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Merged Archive WikiProject Preclinical medicine: 1 Merged Archive WikiProject Clinical medicine: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 WikiProject Medicine Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170

Creating a bot to search Wikipedia for retracted papers

Have been talking to Ivan Oransky at http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/ regarding retracted journal articles. Pubmed lists about 4000. I am wondering if it would be useful to have a bot that would check Wikipedia for these articles and tag them if they are present? Would improve the reliability of our references. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:20, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to tag them as retracted? Should be uncontroversial. Is there an extant tag to use? I'd think we would want a maintenance category for articles citing retracted sources. It might get tricky when cited indirectly, e.g. via {{cite pmid}} and {{cite doi}}. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I think this would be a worthwhile undertaking, and would be happy to help out as time permits. We could search by article title or PubMed ID (assuming that the PMID will appear either as a parameter in {{cite journal}} or {{cite pmid}}. At one point, when Dipak Das ran into trouble, I remember looking around to see how often we had cited his work on resveratrol etc... MastCell ^Talk 23:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Since there are legitimate reasons to cite a retracted paper, I think that a talk page message might make more sense than an inline tag of the {{fact}} sort. On the other hand, a note in the citation (like adding (Retracted.) at the end) might be desirable in all cases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Not fussed where the tag ends up going as I am happy with each. This is a good idea. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Excellent idea. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

As these things on occasion turn into a cited discussion of the controversy, we'll at least sometimes need to cite both the original and the retraction. It would be helpful if the bot could provide at least a hint to editors as to where to find the retraction, even if this is just as a hidden inline comment. LeadSongDog come howl! 04:35, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The basic idea of a bot to check and mark these seems reasonable.

1) I think the retraction would need more than just a hidden citation. It should provide a citation to the source that says it is retracted, to enable readers and editors to verify the retraction (just as we provide sources in general). If it is hidden then it will be more likely that errors and vandalism will go uncaught. It also makes it less useful.

2) Another thing that might be nice to have is a bot that would scan for errata, and augment citations to articles with citations to the published corrections. I do not know if there is a source for data to feed such a bot, so it may not be practical. At the moment it does not look like the {{cite journal}} template even has a facility for citing corrections. Is there some standard in the MOS (either wikipedia, or MED) that covers how to cite corrections? Even if a bot for this is not practical, it might be worth adding the ability to cite corrections to the template, or add a link from the template documentation to where it explains in the appropriate MOS how to cite corrections. Zodon (talk) 05:44, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

If you're just labeling the citation as having been retracted (not discussing why it was retracted in the article), then IMO that doesn't really require an extra citation. A link to the official retraction notice could be provided in some instances, e.g., PMID 22408789, but the fact is that if you go to the original paper online (see PMID 17264214.1 or http://www.pnas.org/content/104/6/2001.long or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1794300/), it's directly labeled as being retracted. So the paper itself forms the proof that the paper was retracted, and no further citation is actually needed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Anyway with bot making abilities interested in this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:22, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

You might talk to User:Citation bot's owner. It already does similar things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Response to WhatamIdoing above. I think you do need to have a citation. Otherwise how do you confirm retraction for articles that do not have links to PMID or other online databases (or that are not indexed in medline at all). I realize that what the bot would do would probably be based on accessible database information like this. But one has to consider what human editors would do with such a feature as well.

As a hypothetical example - a vandal might add a retracted note to a citation. After that sat for a while, another editor might come along, and see the allegedly retracted source and remove the citation (because it is presumably no longer valid) or post additional source needed, then somebody else comes along and removes the item because it lacks citation for verification.

At the very least the facility needs to be there to allow citation for the retraction (to satisfy verifiability, if it is challenged). Since the facility needs to be there anyway, it would be better if the bot used the facility. Zodon (talk) 08:44, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Another refinement - it might be nice if the facility had a way of noting that a particular article has been withdrawn because it is supplanted by a newer version. For instance, when ACOG releases a new Committee Opinion or practice bulletin, they may withdraw earlier recommendations on the same topic. (Likewise USPSTF, etc.) Certainly there may be reason to cite old recommendations (for history, or for background information that has not changed), on the other hand it could be handy if a bot could point out newer sources. Zodon (talk) 19:56, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Zodon, I don't actually object to making it possible to cite the retraction announcement (after all, depending on the subject of the article, you might want to discuss the retraction in the article text), but you missed my point: the actual paper at the publisher's website (not PubMed) says that the paper was retracted. Assuming that the journal follows this standard practice, then there is no need whatsoever for a separate citation even for non-MedLine-indexed papers.

(Of course, we already have a system for citing retraction announcements: you cite it just like you'd cite anything else in the article.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

• What sort of specification are we interested in? It's relatively easy, for instance, to write a script where we feed in a list of retracted PubMed IDs and the script searches (say) WP:MED-tagged articles for citations. It doesn't even need to be a bot per se, if it doesn't actually do any tagging - the script could just generate a list which could be hand-checked (depending on its size). Inevitably, such an approach will miss some citations, but it would be a start and would be relatively straightforward to code. MastCell ^Talk 01:00, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

That sounds excellent. Ivan keeps a data base of articles which we could us in addition to pubmed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:26, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

OK. PubMed currently lists 2,060 retracted articles. The PMIDs can be exported into a flat text file using the "Send to..." link at the bottom of PubMed. A first step would probably be to export these PMIDs and cross-check them against any other databases we'd like to use, so we can form a complete set of articles to search for. When we go to look for citations in Wikipedia articles, I think it's probably best to search by PubMed ID and by article title (since the title is likely to be unique and some citations may not include the PMID).

We can limit our search to WP:MED-tagged articles. Obviously, we'll probably miss some citations, but it would be a start. James, if you're in contact with the good people at Retraction Watch, perhaps we could start by coordinating with them to come up with a canonical list of PMIDs we want to scan for? It's easy enough to pull article titles once we have the PMID list. If you'd like a hand, let me know. MastCell ^Talk 17:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I seem to recall that there's a standard database dump available of all external links. It should be straightforward to subset that to the urls going to a PMID. Then a database join to get the ones that are also on the retracted list. Actually it would be of interest to know just how many different PMIDs are cited on WP, perhaps with some statistical profiling. Might even be a term paper in it for an ambitious CS student. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not quite that simple; many of the articlespace PubMed links use the "PMID" magic word instead of a bare URL. As best I can tell, the PMID magic word is translated into a link by the parser when you load the page - so if you look at the database directly, you'll miss the links (they're just stored as "PMID xxxxxx" in plain text).

I'm probably not explaining this well, but it's not a huge barrier in any case. I'd probably just start by pulling a list of WP:MED articles; scan the text of each article against the list of retracted PubMed IDs/article titles; dump all of the hits into a wikimarkup-formatted table; and post the table here. It would be fairly simple to code something like that, I think, and I'd be happy to work on it. MastCell ^Talk 15:59, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

So how do you find retracted items in PubMed? I must be looking in the wrong place - don't seem to be finding it in the documentation. Zodon (talk) 04:18, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

It's definitely not the most intuitive or user-friendly setup. Click on "Limits" (it's directly under the search bar, at least on my browser). Then, on the Limits page, under "Type of article", scroll down to "Retracted publication", check the box, and leave the search bar blank. That should net you a list of all articles tagged as "retracted" on PubMed. MastCell ^Talk 04:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Using the [pt] publication type suffix with the retraction types from the list

retraction of publication[pt] gives 2178

retracted publication[pt] gives 2061

The XML return that the Diberri template filler & presumably the DOI_Bot use include the publication types, so those tools could note retractions.

Misuse format or add in the description in a quote=, or just add a comment.

<PublicationTypeList>

<PublicationType>Journal Article</PublicationType>

<PublicationType>Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't</PublicationType>

<PublicationType>Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.</PublicationType>

</PublicationTypeList> RDBrown (talk) 13:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I wonder whether we could get a |publication type= in {{cite journal}} and get Dave to automagically fill it in for key publication types (reviews and meta-analyses on the one hand, and retractions and letters to the editor on the other). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Scanning... scanning... Rich Farmbrough, 17:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC).

138 articles have retracted PMIDs according to my preliminary results.

Articles with retracted PMIDs

NEUROG3 PMID 20080942 Meningitis PMID 15908671 TRAF2 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 Fospropofol PMID 15329587 PMID 16192764 PMID 16192765 Endocrine disruptor PMID 8633243 PMID 8633243 Thymopoietin PMID 3473468 Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy PMID 12612585 Hwang Woo-suk PMID 14963337 PMID 15905366 ERCC5 PMID 9020084 PMID 9096355 Cyclin B2 PMID 10921877 CD30 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 PPP2R5E PMID 10921877 Asthma PMID 19464740 History of chronic fatigue syndrome PMID 19815723 Genome-wide association study PMID 20595579 PMID 20595579 Catechin PMID 11950966 Antonio Arnaiz-Villena PMID 11543891 Erotic asphyxiation PMID 7595293 PPP2R5D PMID 10921877 GPR68 PMID 10806476 DRD1IP PMID 10698743 PMID 10698743 COPS6 PMID 10921877 KCNJ5 PMID 8047164 HHV Latency Associated Transcript PMID 16738545 CHRNE PMID 12141316 HNRPAB PMID 11565755 CLCN2 PMID 12612585 ATP-binding cassette transporter PMID 11546864 PMID 15890884 CDC20 PMID 10459014 Cyclin-dependent kinase 2 PMID 11141566 PMID 11141566 Protein SET PMID 11565755 PPP2R1A PMID 10921877 FKBP3 PMID 15994554 Schön scandal PMID 10669410 PMID 10784445 PMID 10915617 PMID 11062124 PMID 11303093 PMID 11533443 PMID 11701891 PMID 11329338 PMID 11719801 PMID 11677603 PMID 11607026 PMID 11242074 PMID 11117735 PMID 10963589 PMID 10667788 VPS28 PMID 16474136 PPP2R4 PMID 10921877 FKBP1B PMID 15994554 Centaurea maculosa PMID 11950966 P2RX7 PMID 12424250 Andrej Janež PMID 12032625 Jon Sudbø PMID 16226613 Dopamine receptor D1 PMID 10698743 PTPN18 PMID 14679216 Early prostate cancer antigen-2 PMID 17445657 Carnitine palmitoyltransferase II PMID 1339389 PMID 1339389 Judy Mikovits PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 Template:Cite doi/10.1126.2Fscience.1179052 PMID 19815723 PPP2R2A PMID 10921877 IFITM1 PMID 7680491 KIF3A PMID 15345558 PTPN1 PMID 10993888 CBFB PMID 7607682 HLA-A69 PMID 11543891 PMID 11543891 TRAF3 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 PPP2R5A PMID 10921877 CEBPB PMID 11711437 PMID 11711437 MMR vaccine controversy PMID 9500320 F2RL2 PMID 12370398 Leaky gut syndrome PMID 9500320 Somatic-cell nuclear transfer PMID 15905366 Template:Cite doi/10.1073.2Fpnas.0902168106 PMID 19293376 Vascular endothelial growth factor PMID 15793222 Template:Cite doi/10.1200.2FJCO.2005.01.131 PMID 15908671 Lung cancer PMID 17056245 Anil Potti PMID 17057710 PMID 18024211 PMID 16899777 PMID 16263789 PMID 18382681 PMID 17906199 PMID 18387932 FKBP10 PMID 15994554 Naive B cell PMID 12438421 PMID 12438421 PMID 12438421 Pathophysiology of chronic fatigue syndrome PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 ENOD40 PMID 8662527 Mir-133 microRNA precursor family PMID 17443681 PMID 17443681 PPP2R2B PMID 10921877 Daniel Peterson (physician) PMID 19815723 PPP2R3A PMID 10921877 Interleukin 15 receptor, alpha subunit PMID 11714793 LY6E PMID 11714798 Andrew Wakefield PMID 9500320 PMID 11007230 PMID 9500320 Vaccine controversies PMID 9500320 ANP32B PMID 11565755 Measles PMID 9500320 Retraction PMID 17057710 PMID 18024211 PMID 16899777 PMID 16263789 PMID 18382681 PMID 17906199 PMID 18387932 PPP2CB PMID 10921877 ELAVL1 PMID 11565755 Counterirritant PMID 16938870 PMID 16938870 CDX2 PMID 10066780 PMID 10066780 PMID 10066780 MMR vaccine PMID 9500320 Stress incontinence PMID 15041987 CREB-binding protein PMID 10066780 PMID 10066780 Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase PMID 15604363 PMID 15604363 PMID 15604363 PMID 15604363 PMID 15604363 PMID 15604363 PMID 15604363 PMID 15604363 Johnson Center for Child Health and Development PMID 9500320 PPP2R1B PMID 10921877 PPP2R5C PMID 10921877 GOLGB1 PMID 7511208 HLA-A33 PMID 11543891 PMID 11543891 TRAF1 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 PMID 8943059 Arthur Krigsman PMID 9500320 Controversies in autism PMID 9500320 Caspase 2 PMID 19203584 PMID 19203584 Acidic leucine-rich nuclear phosphoprotein 32 family member A PMID 11565755 FKBP2 PMID 15994554 Whittemore Peterson Institute PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 PMID 20798047 GCLC PMID 11444867 IKBKAP PMID 19805217 David Baltimore PMID 3084104 TRAF5 PMID 8943059 Olfaction PMID 11700549 TRIM28 PMID 11711437 PMID 11711437 PMID 11711437 Xanthosine monophosphate PMID 16725387 PMID 16725387 Effects of MDMA on the human body PMID 12351788 CGK733 fraud PMID 16767085 PMID 16767085 KIF3B PMID 15345558 The Lancet PMID 16226613 TNFSF13 PMID 11565755 Thereza Imanishi-Kari PMID 3084104 PPP2R5B PMID 10921877 LAIR2 PMID 11435477 National Institute on Drug Abuse PMID 12351788 DICER1 PMID 12560494 PPP2R2C PMID 10921877 HIF1AN PMID 17188242 Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 PMID 20798047 PMID 20798047 PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 Causes of autism PMID 9500320 1998 in science PMID 9500320 Autistic enterocolitis PMID 9500320 PMID 11007230 Mirtazapine PMID 19381036 PMID 19381036 PMID 19381036 Virology Journal PMID 20663162 GPR4 PMID 11535583 LAIR1 PMID 11435477 TNFSF12-TNFSF13 PMID 11565755 Mineralocorticoid PMID 14985765 GPR132 PMID 11474113 History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses PMID 16641989 Alternative names for chronic fatigue syndrome PMID 19815723 PMID 19815723 HLA-DQ8 PMID 11543891 Template:Cite doi/10.1073.2Fpnas.1006901107 PMID 20798047 CXCR5 PMID 15580304 Mir-1 microRNA precursor family PMID 17715156 PMID 17715156 FZR1 PMID 10459014 Vaccination PMID 9500320

Wakefield's seems most widespread at first glance. I created {{Retracted paper}} which takes an optional argument, intended to be a link to the retraction, e.g. {{Retracted paper|PMID 12345678}} =>

Rich Farmbrough, 18:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC).

Excellent - thanks very much, Rich. MastCell ^Talk 18:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Very good. I have replaced retracted sources in asthma and meningitis. Interestingly, quite a few positives are articles that were indeed retracted are mentioned for being retracted (e.g. in Schön scandal and more puzzlingly nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase), and of course Wakefield et al 1998 (PMID 9500320) is cited copiously in all articles pertinent to this. JFW | T@lk 19:23, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes interestingly one of the cites in Andrew Wakefield was using 9500320 but was actually a different paper (fixed). I have started tagging, you beat me to the Asthma page, so I made a null edit, which will get me rapped knuckles, probably... . I'll try to get the tagging completed anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 20:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC).

OK all tagged, except Retraction the two Jdwolff fixed, and Cyclin B2 where HEADBOMB has removed the cite and tag. Rich Farmbrough, 23:06, 25 March 2012 (UTC).

Rich, you indicate that one reference from the "Lung cancer" article has been retracted: 17056245. However this is not the reference that you tagged when you edited the article. Axl ¤ [Talk] 01:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Retraction: on closer inspection I see that you actually made several different edits with one edit summary. Axl ¤ [Talk] 01:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Update, I've updated the {{retracted}} template. Please see it's documentation. The biggest thing is that if the citation to the retracted paper is intentional, you need to use {{retracted|intentional=yes}}, otherwise a warning will be displayed. Potentially unintentional citations are found in Category:Articles citing retracted publications. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:17, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you think it would be useful to wikilink "Retracted" to Retraction? WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, that template and category are big steps forward. I'd definitely love to see a |pubtype= added to the citation templates. It would greatly speed cleanup actions (such as Axl's recent monumental reference scrub at Lung cancer) if one could tell at a glance whether a source was a review, a study, or a comment. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Same here. Knowing which are reviews would help tremendously.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:28, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

It's typical for publications to have multiple types, and some of those types have very long names. Unless we want the |pubtype= field to be longer than the rest of the citation, I think we need to pick and choose which get included and how we present them (e.g., perhaps lumping all types of reviews into a single group marked "review" rather than "systematic review"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:28, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, the key objective in my mind is to support editors trying to follow wp:MEDASSESS. Accordingly, we need to consider, for instance, how a "case history and review of the literature" article would be reflected. If shown by its better-quality "literature review" PT (or worse, just as "review"), then there is a danger that its primary source elements will be held up with equal weight against a true "review" article. I'd suggest the default should be to use the lowest-ranking PT as the default. Editors can always manually override that bot assessment, and of course bots should respect human input. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Coincidentally, Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#.22type.22_field_in_template:cite_journal just popped up an edit to delete mention of |type= from the /doc for {{cite journal}}. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:32, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Binge drinking article

The binge drinking article has been flagged as being 'written as a medical article'. The article already contains information on issues outside of medicine such as getting into fights, crashing cars and sexual behaviour, although it is true that it mostly focuses on medical consequences. It is hard not to write it as a medical article though as most of the consequences of binge drinking are medicine/health orientated. I am wondering should the tag be removed or can editors make some suggestions on how the article can be expanded to include other relevant areas? Whoever added the tag never posted their concerns on the talk page. It would be helpful to get some feedback on this. Thanks.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 03:11, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the tag. It was essentially being used as a {{POV}} tag, and it seems silly to complain that a health-affecting behavior is written about as a health-affecting behavior. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, WAID.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:50, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

(outdent) Well the article has just been retagged.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 12:18, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I added it again. As I wrote in the edit summary, I think there is a quite clear difference between the way the binge drinking article is written, and the way other articles on similar subject, like smoking or drug injection, are written. I mean, I don't think it is wrong that a large part of articles like that are about medical aspects of the phenomenon, as a large part of the sources available will be about medical aspects. But I think it has gone over board in the binge drinking article, to the point where the article looks much more like the article on diabetes or hypertension than like the article on smoking, for instance. I mean the whole structure of the article is practically the same as that of articles on diseases, and I would content binge drinking in fact not a disease, but rather a form of recreational drug use.TheFreeloader (talk) 14:59, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I understand your point of view, but I am not sure it is easy to write about binge drinking in the same way as smoking. We already have an article drinking games; I guess I/we/someone could write a paragraph or two about that and then add a 'see also/main article link to that main article. Maybe try and get some historical information on binge drinking? Do you have any suggestions as to what you think is missing from the article?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:24, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Even if we all agree that TheFreeloader's ideas for expanding the article (which he is doubtless free to WP:VOLUNTEER to do himself, rather than insisting that some other volunteer do it for him) are great, it's still not a cleanup problem and should not be mis-tagged as one.

Personally, I think that the correct comparison article is Chain smoking, which does not emphasize the "fun" or "recreational" aspects of smoking tobacco. I'm sure that our article on Alcoholic beverages has much of the social/recreational information that TheFreeloader wants, and that article, not Binge drinking, is IMO the correct place for that information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, but do you not see a problem with the fact that the article is essentially set up like a disease article? I think it puts a huge slant of prejudice into the article, when the phenomenon is in fact not classified as a disease by any official body. I am not sure exactly how the article can be fixed, but I don't think it hurts pointing out the problem until a solution is found.TheFreeloader (talk) 21:58, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the overall outline of the article. It could be expanded, e.g., to talk about prevention programs, but the overall outline is okay with me.

Binge drinking, BTW, is called "305.0 Nondependent alcohol abuse" in the ICD-9 and "F10.1 Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of alcohol: harmful use" in the ICD-10, so it is actually considered a valid diagnosis. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Good find of the ICD diagnostic criteria! Given now that we know that ICD class binge drinking as a diagnosable disorder/disease I don't see any reason for the banner to remain in place.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:12, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I guess you can have at it, in that case. I will remove the tag. Although getting more history and culture into the article probably still would not hurt. There is some of that here.TheFreeloader (talk) 11:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks TheFreeLoader! I agree that the article would benefit from expansion; it is only 40k in size so still a relatively small article.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Free access to HighBeam

Editors with more than 1,000 edits and 12 months' work at the English Wikipedia should see Wikipedia:HighBeam about free access to HighBeam Research's online sources, including some academic journals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

It sounds amazing, thank you for the note! NCurse _work 08:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Brilliant! :) I am certainly interested; I lost internet access to my last remaining journal BMJ years ago. It is a struggle for me to get full text papers.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:11, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Rapid Sequence induction

I believe that the name of the article Rapid Sequence induction has to change to Rapid Sequence Intubation(RSI) (a term used in seminars such as ALS, ACLS, ATLS, PHTLS). Also paralytics such as succinylcholine (suxamethonium) and anestetics such as etomidate (useful in increased intracranial pressure) are not referred. 688dim (talk) 09:46, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

A PubMed search for "rapid sequence induction" yields 475 results. "Rapid sequence intubation" yields 313 results.

Since 2000, "induction" has 299 results and "intubation" has 255 results.

Either title is acceptable for Wikipedia. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:47, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The article "Rapid sequence induction" does mention succinylcholine and etomidate, although not in the section "Common medications". Please be bold and add the missing information. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:54, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Induction of what? It seems ambiguous as an article title. I think it should be changed.--Taylornate (talk) 17:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

It is rapid sequence induction, as it is the induction of anaethesia to which the descriptor 'rapid sequence' applies due to the speed to drug protocol and administration. There is nothing particularly rapid about the intubation. The intubation is a secondary necessity in order to maintain a patent airway once anaethesia is induced. Indeed you could choose not to intubate, but use an LMA, or a needle cric to maintain a patent airway, but would still have undertaken RSI. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 18:37, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Would it make sense to add of anesthesia or (anesthesia) to the title to make it more clear? Or would that only be warranted if there was another article with the same name?--Taylornate (talk) 21:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The commonly used term in the literature is "Rapid sequence induction", not "Rapid sequence induction of anaesthesia". Therefore we use the former phrase in Wikipedia. Of course anaesthesia is implicit.

The phrase would only be ambiguous if another discipline used the same phrase for an entirely different process. (Perhaps we could imagine the phrase used in, say, motor engineering.) If that was the case, Wikipedia's article title here would be "Rapid sequence induction (medicine)".

WP:TITLE details this. Axl ¤ [Talk] 00:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

More eyes please

I think we need more eyes on Anti-psychiatry and Medicalization. Some recent edits seem of a dubious nature, and I would appreciate some further input in the area. Many thanks. Yobol (talk) 16:39, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

While I agree the content in question would be better at medicalization there is definitely evidence to support these concerns. There have been a number of academic articles / textbooks discussing the reclassification of what may see as the "human condition" as "disease". For example sadness being classified as depression, shyness as social anxiety disorder, menstruation as PMDD. Not really interested in getting involved in the controversy though.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:59, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I will watchlist-- at least it will provide a break from the dismal depressing work that is new page patrol. Copyvio, spam, promotional, poorly sourced, non-notable. Yukky work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I worked on medicalization a bit. It basically reads like a college-level essay rather than an encyclopedia article, although it does hit most of the major points. It's obviously a very uncritical presentation and essentially a platform to expand on the views of Szasz, Illich, et al., but it's not terrible. The last section or two still need some work, and it generally suffers from under-sourcing its key assertions. I don't have the heart to tackle anti-psychiatry; that article (and topic) have generally brought out some of the worst in Wikipedia.

As an aside, it's interesting to consider how these topics relate to Wikipedia. The thrust of the "medicalization" concept in the 1970s was that medicine functioned as a closed, paternalistic guild and essentially restricted people from involvement in their own well-being. I think a lot of that sort of power-dynamic thinking is evident in editors who view Wikipedia as a way to make an end run around medical authority. In itself that's arguably a laudable goal, although in practice it usually takes the form of people insisting Wikipedia should reflect THE TRUTH about vaccine dangers and the HIV/AIDS lie, rather than what the patriarchs at the CDC and NIH have to say on the subject. But I digress. MastCell ^Talk 17:53, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

For context, the lead-up to the May release of DSM-V has precipitated some heated discussion,[1] especially focussed on turning grief into a disorder. This included two Lancet editorials, then a Huffington Post piece seems to have drawn in The Atlantic on 1 March. But the real fuss is about a call by the DSM-IV chairman Allen Frances for government intervention to force the APA to abandon some of the changes in DSM-V. Many of the participants in the revision process are being said to be in COI due to pharma funding. Rice bowls are being upset and it will be very ugly in the near term. I suggest that wp:NOTNEWS and wp:NODEADLINE are our friends here. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:00, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I also follow the DSM-5 debates in which Dr. Allen Frances said: My biggest concern regarding DSM-5 is that it will dramatically increase the rates of mental disorder by cheapening the currency of psychiatric diagnosis—arbitrarily and carelessly reducing thresholds for existing disorders and introducing new disorders with high prevalence. This would create millions of newly mislabeled “patients,” resulting in unnecessary and potentially harmful treatment, stigma, and wasteful misallocation of scarce resources. Source: Allen Frances (23 January 2012). “DSM-5 and Diagnostic Inflation: Reply to the DSM-5 Task Force,” Psychiatric Times. Do you suppose that English-speaking countries may sometime realize the shadow of political abuse of psychiatry over them? --Psychiatrick (talk) 07:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Groan - yes, I've seen and read about the DSM V shitstorm on the horizon (goes back to sticking head in sand and hoping it all goes away) Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

New page patrol

Awful stuff. I worked all morning at User:AlexNewArtBot/MedicineSearchResult, and didn't get to anything between Mihail Roller (where I stopped yesterday) and Heat and Moisture Exchanger, where I stopped today (working from the top). Is it hopeless? I wish we had the power of the BLP to stub the uncited, poorly cited junk. More importantly, I'd love to come across some good new medical editors while I'm patrolling so we could recruit them. At this rate, I'll give up soon. Couldn't even start on SensoMotoric Instruments GmbH, all sourced to self. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

New page patrol is hopeless, soul-crushing work, and spending time there is the fastest route to burnout and cynicism that I can think of. Personally, I gave up on it long ago, after a then-Arbitrator accused me of incompetence and racism for deleting an article which read, in its entirety, "Chaudhury was a good man from Gujrat Pakistan having distinguished son Shujat. Shujat having God gifted qualities espacially in speaking. No one can imagin what he is speaking, people only relize about his lips."

You have better things to do. The worst offenders will come up eventually, and the others aren't necessarily worth bothering with. We have a very limited amount of editorial time and effort, so don't feel bad prioritizing. Then again, I'm burnt-out and cynical from too much time at new-page patrol. :) I do agree that the main reason to do it is to help identify and support new editors who might be interested in working on medical articles. MastCell ^Talk 18:26, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting new medical articles link. I proposed deletion for SensoMotoric Instruments GmbH.[2] Biosthmors (talk) 18:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Not a good time for me to pick up "hopeless, soul-crushing work" ... but I was just hoping to find a few good new editors out there, like when I first met Colin or GrahamColm, or my earliest mentor, Encephalon. Maybe those days are no more ... everyone wants to advertise or push a POV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:05, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

We-ell, see Wikipedia:GAN#Biology_and_medicine - someone was a rigorous review of Tay–Sachs disease, which'd be good to get right. Also, anyone is welcome to chew through and spit out non-review articles at bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder, both of which I have an interest in getting buffed, just sputtering and lurching with enthusiasm or lack thereof.....Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:41, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I started watching WT:MED because WhatamIdoing patrolled my first page and left a greeting on my talk. Not yet a good Wikipedian but hope to be one day. Wafflephile (talk) 20:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Wafflephile, it's good to see you again.

Sandy, have you been using Fred's script (User:Fred Gandt/getUnpatrolledOfAlexNewArtBotResultsPages.js) on that page? It broke for me a few weeks ago. Fred's first guess is that some element got moved or renamed. Possibly related and possibly not, this NPP report page also broke recently. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Update: Fred has fixed the script! Only ten pages (out of about 100) are left to be patrolled. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Plant stanol ester

The article looks like it needs to decide what it is about and in need of some cleanup. Richiez (talk) 18:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Prepare to be horrified

Out of morbid curiosity, I wrote a short script to see how many WP:MED articles cite the Daily Mail as a source. There are 146 such articles, listed here. It's theoretically possible that some of these links are appropriate. But given the Mail's track record when it comes to medical claims, if anyone is looking for a way to improve medical sourcing on this site, reviewing this list with a critical eye seems like as good a place to start as any. :) MastCell ^Talk 23:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

"The horror! The horror!" Good pickup. Based on my sample size of one, I found a case of a good faith effort to incorporate news. I'm sure not all will prove as benign.Novangelis (talk) 00:00, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I looked at a couple, and they were all BLP claims (people who have the condition in question). I'm not sure whether that counts as "appropriate", but it's not a medical claim. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

And then there is List of youngest birth mothers, I mean, where does one start with that one. Given the notability one can't delete it. My thinking is the best thing is being able to stick some big fat caveat at the top about taking some of them with a grain of salt...from a secondary source of course. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, having looked at a few of them, they're certainly not great articles, but so far I can't say I've seen any outrageous medical claims sourced to the Mail.... MastCell ^Talk 05:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

At least the Mail leaves stuff on their site for a while, so it's possible to figure out what they actually did say. But if nothing else its a strong warning sign that it needs to be checked. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:58, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Oncology: templates & handbooks

1. I'd like to know if we have any any internal guidelines concerning tumour templates. Also, are there any users responsible for their maintenance? In my opinion, WHO/SEER ICD-0-3 registry would be the most rational choice to adapt, especially that all WHO/IARC classification handbooks are freely available on the web.
2. Talking about valuable resources: on pl.wikibooks you will find Atlas of the Skin Tumors Histopathology, edited by our two prominent pathologist from Medical University of Łódź. English descriptions are included. Images collected there will be suitable for many dermatopathologic entries. Lb.at.wiki (talk) 18:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The histological ones stick pretty close to ICD-O, while the anatomic-system based ones stick pretty close to ICD-10. --Arcadian (talk) 23:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Arcadian is one of our experts for navigation templates, but nobody in particular is officially responsible for anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:16, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Feedback requested on suggested revision of Universal healthcare article

Hello, I have made a proposal for some edits to the universal healthcare article here Talk:Universal_health_care#Proposed_revision_.28March_2012.29 and would be interested in feedback from other editors.

In addition, I'm also considering simplifying or removing some of the country-specific examples in the articles below, and placing them in a new list Health financing by country or Universal coverage by country or similar (see Health systems by country), because for now there are, for example, descriptions of the Canadian system as socialized medicine, single-payer health care, two-tier healthcare, and national health insurance and the result is 4 different descriptions of the financing of the Canadian system (in addition to the description here: Health care in Canada, rather than a single consensus view.

Combining the country-specific stuff on health financing into a single overview list will help (with links out to detailed country descriptions), so that there is one place people can go, and hence try to keep the generic articles focused on the terminology, with short examples from countries, but not long country-specific sections. If you think some of that would be useful within the text of the articles, we could even transclude summaries from elsewhere.

I think the articles below are all useful as stand-alone articles, but I also think the wiki would benefit from a single place where people could go to read up on health financing by country, which would be linked to all of the below. Finally, I would suggest we move all of the US-specific debates in the below articles to here Health_care_reform_debate_in_the_United_States which has been set aside for that purpose.

• National_health_insurance
• Socialized_medicine
• Single-payer_health_care
• Two-tier_health_care

--Karl.brown (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Cholangiocarcinoma

A new editor appears motivated enough to start updating cholangiocarcinoma (currently a featured article) particularly by incorporating a 2011 review as detailed at my talk and User talk:PCL1029. If PCL starts updating the article, they/the article could probably benefit from some welcoming assitance/watching. Biosthmors (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure MastCell (talk · contribs) (who originally brought the article to FA) will be able to keep an eye. JFW | T@lk 19:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

It's great that someone's interested - I've been meaning to update that article for some time now. It could certainly use an update. I'll drop the editor a line and some encouragement. MastCell ^Talk 17:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Fospropofol

The retractions found at Fospropofol revealed a potentially dangerous situation. I've hidden the worrisome text for now, but it needs pharmacology eyes. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:07, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I think we should explain that the initial published studies of fospropofol pharmacokinetics were withdrawn because they were (apparently, to my quick read) based on a faulty assay. It sounds like the effort to correct the data has been stymied by changes in ownership of the drug. We could cite the retraction request (PMID 20177373), and there does appear to be a bit of secondary-source coverage in specialty-news outlets (e.g. [3]). I'll try to help out in the near future; for now I think you did the right thing by hiding the retracted material. MastCell ^Talk 17:46, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Gluten-sensitive idiopathic neuropathies

The article was tagged

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources.

So I've been through it removing content that doesn't comply with WP:MEDRS [4] and that's left the article fairly slim. I'm wondering if the title is right. I can't find any instances of "gluten-sensitive idiopathic neuropathy" in PubMed or Google Scholar, and I can't find an instance of it in Google dated earlier than this article, so suspect it may be coining a neologism. It doesn't sound right to me.

I haven't touched the lede. Opinions on what, if anything, to do now would be appreciated. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 21:59, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

It is an article that forms part of the WalledGarden that Pdeitiker (talk · contribs) created around conditions related to gluten sensitivity. There are certainly articles available on the neurological aspects of gluten sensitivity, but I suspect that the title for this article is new coinage. JFW | T@lk 12:45, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, the closest I've found is:

With regard to gluten neuropathy, new research by Dr. Hadjivassiliou has shown that it accounts for 26% of all axonal neuropathies and 34% of idiopathic, sporadic axonal neuropathies (J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 2006;77:1262-6). “The prevalence of gluten-sensitive enteropathy is 10 times higher in patients with axonal neuropathy compared to healthy individuals,” he said. He has also recently published evidence showing that patients with gluten-sensitive neuropathy show improvement on a gluten-free diet, while patients who continue to ingest gluten deteriorate further (Muscle Nerve 2006;34:762-6).

[5]

It's probably worth having a look at the mentioned papers. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:35, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorting task

If anyone's looking for a pretty simple task, commons:Category:Diseases and disorders needs to be weeded. This involves mostly removing the general "Diseases and disorders" category and adding a more specific one (like "Infectious diseases"). Don't forget that you need to login separately to Commons, and I suggest turning on WP:HotCat in that account to make it faster. (Commons' HotCat is much more powerful than the English Wikipedia's.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:55, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

A field depth issue?

Hello - Although I guess I'm by no means the first to raise the issue I decided to post over at the Village Pump about underdeveloped articles on key topics with a broad scope which somehow seem to drift nebulously under the radar. I took Hematology and Liver disease as examples of articles which don't receive as much attention as they deserve, presumably because of the very size of the fields they cover. Clearly, absolutely no implied criticism was intended of the Medicine Project. Best, —MistyMorn (talk) 19:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

The small group of us here are more than welcoming of others who wish to take these topics on.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:00, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that the wide range of medical topics don't attract as many contributors as Jennifer Lopez, say, and aren't half as easy... As I say, no criticism was implied: my point is that some 'large' topics seem to invite neglect because of their very size. (Personally, I try to contribute a little around and about within my limited abilities.) —MistyMorn (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

You might well be correct in your observation that huge topics are harder to cover. I think the main issue is the level of detail, as well as availability of sources to cover the basics. An article like medicine or death is hard to write because of the sheer enormity of the topic, but strangely it is quite hard to find sources for the kind of content that should be there because most of it is common sense, received wisdom and aggregation.

For an article like hematology, a historical overview would be a good start; for that, there are some sources but they are quite hard to pin down. The same applies to liver disease. JFW | T@lk 03:26, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Blaming the patients

Hi, to all of you at WP:MED. Thanks so much for all the good work you do. It's encouraging to see this kind of pro bono service from the medical community.

I need some help. In some parts of the Lyme disease (LD) article, patients and caregivers are blamed for the difficulties introduced by the LD controversy. I don't think that's a good policy, for either the patients or the medical field. I've shown previously in the LD discussion page, and elsewhere (diffs upon request, or see my user contributions) that the patients' complaints are justified by demonstrable and consequential errors in the mainstream science, that so far have resisted the usual self-correction process that keeps medical science moving forward. I'm not suggesting that we describe in detail the evidence that the science is bad, just that we remove the biased assumption that the patients MUST be either wrong or badly motivated.

I wonder if there's anyone at WP:MED who would be willing to collaborate in editing the article so as to correct for the (understandable) bias of the medical community against the patients and caregivers.. I don't mean to introduce a bias against the doctors, even those who have originated and propagated the regrettable errors.

I'm not "editing boldly" in this situation, because the debate is so polarized that even good edits might be construed as an attack on the article by "patient advocates". I've decided to be a single-issue editor so far, because as a scientist I don't feel comfortable passing along opinions that I haven't personally verified by checking the science in the primary literature. I'd be glad to help check science in other controversial fields on request, though - it's been intriguing following the chain of evidence back to its origins, and not as laborious as one might think, thanks to Pubmed.

I do understand WP policies, including MEDRS, SYN, and OR.

Thanks for your attention, best wishes, Postpostmod (talk) 12:25, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you referring to "Lyme disease"? The only area where I see "blame" being assigned to patients/caregivers is in the subsection "Harrassment of researchers". The references ( [6], [7] ) look good to me. (I have not been able to check the Nature reference.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Axl, nice to meet you. I appreciate your extremely quick reply. I'm not questioning that one can find references in both the medical literature and the press, in which patients are blamed for medical controversies. I hope others will also read my request carefully, and respond independently, after some thought, so that we won't merely generate a chain-reaction of team support within WP:MED. Thanks again, Postpostmod (talk) 14:42, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe start by giving us the exact text you find objectionable with the refs supporting it.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:16, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Doc James, thanks for joining in. And hi again, Axl. I'll break this up for easy reading.

The paragraph Axl identified is the main thing I have in mind. The problem isn't about references.

I think It's unseemly to give encyclopedic status to such emotionally loaded material. We don't have tear-jerking stories from patients in the article, though there are plenty in the press.

There are several emotional rants denigrating Lyme patients in the medical journals.

And there are many factual descriptions of patient pain and disability in the medical journals.

We need to write about the controversy, it's part of the subject. People have strong feelings about it. But there's no reason for us to actively provoke emotional reactions in the reader.

Could we just remove the problem paragraph - the ref is from 2001, anyway - and make sure it isn't replaced by something worse?

There's at least one other place I think needs some tweaking, but let's leave that out for now.

In brief, I'm asking that the article refrain from dissing the patients.  ;-).

Thanks for your time, best wishes, Postpostmod (talk) 01:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, so we have a verifiable, even uncontested fact here: A world-class expert got multiple, serious death threats—serious enough that someone went to the trouble and expense of hiring body guards. And these death threats came not from, say, political nutcases, but from patients, right? And we're all agreed that issuing death threats is a felony in the United States, rather than protected free speech, right?

And you don't want us to mention the fact that it happened, because it makes these criminals look bad? I don't know about you, but I believe that anyone who issues death threats deserves to look bad. Furthermore, this criminal behavior on the part of some patients is seriously harming the majority of patients, who have a harder time finding care providers as a result. Why shouldn't these normal patients be told that the criminals among them are screwing up their care?

The only change I'd make to this paragraph is to insert the word "some" in the phrase "threatened by patients and patient advocacy groups". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes. It's not a matter of "blaming" patients or "denigrating" them groundlessly. When a group of people threatens a medical researcher with death for failing to validate their perceptions of their illness, that's a bit transgressive. And regardless of the value judgments we assign, it's certainly notable, in the sense that our article on the topic should mention it. MastCell ^Talk 03:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there any way of quantifying it? Could one say "a small vocal / violent minority" or "N% of ..." or something like that? If it can be done, it should address both concerns; i.e. to get the factual information there that it did / does happen, but to ensure that not all patients end up tarred with the same brush. Pesky (talk) 07:45, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

From the first reference:-

"[H]ordes of patients had started to stalk him. They showed up at his public engagements, holding signs that read "How many more will you kill?" and "Steer Clear of Steere!" They depicted him in the media as a demon, worse than the spirochetes, the tick-borne bacteria that they claimed inhabited their bodies.... Egged on by advocacy groups, they infected his sterile world, trying to destroy his reputation and career."

The reference does not imply that these "hordes of patients" are a minority. If anything, Wikipedia's article avoids such value-laden terms. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Looks sourced from here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was a minority, I just used the wrong example for a possible way of stating something, obviously! (I'm still post-anaesthesia brain-foggy myself, so please bear with me). Does any other source give us any idea of numbers? Scores? Hundreds? Thousands? Or any idea of what percentage of his patients? "Hordes" can mean vastly different things to different people, and the ideal situation would be to give readers a ball-park figure, if it's available. Pesky (talk) 18:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Given that there are ~25,000 cases of acute infection each year, and that most of them recover without any lingering effects, it seems highly probable that the "chronic Lyme" patients are a minority. And given that most people can't be bothered to write a letter, much less to engage in in-person protests, it seems highly likely that the subset of "badly behaved chronic Lyme patients" (e.g., those making death threats) is a tiny minority. But I doubt that it's been quantified by any reliable source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to pump up anybody's adrenaline. But it does show why it's not a good idea to use such colorful language in an encyclopedia. It's kind of like "death tax" and "death panel": generates lots of heat, not much light. The purple prose is the main thing that makes the Grann article suspect as a source, in my view. Along with the fact that Steere hired a PR agent to get himself into the press (see the article - it's kind of buried in there, after the quote from Polly Murray, who discovered the cluster of patients in Lyme and called in the CDC in 1975).

If we want to have a media article in there about the controversy, how about the article published in the actual NYT (not the magazine), [here]? It's more informative about the cause of the controversy, and doesn't malign either the patients or Dr. Steere. It does treats Steere, like the patients, as a fallible human being. Maybe that's a good thing.

It doesn't seem as if anyone here is interested in why the science remains controversial, particularly the current diagnostic testing scheme. I admit I'm puzzled by the lack of interest in this question. To me, it's the most interesting part of the subject - the rest of it is all hand-waving and hearsay. If anyone would like to exercise due diligence, the papers about the testing I discussed with MastCell on his talk page are PMID 18532885 and PMID 8903216. There's one about diagnosing a patient discussed on the LD talk page, PMID 17429088. And the one I was going to do next is Jiang et al. 2010, PMID 21112481. This last one presents the Chinese CDC's independently derived criteria for Lyme Western blot interpretation. Heck, maybe in a couple of years we New Englanders can solve that part of the problem by outsourcing the testing to China. ;-) Best wishes to all, Postpostmod (talk) 23:10, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

We typically use review article rather than primary research papers per WP:MEDRS. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

BTW is this what we are referring to?

In 2001, The New York Times Magazine reported that Allen Steere, chief of immunology and rheumatology at Tufts Medical Center and a codiscoverer and leading expert on Lyme disease, had been harassed, stalked, and threatened by patients and patient advocacy groups angry at his refusal to substantiate their diagnoses of chronic Lyme disease and endorse long-term antibiotic therapy. Because this intimidation included death threats, Steere was assigned security guards. Paul G. Auwaerter, director of infectious disease at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, cited the political controversy and high emotions as contributing to a "poisonous atmosphere" around Lyme disease, which he believes has led to doctors trying to avoid having Lyme patients in their practice.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:53, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that, and the heading "Harrassment of researchers".

See how it affected WAID, here?

Not a good thing for an encyclopedia to inspire, in the millions of people who might read it.

Basically, it suggests that everyone who questions Steere's science and its consequences for the patients, is a potentially homicidal nutcase.

(I'm not blaming you for feeling this way, WAID; it's the fault of the paragraph and the sensationalized story to which it refers.)

Since no one wants to just remove the paragraph,

I've suggested a more appropriate, encyclopedic ref to replace it, above.

I guess I should write the paragraph for the WP article, which describes this ref.

Best wishes to all, Postpostmod (talk) 01:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I think WhatamIdoing's response was forceful but not, as you're trying to portray it, excessively emotional or irrational . The article doesn't state nor imply that anyone who disagrees with Steere is homicidal. It does convey the rather remarkable fact that Steere has been driven into hiding and threatened with death by people who disagree with his research findings. One might think that a responsible patient-advocacy community would denounce death threats as a tactic; if you've seen sources to the effect that the "Lyme-literate" community has distanced itself from these excesses, then we should certainly include those to avoid painting with an overly broad brush.

I'm not necessarily wedded to the David Grann piece from the New York Times Magazine, but your reasons for replacing it boil down to the fact that you dislike the piece, which isn't enough for me to want to replace it with an older source. MastCell ^Talk 04:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

" The purple prose is the main thing that makes the Grann article suspect as a source, in my view. "

— Postpostmod

I disagree with your assertion that Grann's article uses "purple prose". I do not consider it a "suspect source".

" If we want to have a media article in there about the controversy, how about the article published in the actual NYT (not the magazine), here? "

— Postpostmod

You refer to an article written in May 2009. Grann's article was written in June 2001.

" Yes, that, and the heading "Harrassment of researchers".... Not a good thing for an encyclopedia to inspire, in the millions of people who might read it. "

— Postpostmod

Wikipedia is not censored. We report information that is referenced to reliable sources. Your only valid objection here is based on assertion that Grann's article is "unreliable". I disagree with your assessment. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Educational project

Again. Does anyone know where to begin tracking these down, found at new page patrol?

• Addressing Chronic Disease in Northern Ontario
• Social determinants of health in poverty

and see:

• User:Lbockhorn mentioning a course at Rice University.

I shall give up soon on new page patrol; it is Just Awful Work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• • the social determinants of health in poverty page was proposed as a new page by User:Lbockhorn a few weeks ago in the health/fitness project I believe, and some editors gave her feedback. My own feedback was that this page was a bit too long and would be better served as a section or set of revisions within social determinants of health. --Karl.brown (talk) 17:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Major depressive disorder

Comments on this. I am concerned about the refs:

Working age adults who live alone have significantly higher risk for depression.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Probably it is accurate but given MDD is such a heavily researched area and that there is so much material to consider for inclusion as well as the article being a featured article it's inclusion (sourced to BBC and a primary study) is probably not justified.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes that is my felling aswell. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Efficacy section of chemotherapy article needs work

At the moment, the entire section discussing efficacy in our article on Chemotherapy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is based on a single source, which in turn bases its conclusions on a single endpoint measure: five-year survival. I feel that the source is problematic for a number of reasons, which have come forth in an extended discussion (Talk:Chemotherapy#Efficacy (2)), and which I have summarized in a bulleted list at the end of that section.

I would greatly appreciate some outside opinions, particularly from individuals with expertise in this area. Evaluation of the appropriateness of the paper used now as the basis for the article's efficacy section would be helpful, as would advice and sources for a more thorough, extensive, and balanced discussion of the efficacy of chemotherapy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I would be happy to take a look. I think it will be difficult, if not impossible, to make broad statements about the efficacy of chemotherapy since that efficacy varies dramatically with the clinical situation. Chemotherapy for, say, Hodgkin lymphoma is extraordinarily effective and can cure the vast majority of people. At the other extreme, chemotherapy for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer or pancreatic cancer is marginally effective and, in some studies and in some patient populations, no better than supportive and palliative care. MastCell ^Talk 15:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

A very quick observation: There seems to be a mismatch between the title ("Efficacy") and the content of the opening and closing sentences. Perhaps "Indications and efficacy" would be a consonant title. —MistyMorn (talk) 16:38, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Oy. Having looked at the source (PMID 15630849), we should definitely not be citing it here. Aside from some very serious methodologic concerns about the article, it's woefully outdated. For example, it argues (and we uncritically repeat) that chemotherapy is "essentially useless" in multiple myeloma. This is clearly untrue, and seriously (and potentially dangeously) misinforms the reader. Likewise, we (falsely) state that chemotherapy is "essentially useless" in renal cell carcinoma, which is clearly untrue (e.g., PMID 19487381).

There are multiple concerns: the study is outdated and fails to reflect the impact of newer agents; it uses questionable methods; and it relies solely on 5-year survival to measure "benefit". The article measures (or at least attempts to measure) the curative potential of chemotherapy (as 5-year survival is typically a surrogate for cure). It's well-known that very few advanced malignancies can be cured with chemotherapy, but in many instances chemotherapy can improve survival and sometimes quality of life. Those endpoints aren't captured if you look solely at 5-year survival, but they are meaningful nonetheless. MastCell ^Talk 18:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)