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Medicine B‑class Mid‑importance

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cidpusa.com

A link to the "CIDPUSA" site ( http://www.cidpusa.org/ ) was added by an IP several revisions back. This is not an information resource like the others, but is mainly a collection of materials advocating the unsupported hypotheses of one doctor. It is also a bit deceptive because at first glance it appears to represent a national association in the United States, but as far as I can tell it actually represents a clinic in Lahore. I don't think it belongs with the other links, but I'm willing to listen with an open mind to arguments in its favour. Badinfinity (talk) 23:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Much of the material at the site seems to be just poorly-written text that's housing ads for an e-book. I'd say dump it. --CliffC (talk) 01:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Went ahead and removed the link. If the IP wants to reinstate it I would look for a convincing argument. Badinfinity (talk) 06:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears that none of you went further than the first page of the website cidpusa.org to make any type of decisions to remove it from this webpage. None of Dr Khan's hypothesis are unsupported. My nurses found the website informative in a variety of ways for the patient-The E-book is for those who want to use his proven treatments after gaining complete insight and understanding of their condition. In the case of Dr Khan, and to quote my nurse he is "famous" and is world renowned in his field of neurology! Taken from his website:
"Dr Khan served in the United States Public Health Service, appointed by the President of the United States. Promoted by the Surgeon General of USA to a Lt. Commander in the USPS. Served in the United States Civil Service as a Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda. Residency Neurology at University of Arizona, Royal Postgraduate Medical School London and Institute of Neurology Queens Square London."
Had you gone further than a cursory look at the contact page and viewed each page on the INFO of CIDP, The PATHOLOGY, diagnosis, treatment, etc etc you would have seen not only detailed information for the person who suffers from this condition, but diagrams and explanations to anatomy and a variety of tests to isolate a CIDP diagnosis.
If you had actually read the website you would have found how supported the information IS, and that the doctor who began this webpage and the CIDP clinic in Lahore utilizes the skill of doctor's from all over the world, as well as their own research--if you clicked on the link to Mass General you would have seen diagrams of anatomy explaining a skin biopsy. RLS, RSD, Lupus, Fibromylagia are all discussed auto-immune diseases, that often the CIDP patient is tested for before final diagnosis--that because they are in fact auto-immune conditions they should be treated as such and often are not. The website does contain references to back up the Doctor's information some of which comes from Harvard Medical School and Mass.General Hospital.
In fact it was Dr Khan's website that helped me to further understand better what I have, better preparing me to the use of IVig than any other weblink that was on the CIDP Wiki page. The link to CIDP on the GBS-CIDP website was terrible and the informaiton provided was poor in the extreme. Even this webpage should be listed as requiring cleanup since there is important findings and information about CIDP that are omitted from the webpage. This webpage doesn't even cover the fact that CIDP is often misdiagnosed as ALS and can cause death. The polyneuropathy alone means that it affects the peripheral as well as the central nervous system, not that it "can" have central neverous system involvement, this just one example of how poorly this web page has been edited in recent months. It is an irony of sorts to see that Dr Khan's information has been used in the writing of this page.
Allowing your ignorance and what appears as bigotry to prevail on the neutrality of Misplaced Pages is a disgrace! There is so much information without even purchasing the Doctor's E-book! How dare you arbitrarily decide to remove an incredibly knowledgable website, as well as hope for many other CIDP sufferers, from Wiki, without doing an investigative and exhuastive search of the website in question. I am returning the website back to this page, as well as sending a note to Wiki staff about how you did not do any real research at all in reference to and prior to the removal of an amazing resource to others like me.-brattysoul

Those editors may not have read that website, but I did -- at length -- and your personal testimony aside, the information on the site is remarkably low quality and much of it purely speculative or even factually inaccurate.

I laughed out loud when I read your statement about "sending a note to Wiki staff" to tattle on us. But perhaps you do not understand the concept of an all-volunteer anyone-can-edit website? Let me suggest that you start reading at Misplaced Pages:About. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

really, poorly written? Then explain how I know more about my condition and IVig? I certainly did NOT get that from ANY of the other links there-the nih talks about it but there is NOTHING to relate to it--which is what cidpusa website does include-in fact it actually has diagrams of the axon as well as other informative meidcal information.
Besides the fact that this Doctor is world renowned in his fight with autoimmune disease--my nurse sat here and toldme he is FAMOUS for his work! That alone means something, muchmore than your abuse of the system.
Just because you dont want the Muslim website that includes prayer on here does NOT mean that website lacks info. Tattle? yes indeed, because even if you do volunteer to edit, that doesnt give you the right to omit a website that DOES give info about the condition--which includes diagrams, stories from sufferers and new treatments for the disease--do YOU have it? I am sure you dont. That website gives DETAIL that none others do. Yes I can "tattle" as you call it and you can lose your volunteer editing which is nothing more than a priviledge,something you seem to have forgotten.
Obviously you want to keep information from sufferers, and as typical on most websites that allow "volunteers" to do work on their websites, you want to be in control and have some so called power over others. There is nothing worse than abuse! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brattysoul (talk • contribs) 16:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it a Muslim website? I hadn't noticed. I did notice the bits about curing every major disease with some, um, novel treatment approaches.

Good luck with your efforts to get me blocked. Perhaps you'd like to try winning some friends and influencing some people over at the main page for external links? You could alternately try a talk page that some physicians read. Either way, I do not expect that you'll find anyone that loves this website as much as you do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It was stated that a convincing argument needed to be posted to keep the web page--I gave them-even if YOU do not appreciate it, thats too bad. I do not care if "others love the website", they more than likely do not have this condition, which means they haven't a clue as to what sufferers really need.

CIDPUSA in fact gives information beyond what is in this article--how can it be a featured article if you play this editing game to restrict other information for others to look at? The doctor is in fact a respected and well known doctor in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. The problem is, it is useless to get you to understand what he is trying to give people in the way of info. He has stories of people who have had IVig treatment-which is explained in a better way than ANY of the other external links provided! It even tells you the COST of IVig! It really is apparent that you did not thouroughly read everything on that site--you allowed yourself to be misled by the link about his e-book, and instead of clicking onto all the embedded links, you scanned over them assumming they were just to the e-book! I know this is true by the way you have replied here. If you had actually ignored the e-book links and READ everything you would have found out that in recent years they have even used Stem Cell replacement for an individual with this disease. This is a dramatic treatment and isn't even included in this page about the disease.

The facts show that the website provides detailed information which includes detailed diagrams with text that explains different therapies-his e-book is if people would like to try other more holistic therapies, and no one is obligated to purchase this e-book in order to get the pertinent information about CIDP! Here is where you really need to step it up and remove this mental block about the e-book to further investigate what he has provided to people with CIDP--You have become biased on a website that requires an unbiased opinion.

There's the challenge to you-try and remove that mental block and biased opinion and steer past the holistic therapy e-book to really see what's been provided to sufferers with CIDP.

External links

Misplaced Pages's external links policy and the specific guidelines for medicine-related articles do not permit the inclusion of external links to non-encyclopedic material, particularly including: patient support groups, personal experience/survivor stories, internet chat boards, e-mail discussion groups, recruiters for clinical trials, healthcare providers, fundraisers, or similar pages.

Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, not an advertising opportunity or a support group for patients or their families. Please do not re-insert links that do not conform to the standard rules.

External links are not required in Misplaced Pages articles. They are permitted in limited numbers and in accordance with the policies linked above. If you want to include one or more external links in this article, please link directly to a webpage that provides detailed, encyclopedic information about the disease. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

you obviously missed the very first item on that list of external links

1-Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article.

it is apparent that cidpusa does in fact offer unique resource BEYOND what's in the article in question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brattysoul (talk • contribs)

You seem to be overlooking the phrase "if it became a Featured article". That's meant to encourage editors to improved the article to featured status by adding cited information from a reliable source, rather than just plugging in a link that sends the reader off to another site somewhere. So far, this is not a featured article, and you are encouraged to contribute content, not links, to improve it. --CliffC (talk) 18:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The mere fact that something isn't prohibited under the first provision of WP:ELNO doesn't prove that it is permitted under all of the rules at WP:EL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Spam again

I removed the cidpusa.org spam again. I thought I'd outline some of the most outrageous claims that it makes, just in case anyone still believed that it was a worthwhile resource. Note that most of these are on the front page of the website:

• "Autoimmune diseases are the number one disease process and killer on Planet Earth." (Not supported by any research. In fact, Khan states on the website that it's actually #3 according to reliable sources.)

• "A two week specific anti-inflammatory treatment can stop" . (ALL of them? For ALL patients?)

• "Arthritis, stiffness, pain mental disorders, heart problems, skin diseases, facial palsy, asthma, hearing disorders, multiple sclerosis are all autoimmune." "P.T.S.D. (post traumatic stress disorder), depression, anxiety, O.C.D (obsessive compulsive disorder), heart disease, bowel, kidney, breathing and skin disorders, memory loss & epilepsy are all immune mediated. Sudden onset of hearing loss, visual disorders & infertility are all immune mediated." (Wow, that's a long list... and it includes a remarkable proportion of diseases that are generally not considered to be autoimmune, or that, like infertility, are only very rarely immune-mediated. I suppose these are all up for the two-week cure listed above?)

• "Do not think that hot flashes are due to hormone deficiency. Treatment of any disease by thinking that immune dysfunction is the cause." (Not supported by any research.)

• "Alzheimers is a autoimmune disease, fully reversible" and "We are the first clinic in the world to offer complete reversal and prevention of Alzheimers." (Not supported by ANY research. Nobody has ever reversed or even stopped Alzheimer's. This is really unconscionable preying on a desperate population.)

• "By pass heart surgery with antibiotic protocol from cidpusa, no stents, no angioplasty, no surgery." (Really? Not supported by any research.)
• "With nanotechnology we can treat any infectious disease anywhere. We have the nano particle to cure multiple infectious diseases" and "Nanotech reverses all diseases & makes old people feel like young: Number 1 in ant ageing treatments." (Really? ALL diseases? IMO consumer-grade "nanotechnology" is what "electricity" was a century ago: a tool used by quacks to part fools from their money.)

• "If a disease has good & bad days, or it is progressive, consider it to be a autoimmune disorder. If the disease started after pregnancy, surgery, car accidents, toxic exposure or living close to a dump, its autoimmune." (Always? So pregnancy, surgery, car accidents, and so forth are effective preventive measures for all non-immune diseases?)

I'd like to expand on this one:

Relapsing-remitting diseases -- those in which you might feel poorly today, but might feel better tomorrow, with no predictable pattern -- are the favorites of medically inclined charlatans throughout history. It's a classic con man job: Work your way into the confidence of the sufferer. Claim credit for any good thing that happens, and respond to any bad thing by saying that it's proof that the patient still needs the con man to provide care for you. It is remarkably effective, especially when you add in the placebo effect that's been noticed again and again in proper randomized controlled trials: The mere fact of enrolling in a study, or embarking on a new treatment, or meeting a practitioner that seems to care about you will improve your mood and increase your sense of control. Improved mood = less depression, less pain, less absorption with small problems.

Consider some of the "stories" he reports on this website: "Bras causing Breast Cancer" and "Autoimmune reaction kills teenager in breast surgery" (if you click the link, he says that it was actually a genetically determined metabolic disease, but he doesn't seem to care about accuracy). Does this sound like responsible medicine to you? How about his assertion that vasectomies cause kidney stones?

As for it being a non-commercial website ("the only thing we sell is medical information that will cure, no advertising on this site", to which we ask what, "Our Nanoparticle treatment units are for sale. Get your treatment at home" is supposed to mean), consider headlines and statements like "Dont wait in a NHS clinic we do a 24 hr evaluation over the internet for medical problems", "See our Services we provide internet based remote medical consultations", and "For a full consultation from overseas a $ 50 consult fees is charged. Rupees 500 for first 15 minute consultation for local population." If they're really not selling anything, then why is the price listed?

Finally, we need to consider whether this website is based on modern science. The answer is no. Despite his harping on being a physician, the website plainly states that it is based on a sacred religious text: "Quran was sent to Earth as a guide for the straight path and a guide for Shifa (healing). Quran contains extensive details about diet, supplements and advice on curing disease..... In this ....Dr Khan has also included the most common diseases that effect humanity and provided simple antibiotic cures for these difficult to treat common diseases. These diseases include acne, Alzheimer's , strokes, heart disease and all forms of arthritis....Hidden cures from the Quran have been brought to the open..."

I strongly oppose the inclusion of any link to this quack in this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

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