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• WT:MED

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Moving "x cell carcinoma" to "x-cell carcinoma"

Kwamikagami has been wholesale moving article pages entitled "x cell carcinoma" to "x-cell carcinoma". I have pointed out to him that the medical literature does not support his actions. I am bringing the discussion here to achieve a consensus. Axl ¤ 10:49, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the lit does support this. Punctuation varies widely, with hyphens tending to be dropped the more familiar a term is to the intended audience, but retained the less familiar it may be. We are a basic reference work, not a medical journal, and we cannot assume that our readers will be familiar with the technical jargon in our articles. One of the more common complaints of WP is that our articles are inaccessible, and logical/full hyphenation is a small step in addressing that. For example, a naive reader will read "small cell carcinomas" as being small carcinomas of the cells. (I can hardly help reading it that way myself, even though I know better; I still do a double take when I see it unexpectedly.) For this reason, medical references use hyphenation to a greater degree than journals do, both because exact terminology may be expected (you can always drop the hyphenation if you don't like it, but you may not be comfortable adding it in where missing), and because they're accessed by students who may be new to the material and may be confused by a lack of full, logical punctuation.

For example, Current diagnosis and treatment in neurology (Brust 2006:396) has as a section header nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor–induced myopathy. Without proper hyphenation, that would be nearly impenetrable to the uninitiated; with hyphenation (and an en-dash), the reader at least can begin to parse it.

This isn't really a WP:COMMONNAME issue, since we're not talking about distinct names, but a choice of punctuation, and it is relevant to WP:Make technical articles understandable. In fact, even at COMMONNAME they state,

The ideal title for an article will also satisfy the other criteria outlined above; ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

"Small cell carcinoma" is grammatically inaccurate, since it indicates that small and cell modify carcinoma independently, where in fact small modifies cell rather than carcinoma. In spoken English the difference is conveyed through prosody; in writing, it is conveyed through hyphenation: small-cell carcinoma. — kwami (talk) 11:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

While I disagree strongly with some of Kwami's typographically related page moves, here, I have to agree with his action. It especially matters when people outside a highly specialised area read text that contains these compound units. Such readers are not used to seeing these items every day, and you can't expect them to know first-off exactly which words should be paired in them.

As an aside, I see above "nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor–induced myopathy". Oh puhlease, let's take no notice of the crappy English they let through in some research journals nowadays—even the highly ranked ones: myopathy induced by nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, thanks very much. Tony (talk) 15:22, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

At least we didn't get a nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor–induced myopathy–related illness. --RexxS (talk) 16:53, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

First, what really matters is what our sources are doing, not what the typical English grammar teacher might guess is the right answer in a given case. In the case of small cell carcinoma, ICD-0 rejected the hyphen. The MeSH term is "carcinoma, small cell"—no hyphen. More than 80% of books in my search rejected the hyphen. More than half of medical journals reject the hyphen. Consequently, we, too, should reject the hyphen, regardless of what the "right" answer is.

And the opposite is true for non-small-cell carcinoma: There, nearly all of the sources use (two) hyphens. We should follow those sources, too, for that disease.

One thing to keep in mind is that something that looks like it's an adjective is not necessarily an adjective. Many of these names are essentially proper nouns, and so typical conventions for common nouns and adjectives aren't relevant. A Merkel cell, for example, is a specific thing, and is not to be hyphenated when it is used to describe another thing—exactly like you would never hyphenate other two-word proper nouns, e.g., it's a Ford Mustang car, not a Ford-Mustang car.

Finally, massive changes in the face of opposition is inappropriate. Editors should look for consensus at each individual article, rather than imposing their personal preferences (or the preferences of sources in a completely unrelated field, especially when those sources make no claim that the rule is, or even should be, universally applied to technical terms) by moving pages in the face of opposition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Kwami should have tried to get some sort of consensus before starting a personal page move project. JFW | T@lk 20:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I would support moving these pages back. ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 21:28, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree and there is a whole bunch of pages that have been changed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:58, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

"More than half of medical journals reject the hyphen. Consequently, we, too, should reject the hyphen."

I disagree. With such variation in professional usage, it is clear that the hyphenated forms are not incorrect. They are, however, much easier for the naive reader. The arguments about proper nouns are also off the mark: that's not what we're dealing with here, or medical journals would not hyphenate at all.

We need to consider our readers, not just editors who already know the subject matter. — kwami (talk) 02:00, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

And from Doc James's objection that 'they don't look good' on my talk page,

"Looking good" is not the point: a huge number of reliable sources use logical hyphenation, and this helps our readers. These terms are difficult to read without hyphenation unless you are already familiar with the subject, and we need to assume that our readers are not familiar with it. Even COMMONNAME states that when several names are in use by RSs, we need to consider clarity and precision, not just percentages.

— kwami (talk) 02:04, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

How about we just do what the clear majority of sources do, determined case by case?

"Logical" hyphenation will not help the average person, who (unlike me) finds nothing "logical" about it at all, and will instead find Misplaced Pages diverging from the choices made by a majority of sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's the list of recent moves. Some of these are "logical" variants that I've never seen in print:

07:44, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Basal cell carcinoma to Basal-cell carcinoma over redirect ‎ (it's the cells which are basal) 07:43, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma to Basaloid squamous-cell carcinoma ‎ (sp.)

07:43, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Signet-ring cell squamous cell carcinoma to Signet-ring-cell squamous-cell carcinoma ‎ (sp.)

07:43, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Spindle cell squamous cell carcinoma to Spindle-cell squamous-cell carcinoma ‎ (sp.)

07:43, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Clear cell squamous cell carcinoma to Clear-cell squamous-cell carcinoma ‎ (sp.)

07:42, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Adenoid squamous cell carcinoma to Adenoid squamous-cell carcinoma ‎ (sp.)

07:33, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Squamous cell carcinoma to Squamous-cell carcinoma over redirect ‎ (it's the cells which are squamous) 07:33, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Large cell lung carcinoma to Large-cell lung carcinoma ‎ (it's the cells which are large)

07:24, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Non-small cell lung carcinoma to Non-small-cell lung carcinoma ‎ (sp.)

07:24, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Combined small cell lung carcinoma to Combined small-cell lung carcinoma ‎ (sp.)

07:21, 4 February 2011 Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) moved Small cell carcinoma to Small-cell carcinoma ‎ (the cells are small, not the carcinoma)

I think that basically all of these except NSCC need to be reverted. Most are grammatically correct—several wrongly identify the noun, resulting in Ford-Mustang–like improper hyphenations—but they simply aren't used by the sources. "Spindle-cell squamous-cell carcinoma", for example, turns up in less than 2% of medical journal articles on the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree that we should revert these. We should be reflective of the scientific literature not trying to do our own thing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:01, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

If I misidentified the noun (no example given), that illustrates that these are not clear as written. Some arguably make little difference, but IMO it is definitely important to hyphenate "small-cell" and "large-cell": it's common that way in the lit, and it is very easy to misparse a small cell carcinoma as being analogous to a small lung tumour. It's only obvious what is meant if you are already familiar with the concept.

If you insist on using ambiguous wording because most journals written for specialists take that route, I think the least we can do is provide both punctuations in the lede: A spindle cell squamous cell carcinoma, or spindle-cell squamous-cell carcinoma, is ... Once the reader has the correct syntax in their head, it won't matter which convention we use for the rest of the article. Is that an acceptable compromise? — kwami (talk) 06:35, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Well yes. Please tell me there's not a certain specialist arrogance afoot here, that says "FU" to anyone but the experts. As I've pointed out above, people outside a field (and even those in cognate disciplines) are faced with greater difficult through unfamiliarity in parsing these gobbledygook multiple items. Just because ignorant (more likely "put it in if it's good science, we haven't got time nowadays to make the language professional") journals let through horrors doesn't mean that WP should go against its own style guides, and more to the point, the rulings of so many authorities out there. Our readership is likely to be significantly wider than that for arcane, stuck-up high-impact-factor journals. If you want to go against the style guides here, you'll have to put a more cogent case than that. Tony (talk) 07:10, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

If you look at the history of the OED it attempts to reflect real world language usage not impose "proper" English from above. While this does not apply exactly to this situation I think it is still appropriate.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Sure, and in cases like these they would indicate both. But they're recording usage rather than actually generating it as we are. What I'm talking about is not dictating usage, but following the usage that would be clearest to our readers. — kwami (talk) 08:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and let's remember that WP is not a dictionary. It is read on monitors and by people all over the world, of all varieties of English, and of many second-language backgrounds; it addresses a generalist audience more than medical specialty publications. Tony (talk) 08:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Kwami, that's the point. We are not "generating usage". We are supposed to be reflecting the usage of our sources, not making it up ourselves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:03, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

We're not making anything up. These forms are used in the lit, in the case of 'small-cell' by anywhere from a quarter to two thirds, depending on the database. We follow sources, sure, but we follow the sources that are the most accurate and will be clearest to our audience. We don't follow inaccurate or obscure jargon just because it's more common among those comfortable in the jargon. — kwami (talk) 12:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

kwami, selective use of statistics in an argument is poor show. The "two thirds" you mention is the result of getting lucky with your first page of Google results: the numbers drop off if you persist. And we agree that "small-cell" is an anomaly in the stats. For all the other carcinomas, there's effectively no support in the literature for the hyphenated form. Anyway, this disussion is now happening in two places, and arguably the MP:MED style guide is the better place for it... Colin° 12:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

This issue is also being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)#Punctuation. --- Colin° 09:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

For Kwami, who asked for a specific example above: Basal cell is not a cell that happens to be basal; it's a thing in its own right. It should not be hyphenated any more than Merkel cell.

I'm going to revert all of the basal cell moves, as they are both grammatically wrong (due to a perfectly understandable misinterpretation of the name) and not used by ~98% of sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I've commented out the ones that I moved back to their grammatically correct, consensus-supported, source-preferred names. Basal-cell carcinoma requires attention from an admin.

Perhaps someone else would like to look up the current usage for the others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, is a unit, not two separate attributives, so grammatically it should be hyphenated. That is not a misreading: it doesn't matter what the relationship is between 'basal' and 'cell', the point is that it's a compound attributive of 'carcinoma'. Without the hyphen, we're saying that it's the carcinoma which is basal, or else that a basal cell carcinoma is a suptype of 'cell carcinoma'. The same with Merkel: it's not a Merkel's , but a carcinoma. I overlooked that one. — kwami (talk) 20:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I will not speak to what is grammatically correct, but i have rarely, if ever, seen basal or Merkel cell carcinoma hyphenated. I could be wrong. but i would challenge you to find many articles in the JAAD or Archives of Dermatology that use this convention and, even if you can, I strongly doubt they would constitue the majority of cases. I think we should be following the common name principle for article titles in these cases. ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 15:34, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

External links

I see that an editor recently added "What's New" to the list of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Medicine#External_links. "Medicine Guides" is also in the list. I wonder what links actually should be in the list? Axl ¤ 10:58, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed. Might be better at the pharmaceuticals wiki project. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:03, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Taxobox color RfC

There's an RfC at Template talk:Taxobox colour#In light of the luminosity increase. Please share your thoughts there. Bob the WikipediaN 15:54, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

METLIN

A part of this article is very closely paraphrased from http://metlin.scripps.edu/. I would like to fix the article (in my opinion this database is notable for Misplaced Pages), however, my knowledge of medical/chemical terminology is weak and I don't want to make a mess. Thanks for any help. I've notified also WT:Copyright problems. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 20:51, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration for Febuary

Just a reminder:

The WikiProject Medicine Collaboration of the Month for December 2024 is Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease! Head to its talk page to organize our efforts. Continue to nominate topics for future months at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Medicine/Collaboration of the Month#Nominations.

Peter.C • talk 01:51, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Just a reminder: A collaborative project only works if interested people show up and help out. I realize that several people are still busy with last month's article, but we need people at the new article, too.

To help, please look over the article, and either make improvements or leave a note on the article's talk page about what you think should be done. If you have an interest in collaborative editing, if you enjoy Misplaced Pages because it gives you an incentive to learn something new, or if you have a few minutes for a little minor wikignoming, this is a good opportunity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Russell Blaylock

Whitewashing going on. Needs to use MEDRS sourcing. He's a dubious fringe physician. Need more eyes on this one. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks like a couple of editors don't want Blaylock's views (e.g., swine flu vaccine is riskier than swine flu) to be directly identified as minority beliefs. Here's an example.

This is really more of a simple DUE issue than MEDRS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Signpost

Hello,
My name is Thomas888b. I am from The Misplaced Pages Signpost. I am writing to you to ask whether it would be possible to interview one or two key members of the project to appear in the signpost on march 21st? Could you please reply on my talkpage if interested.
Thanks,
Thomas888b (Say Hi) 18:45, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Selenium yeast

This article was tagged as G11 (spam), but I declined it as it is not sufficiently blatant. I'm not sure about the use of sources though - could someone take a look at it? It seems to me as though a merge to selenium deficiency might be the best solution. Cheers. SmartSE (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Only two of the numerous primary sources cited directly deal with selenium yeast as a dietary substance. Most of the health claims are about selenium rather than the yeast product discussed. It is mostly WP:SYNTH and might well qualify for AFD. The author (Selenocat (talk · contribs)) looks like an SPA. JFW | T@lk 16:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Training effect

I was wondering if someone with a medical background and a spare minute or two could take a brief look at the introductory sentence to Training effect (and possibly its corresponding reference) and suggest a proper redirect for neurohumoral and functional capacity. Thanks! Location (talk) 17:25, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Neurohumor and neurohumoral sound like they might outdated terms for Neurotransmitter/Neuromodulation, on a quick browse Neuron#Action_on_other_neurons seems the sort of thing your looking for, but there are many, many neurology articles - Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Neuroscience would be a good forum to ask in. As for functional capacity - I'm not sure if there is a general functional capacity that would cover all these systems, as each system will have its own definition. One more thing to consider- the talk page has mention of it and I'm have the same gut feeling that, unless more common us of the term can be shown, it should be merged into exercise Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 12:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Somatosensory Rehabilitation of Pain

It's late here, and I've got visitors so I won't get to this tonight, but Somatosensory Rehabilitation of Pain looks, after a brief scan, like OR to me. The author seems to have done some good work elsewhere. I'll try to focus on it tomorrow but another opinion would be appreciated, if anyone has the time. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I've left a note on its talk page and its author's talk page outlining some concerns. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what to do about this. It is based on the work of one team, most sources are in a foreign language, and on the face of it, it appears not notable enough even for an article. Somatosensory rehabilitation seems to be notable and has one or two textbooks devoted to it; but this concept, somatosensory rehabilitation of pain, appears fringy at best. Wiser/more experienced eyes would be appreciated. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:22, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

My eyes may not be any more wise or experienced but it looks to me like something that could be added to the Gate control theory of pain. ITasteLikePaint (talk) 03:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I would oppose mention on Pain, which is an overview of a very large subject. I'll warn the author I intend to nominate it for deletion unless he comes up with some MEDRS-compliant sources. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

New article Tessys method

Could someone please add Tessys method to the project? This is a new article I noticed and I'm not sure what's involved in adding it. Thanks, CliffC (talk) 18:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done This is a very easy task. You can see what I did on the article's talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

We win

We've won a pile of students! A class at Louisiana State University's Athletic training program are required to write (or, in a few cases, fix up) about three dozen articles. It looks like the focus is on orthopedic medical signs like Murphy's sign. The students are supposed to sandbox their creations, with an in-sandbox review planned for 17 February and a mainspace target of 03 March.

Here's how you can help:

• Please put Misplaced Pages:Ambassadors/Courses/Spring 2011/Orthopedic Injury Evaluation Techniques II (Ray Castle) on your watchlists.
• Please keep an eye out for the students, and help them gently along whenever you can.
• Consider becoming an official mentor for one or more of the students. Get more information at Misplaced Pages:Ambassadors, and apply at Misplaced Pages:Online Ambassadors/Apply.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

LASIK

Comments requested at Talk:LASIK#Requested addition. A user blocked for other reasons has emailed me asking for an addition to this article: he has a clear COI, but the requested addition, which says that the former official who oversaw FDA approval has now submitted a petition to withdraw it, seems factual and sourced. JohnCD (talk) 22:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Break apart "Comparison of MD and DO in the United States"?

There has been a "proposed merge" tag on Comparison of MD and DO in the United States for a couple of years now. We should probably resolve it. Personally, I don't see a huge benefit to maintaining a separate page for the two, as the information could be (and really, is) better included primarily at Osteopathic medicine in the United States, Medical school in the United States, and possibly also Medical education in the United States. NW (Talk) 16:06, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

To give some background, most of the info in the "comparison" article was originally in the articles allopathic medicine and osteopathic medicine in the United States, but the amount of information gathered overburdened both those articles. A third article comparing the two was created as something of a compromise. There is a great deal of published material and commentary on the comparison topic. I agree that the article is not the strongest article on WP, but with some TLC it could be much better. These topics, allopathic v osteopathic, MDs v DOs, etc are so poorly understood, hence their necessity. They also tend to generate instant controversy here on WP, hence the somewhat apologetic tone. Bryan Hopping 08:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Children's feet at AfD

Children's feet is at AfD, apparently as a proposed merge(?). I haven't commented yet, but others might want to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:40, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

MEDRS?

Dispute at Chiropractic: Is this a systematic review: Chiropractic & Osteopathy 2010, 18:3 doi:10.1186/1746-1340-18-3 http://chiromt.com/content/18/1/3

Review Effectiveness of manual therapies: the UK evidence report

"The purpose of this report is to provide a succinct but comprehensive summary of the scientific evidence regarding the effectiveness of manual treatment for the management of a variety of musculoskeletal and non-musculoskeletal conditions."

"The conclusions are based on the results of systematic reviews of randomized clinical trials (RCTs), widely accepted and primarily UK and United States evidence-based clinical guidelines, plus the results of all RCTs not yet included in the first three categories. The strength/quality of the evidence regarding effectiveness was based on an adapted version of the grading system developed by the US Preventive Services Task Force and a study risk of bias assessment tool for the recent RCTs."" Thanks, Ocaasi (talk) 17:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

A better question might be, does this study meet WP:MEDRS? I believe it does, however there is an editor will not allow its inclusion anywhere in the chiropractic article.Puhlaa (talk) 18:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's the ref from PubMed:

• Bronfort G, Haas M, et al, "Effectiveness of manual therapies: the UK evidence report", Chiropr Osteopat. 2010; 18: 3. February 25. doi: 10.1186/1746-1340-18-3. PMCID: PMC2841070
  "The conclusions are based on the results of systematic reviews of randomized clinical trials (RCTs), widely accepted and primarily UK and United States evidence-based clinical guidelines, plus the results of all RCTs not yet included in the first three categories."

Note the change of journal title: Readers should note that in January 2011 the journal’s name changed to Chiropractic & Manual Therapies from Chiropractic & Osteopathy'.

This is about as solid as it gets. It should be put it in the body and the lead updated. This is the most scientifically legitimate of all chiropractic journals. Their research reports are generally quite trustworthy, with few exceptions, and this isn't one of those exceptions.

COI statement: I'm a chiroskeptic and Physical Therapist, and "I approve this message". I agree that QG is continuing to block progress with his stonewalling, IDHT and ownership. It's so bad a systemic problem that I, an expert on the subject, usually avoid the chiropractic articles because of his noxious influence there. (I thought he was still topic banned by ArbCom, but I guess that must have run out. Maybe it needs to be reinstated under the ArbCom sanctions.)

I suggest that fresh eyes visit this section to see what's going on. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

And I'd strongly second that suggestion. At present we have editors removing content cited to a two-year old reliable secondary source with an edit summary of removed outdated review, 2010 review covers the effectiveness. We seem to have taken MEDRS to the extreme by discarding anything but the latest review, a slippery slope that fails to acknowledge the possibility of disagreement between reliable secondary sources. Editors should not be using guidelines to contradict policy. --RexxS (talk) 03:22, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Funny, I thought that MEDRS opposed that behavior. Isn't that what "do not automatically give more weight to the review that happens to have been published most recently, as this is recentism" means to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what it means to me. It obviously means the opposite to others. --RexxS (talk) 12:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The most recent proposal for a site ban (just two months ago) failed. His supporters were: User talk:Ncmvocalist, User talk:Collect, User talk:Skomorokh, User talk:Mathsci, User talk:Jehochman, NW, User talk:Beyond My Ken, User talk:Enric Naval, User talk:Chartinael, jps, User talk:RexxS, and User talk:Shot info.

I have contacted most of them with an invitation to help resolve this dispute (skipping one who earned a long-term block and a couple who are known to be watching this page). We should not have to deal with these problems every few weeks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:48, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The solution was initially about adding the UK review, not just taking out Ernst. That may have been a misunderstanding. The counter-problem is almost ironic given how prominently Ernst has figured into the article. But that is fine, so long as other sources with similar standing are incorporated as well. Despite the appearance of conflict, there is actually more productive discussion going on now, since a few other reasonable editors have chimed in. Ocaasi (talk) 13:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

We have at least three great reviews and should balance all of them. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

List of participants

The Signpost is featuring WPMED next month. They typically report basic statistics for WikiProjects, such as the number of participants. If you consider yourself to be a part of WPMED, and you have not yet added your name to the table at WP:WikiProject Medicine/Participants, please do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks like we haven't done a pass through the list to move inactive participants out of the active list for quite a while. Does anyone have a problem with my updating this with a cut-off of six-months inactivity on WP for "inactive participants" and twelve-months inactivity on WP for "former participants". It doesn't do us any favours to inflate the figures. Colin° 11:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree, thanks Colin. Graham Colm (talk) 21:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Pharma policy

Do we have a guideline or policy regarding how pharma companies/employees should edit entries about specific pharma products? NCurse _work 09:20, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. Our WP:COI guideline directly addresses this, WP:NPOV of course, and the WP:NOSHARE policy is relevant. Those link to others that are germane as well. -- Scray (talk) 14:38, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

We haven't written anything more specific. There was a conversation about this a while ago. Here's what I remember from it:

Disclosure of COI is not required by any Misplaced Pages policy.

• Some editors have voluntarily chosen to disclose a conflict of interest by including their employers' names in their account names, e.g., all these folks from GlaxoSmithKline. More self-identify on their user pages.
• Self-identification is a two-edged sword: You get points from most users for being honest, but a few will use it to harrass editors. See, e.g., User:James Cantor, a world-class expert on pedophilia, who has been chastised by a handful of (minority-view-holding) editors for not re-re-re-re-disclosing his "conflict of interest" every single time he edits certain pages.
• Corporate IP addresses are highly traceable. An employee editing from the office should assume that s/he's hung a big sign on the edit saying "I'm part of a pharmaceutical conspiracy".
• Some employers require disclosure, and a few believe it illegal for their employees to edit these pages. (I believe the idea runs like this: We are legally required to say only X about this product; if we change the Misplaced Pages page, we are legally required to say only X on the Misplaced Pages page; if the page says anything beyond X, then we're in violation of the law.) So employees and contractors should check with their employers.

Misplaced Pages does not prohibit people in the pharmaceutical industry from editing articles. WP:PAID failed. However, there are strategies that reduce conflict:

• Vandalism = bad. As far as we're concerned, anyone is welcome to fix it, even people who work for a pharmaceutical company.
• Correct serious errors, but leave the fine points to others.
• Propose sources and improvements on the talk pages.
• Read WP:MEDRS, especially the bits about not paying too much attention to single studies.
• Read WP:MEDMOS, especially the bits about not providing medical advice, instructions to patients, or dosage information.
• Remember that Misplaced Pages is not a patient guide or drug formulary. Employees might be in a unique position to provide background and historical information, which we very much want. We'd love for every page about a drug to contain some information about its regulatory status around the world, its development, its manufacturing process, and its commercial history (e.g., which companies have worked on it and what its annual sales are).
• Come here or to WT:PHARM to get help.

Hope this helps, WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Abortion again

If any fresh eyes were available, I'd be grateful for a sanity check at Abortion. The short story is that I reverted the addition of a piece of text sourced to a recent primary source, on the grounds that the secondary source already there covered the issue; it was then re-inserted by the OP; and then removed and re-inserted by Doc James. I've tried to raise what I see as a clear violation of MEDRS on the talk page, but to little effect. Any comments one way or the other would be appreciated, because either I or a bunch of others are failing to understand MEDRS. --RexxS (talk) 21:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

In the news

Google News listed CFS as a top story just now. See http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9LF8L6G0.htm this] on a Lancet study, which (reportedly) proves the conventional wisdom wrong. It's probably worth keeping an eye on some of the Chronic fatigue syndrome articles for a few days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Why was the conventional wisdom that exercising wouldn't help people with Chronic fatigue have more energy? Wasn't the idea that people can improve their health or vitality through inactivity basically dead decades ago? Ocaasi (talk) 22:29, 18 February 2011 (UTC)