancer article and want to give those who are interested a heads-up. I would characterize my edit as 'an extraordinary claim by an extraordinary source'. A respected and well-referenced systematic review and meta-analysis has found a significant link (20%) increase in the risk of developing prostrate cancer from even one episode of gonorrhea. Comments are very welcome and take them to the Prostate cancer talk page. Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  11:21, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
The article already had "In particular, infection with the sexually transmitted infections chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis seems to increase risk.[40]" cited to PMID 12100928, so it's not that extraordinary. Alexbrn (talk) 11:26, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
nevertheless still important (perhaps the related text should be expanded?)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:51, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
The older (2002) review should probably be removed as the new one found other STDs had no significant impact. Alexbrn (talk) 12:06, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
Lynn Margulis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I've raised concerns at Talk:Lynn_Margulis#HIV_and_AIDS that recent edits lend undue validity to a fringe viewpoint. Courtesy-pinging James D. MacAllister; also pinging WLU and MastCell who are experienced in this area. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 13:37, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

.This article did not call Margulis an "AIDS denialist", but quoted a source that referred to her "endorsement of HIV/AIDS denialism". It appears the source was both justified in this wording and accurately represented by Wikipedia[42]..i concur with this opinion--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:38, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
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