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Wikimania is a free virtual conference this year

Please sign up. It won't be the same as the in-person experience, but it'll include a lot more of us than usual.

In particular, I think many editors here will be interested in this presentation:

wikimania:2021:Submissions/Preventing misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic: How Wikipedia, public health experts, and news media can collaborate to share trustworthy knowledge in times of crisis

Daniel Mietchen and User:Netha Hussain also have a COVID-related talk scheduled.

If you see other sessions that might interest this group, please share links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:49, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this. JenOttawa (talk) 16:30, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
There will be a session titled "Attracting experts to contribute to Wikimedia movement", but there's no page to link to it yet. Wikimania:2021:Program has the schedule. Different days will be more convenient for some timezones than other days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikimania:2021:Submissions/Attracting experts to contribute to Wikimedia movement now has a link. :-)
That session is 16:05 UTC (which I believe is 9:05 a.m. California) on Sunday the 15th. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
You can sign up for approximately another two hours. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Here's a link to Netha and Daniel's talk on YouTube. This is a short description of COVID-related coverage across many Wikimedia projects. IMO this is a great talk if you want to be amazed at just how much has been accomplished during the last year and a half. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Diptanshu Das gave a short presentation on attracting experts. A recording is available on YouTube now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
The YouTube recording of a talk featuring Netha Hussain with Elaine O. Nsoesie (who is likely notable) and some other folks is available now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsi4WHXEUtI Also, Netha, you sound awesome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:5α-Reductase deficiency#Requested move 7 August 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:5α-Reductase deficiency#Requested move 7 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Aryepiglotticus muscle

Is Aryepiglotticus muscle likely to be a duplicate of Aryepiglottic muscle? I stumbled upon it while trundling through orphaned articles but don't know enough to make the call. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:42, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Pinging the anatomists @Tom (LT) and Iztwoz:. No offense to any anatomy enthusiasts I missed. Ajpolino (talk) 22:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Redirected aryepiglotticus to more usual aka aryepiglottic muscle. Thanks --Iztwoz (talk) 09:03, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, much appreciated. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:43, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:BBIBP-CorV#Requested move 12 August 2021

Sinopharm BBIBP-CorV COVID-19 vaccine

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:BBIBP-CorV#Requested move 12 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 2409:4061:700:93AF:418E:4466:2FDB:DC48 (talk) 19:18, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Fungal infections

Hi... I thought Mycosis... a collection of fungal infections, might be re-titled Fungal infections or Mycoses. I don't know how to request this change and fungal infection re-directs to mycosis. Whispyhistory (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

agree would be a good idea to move--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:14, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requested moves has the directions. It'd probably be a good idea to start with a discussion on the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:53, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you... looks complex. Whispyhistory (talk) 04:16, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
@Whispyhistory: one thing to possibly consider in a move discussion is WP:PLURAL; it's not clear to me whether the topic is more a single concept (i.e., "fungal infection") caused by a multiplicity of possible causes, or whether the topic is a collection of different types of fungal infection, in which case the plural is correct. I think you're probably right that it's the latter. In any case, it's well worth a move discussion, and it's not as hard as it looks; you can find the step-by-step here: WP:RM#CM. All you really have to do, is start a discussion there, just like you did already at WP:Talk#Naming in plain text, but use the {{requested move}} template. Just copy & paste the code you will find at WP:RSPM to that section and add your reason, and you're done.
Since you already have the plain-text discussion there, what you could do now, is just edit that section and replace the whole thing (including the section header) with {{subst:requested move|Fungal infections|reason=your reason here}} (or Mycoses, or whatever name you're proposing), and save the page. Easy-peasy! Mathglot (talk) 18:26, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
There's an even easier method:
  1. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets and turn on Twinkle
  2. Go to the article, and choose "XFD" from the Twinkle ("TW") menu.
  3. Choose "Requested move" from the form that Twinkle gives you.
  4. Fill out the rest of the form and submit it.
Then Twinkle will do all the rest for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you.... I have had a go. Could someone kindly check I have completed it correctly please? Whispyhistory (talk) 03:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Congratulations, @Whispyhistory. You have everything in place. Everyone else, please add your thoughts to Talk:Mycosis#Requested move 12 August 2021. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi...thanks for above. Fungal disease redirects to pathogenic fungi. Should it redirect to fungal infection? If so, how please? Comment: viral infection redirects to viral disease and bacterial infection redirects to pathogenic bacteria. Whispyhistory (talk) 16:48, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Whispyhistory, Personally I would agree with Fungal infection. In medicine, the disease is the state of infection of the host. Even though we colloquially refer to pathogens and their diseases interchangeably, words actually do matter here. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:59, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks..I agree with you @Shibbolethink:. Can fungal disease redirect to fungal infection.... or is it okay as it is? Whispyhistory (talk) 17:02, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Post-rationalist cognitive therapy

This is a new article that looks like it needs evaluation. XOR'easter (talk) 22:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

perhaps move back to 'draft'...?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:09, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Ozzie10aaaa, Agreed, this needs a lot of work. Not a TNT, but a draftify. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 12:34, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
done[1] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:39, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence for ILAE Wikipedia Epilepsy Project

Dear members of WikiProject Medicine

I am a long term Wikipedian contributing primarily to articles under WikiProject Medicine. I am the Editor in Chief of the ILAE Wikipedia Epilepsy Project. The aim of the project is to bring scientifically accurate information on epilepsy subjects to the masses through Wikipedia. We have tagged under WikiProject Epilepsy more than 200 articles which come under the scope of the project. A lot of lacunae have been identified and the updates need scientific acumen. We have been unable to get adequate number of volunteers involved and therefore are considering involving a paid contributor who can carry out the necessary activities. The required activities are:

  • To compile a list of important ILAE articles, communicate with the authors about change in license, if felt necessary, get that done.
  • To work with the collaborators and identify the key aspects of ILAE publications that need to be incorporated in the articles on Wikipedia.
  • To learn the intricacies of Wikipedia editing, and to execute the changes directly on Wikipedia.
  • To communicate with peer reviewers and get the existing articles assessed and get a to-do list for the articles worked out. Thereafter they can carry out the changes as needed.

Their official contributions will come from a username tagged with the project. They can directly receive emoluments for the efforts they put in and this would be openly declared on their userpage. The funds could come from the ILAE and a part can come from Wikimedia grants that can be applied for.

Reason a paid position is felt to be needed

There is a paucity of Wikipedians who are academicians/experts in the field who can check the scientific content and verify validity of the information. We have tried to get volunteers but failed to get them adequately involved in structured and systematic contributions. This is leaving gaps that need to be filled and a paid post seems to be the only way out.

Seeking your inputs and checking whether anyone has any objections to this or if you have suggestions about how else this could be done. Diptanshu 💬 15:20, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Diptanshu Das, can you get the page created for your Wikimania session? Some editors here might be interested in attending. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: How and where do I create a page for the same? Can you please guide? Otherwise, any specific inputs on the issue particularly discussed here? Diptanshu 💬 16:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 Done here. Thanks for pointing out. @WhatamIdoing: Diptanshu 💬 16:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
  • As a former WiR for Cancer Research UK, I'd strongly adise prioritizing experience on WP over subject knowledge when recruiting, though a grasp of academic scientific principles is needed. It's much easier to find real experts who will review/comment on articles done than ones who will write them, & the ILAE should be able to suggest some. Best of luck! Johnbod (talk) 14:02, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Strange pagemoves

See the contributions of Cabswang (talk · contribs). Anyone understanding what's going on here? Class project? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:30, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Ayup, class project: "CAES9720 Academic Communication for Pharmacy Students" at The University of Hong Kong.[2] One may contemplate why after so many years' experience, edu-projects and their facilitators still can't even get the most basic of tags and course boilerplate onto enwiki. DMacks (talk) 21:56, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
That does make me an unhappy pharmacologists, as those article are essays paralleling existing structures, and 95% of them need to be merged (in my view). I've vented at User talk:Cabswang, and other might want to contribute there too ... or perhaps provide a more positively toned and welcoming approach, which I can't quite summon at present. There is some useful content, but why, for example, create Cholinergic blocking drugs, which completely duplicates Anticholinergic. Klbrain (talk) 00:01, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
@Klbrain: you wrote "Topical glucocorticoids which heavily overlaps with the existing Topical glucocorticoids"... X which heavily overlaps with X? I feel one of the two Xs was meant to be something else. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for spotting that; fixed; I had meant Topical glucocorticoids which heavily overlaps with the existing Topical steroid. For example, the first sentence of the latter says Topical steroids are the topical forms of corticosteroids, and as corticosteroids are glucocorticoids, the pages are covering the same scope. Klbrain (talk) 14:28, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Getting attention

Hey Med, so I came across Rachna Chhachhi which looked very suspicious (one of the sources (this) was talking about beating the worst of cancers with emotional nutrition which apparently includes organic eggs (paraphrasing)). And, I thought, if only there were a way to streamline alerting experienced MED editors about new articles that need their attention (recently had the same issue with History of Ayurveda, in which case I posted to parent article for help). I was thinking, maybe we could add a parameter like "needs attention=yes" to {{WPMED}} and it could populate a category "MED articles needing attention", or a bot could populate a page with only new articles that are so tagged. Unless there exists a similar mechanism already, in which case, all you need to do is tell me. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:26, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree this would be helpful. And it does not appear to be a mechanism already built into the template, but it is built into other WikiProject templates, such as Template:WikiProject COVID-19.— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 11:09, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
The most effective method has been what @Usedtobecool just did: Post a message here. Usually (not always), someone will respond. Our track record with Category:Medicine articles needing expert attention indicates that creating a category will not have the desired effect.
The sources listed in that draft do not indicate notability. As she's an author, it's possible that she actually is notable, but of the four sources listed at the moment, three are written by her, and the other is a single-sentence quotation in a newspaper article.
Coincidentally, I was reading https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/caitlin-flanagan-secret-of-surviving-cancer/619844/ today, on the problem of telling people that cancer is caused by, or can be cured by, or helped by, a positive attitude. I think that's primarily an American phenomenon, but it is pervasive and insidious, and if you find it in Wikipedia, please kill it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:06, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Justice, Awareness and Basic Support: British anti-vaccine group involved in the anti-MMR scare

Hey there! Just thought I'd bring this group to the attention of the Wikiproject. I am not a medical professional but I recently heard about this group and its connection to Wakefield's anti-MMR paper and the subsequent scare over vaccines and autism (the group seems to have jumpred onto the 'Covid-sceptic' bandwagon too - no surprise there).

If anyone here has some better insight on the group, better MEDRS sources, etc., that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! --Bangalamania (talk) 11:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Bangalamania, I wonder whether this article should be merged to a larger article, such as Vaccine hesitancy, or perhaps we could create a List of anti-vaccination groups. One of the challenges with articles like this is that the groups themselves may try to edit the page, to improve their reputation. It's harder to fill an article with self-promotional content when Wikipedia provides a bare-bones description of a dozen organizations in a fairly standard format, rather than an open page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: I understand your point, but I think the organisation is notable enough to have a standalone article, especially considering the RSes on the talk page. – Bangalamania (talk) 18:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
I've only ever heard the group described as JABS, so didn't recognise the expanded title. They were quite a notable group around the time of MMR scare and when the BBC had misguided ideas about "balance" when reporting medical or science issues. I think Bangalamania's done a decent job, though I don't think the "new website" is correct and seems to be little other than a badly worded directory entry. WAID has a point, but if this page turns up on a google search, then that's a plus. I wonder if JABS should redirect here? Is that a valid article name? -- Colin°Talk 15:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@Colin: Thank you! I was unsure about the title myself, and won't object if you wish to move it to JABS instead (or remove the new website, as I'm unsure if it's official either) --(talk) 18:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Some RS (not MEDRS) suggestions - per Banglamania's request, I think - now on article talk page. 86.161.190.70 (talk) 16:51, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@86.161.190.70: Thank you so much! I will definitely have a look through those ASAP. --Bangalamania (talk) 18:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
@Bangalamania (no problem :-) If you're not already familiar with WP:BMI you might be interested in the second section, #What is not biomedical information? - claims that only need RS rather than MEDRS-compatible sourcing (something which used to confuse me :). 86.161.190.70 (talk) 18:39, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Eyes needed at Talk:Menstruation

Specifically regarding content issues and possibly WP:MEDRS issues surrounding the topic of whether sexual intercourse during menstruation is carrying significant health risks. See here. Thanks. EMsmile (talk) 14:09, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

The problem seems to be one editor with an agenda and who does not know about or understand WP:MEDRS. Sex during menstruation is just a religious taboo and there are no medical grounds advising against it. I would just delete edits that are not properly sourced. As the subject, at least in the recent past, has been plagued by sock puppets, I won't be commenting there. Graham Beards (talk) 14:15, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Graham Beards, Yes that is a very apt summary and I agree with all of it.
The only other thing I would say is: EMsmile, you may want to make sure when things like this happen that you add warning templates to the problematic user's talk page. I know it becomes tedious, but if we don't do that, then it leaves a door open for the "I didn't know!" defense. And it might actually have an effect and get them to reconsider their behavior! A win-win.
If the user continues to engage in the behavior, it will be easier to convince an admin or users at ANI to act if it's clear they've been warned in several different ways. Just a tip from one user who has encountered this sort of problem to another.— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:07, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
WP:TWINKLE makes it (too) easy to leave warning notices, when you encounter situations that warrant them. It's easy to enable in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets (and if you don't have it enabled, please consider doing so, because it's the only reasonable way to send an article for deletion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Graham covered it all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, much appreciated! - Good point about the warning message on the talk page, I see you have added one already Shibbolethink, thank you. I put a follow up question on the talk page of menstruation. Thanks again. EMsmile (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

COVIran Barekat: Lots of fuss about preclinical trial results.

Pointing it out so people with more experience than I have can take a look. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I removed the last paragraph about preclinical trials. Testing of a human treatment in non-human animals is not generally important enough to mention in a typical pharmaceutical article (assuming, of course, that we have something to say about the subject in human trials, as we do here). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) uses this as a source. I dunno, is an op-ed really a good source for the claim, and even if it were would that very insinuatory statement really be worth keeping? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus, that's an opinion piece written by this politician, right? It was added in this edit, and the main purpose is to say that one facility operated by this national agency is located near one of the earliest known outbreaks of COVID-19. Although it's probably true (the fact could be verified on any map), I think it is probably trivia trotted out to bolster a political point. When Wikipedia:Balancing aspects for neutrality, I doubt that this one fact about one facility really deserves a separate paragraph in what's currently a five-paragraph stub about a major government agency. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
As there have been no objections, I have removed this bit of trivia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Hi - would editors experienced in assessing sources for medical topics please take a quick look at Talk:Chinese herbology and Talk:Traditional Chinese medicine? A relatively new user, who describes themselves as an an undergraduate neuroscientist and Qi Gong practitioner on their user page, is eager to add information about the efficacy of traditional Chinese herbal remedies to treat COVID19. Thank you. Girth Summit (blether) 18:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

thank you for posting this important topic--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:29, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Trypophobia Lead Image

Per an ANI I opened in error, I was recommended to ask this WikiProject about a situation on the Trypophobia page, where a few users over several years, as well as non-editors I've seen online, have complained that the page includes a picture used by medical researchers to induce a condition which can cause panic attacks. Some users have complained of physical revulsion from the image, but despite this, 32 users in an RfC from 2018 unanimously decided to keep the image, with the most common argument in favor being that the picture's educational value outweighed user discomfort. At least since that time, editors, some of whom were involved in the RfC, have more or less camped the page and referred to the RfC as if it is binding consensus. The page and subject are controversial topics, as many people believe the condition is simply from a meme, despite scientific evidence to the contrary, or that too few have the condition to warrant consideration. They cite Wikipedia policy that the website isn't censored, but every other phobia page I've encountered has a history of displaying no image or a less-graphic image (for example, a cartoon spider, or someone using a window washing platform rather than a vertical view from a height). At least one active user on the page has implied they're unwilling to discuss the topic without administrative intervention. I was wondering if this project could take over with looking into the appropriateness of using this image in the lead. Thank you. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 13:31, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, @IronMaidenRocks. I've left a couple of comments on the article's talk page. I haven't really looked at that article for several years. At the time, my impression was that there was almost no scientific research – even to the point that it was not entirely appropriate to say that it was a true phobia, since being disgusted by disgusting things is normal, healthy behavior in humans.
The key point for all images is the educational value. I'm glad that the image size has been reduced; while I think it is an informative image, I don't think it needs to be large. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for looking in to this. Perhaps we could ask a researcher on the subject to select an image which describes what a trypophobia image looks like but has the least chance of creating an adverse reaction. My impression from some statements by users on that page is that they are fascinated by the sensation the picture causes in them. I believe that sensation is the educational value they describe for that very specific picture. But the educational value an image should reflect in an article is understanding of the concept, not imparting a feeling. Secondarily, I think the picture more describes the quality of the original trypophobia study and is not as important to the condition as some users are purporting; it's merely an image featured prominently in one study and is not singularly descriptive of the condition. Also, I would say disgust is also not a completely proper term, as disgust does not usually cause panic attacks or other extreme reactions such as vomiting. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 06:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
The cited sources, some of which are in WP:MEDRS "ideal" category, say that most people with trypophobia have strong feelings of disgust and no feelings of fear.
I think there is educational value in helping people understand what kind of holes/bumps trigger this (e.g., not a straight line of holes, such as you might see on a musical instrument, along the edge of a spiral-bound notebook, when digging fence post holes, etc.). Seeing the kind of image that could trigger a response helps people understand the concept.
Also, for the question of whether experiencing a sensation results in people learning things, you may be interested in reading about Qualia and Mary's room. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
  • "editors have more or less camped the page and referred to the RfC as if it is binding consensus ... many people believe the condition is simply from a meme ... At least one active user on the page has implied they're unwilling to discuss the topic without administrative intervention."
A thorough reading of the discussion will expose gaping holes in this assessment. Insight from members of this WikiProject would be greatly appreciated, but know that the grim picture painted here about the scenario you'd be walking into isn't accurate. --GoneIn60 (talk) 07:30, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Note that I found out that RfC is binding, at least according to a non-admin user on ANI. The picture does seem less grim than I initially thought, and I have confidence that any new review will have cooperation rather than the resistance I had first thought to encounter. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 08:44, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
RFCs are not binding. RFCs are never permanently binding, and they are rarely actually binding even for a whole year. Wikipedia:Consensus can change is a core policy. However, once you have a discussion (RFC or otherwise) involving 30-odd editors coming to a nearly unanimous decision, you do generally have to prove that the consensus has changed. IMO that will be hard in this case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
According to the user named Scottish, binding in the sense that the old consensus must first be overturned. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 13:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to request any further help on the article's discussion. I was hoping to find people to take my place in looking in to the matter for the point of view which I saw numerous users communicate online. So far, I'm bulldogging this thing completely alone and the only user who has joined the discussion from this project is arguing against me and creating more work for me to do. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 11:53, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Could you please review these articles: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States & High-risk people ?

Hello WikiProject Medicine, I'm working on expanding the COVID-19 coverage on wikipedia. I have published a couple medical related articles recently: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States and High-risk people. If you could take a look and possibly make an edit, I would appreciate it. Open to any feedback.

Thank you again. --Wil540 art (talk) 18:13, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

have marked the former [3] as reviewed, after going thru it(the tags[4] on the later should be resolved)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:44, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

World Suicide Prevention Day

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Please take care of yourself, and please consider removing some of the garbage that has accumulated in Suicide methods (which is easily the most-viewed suicide-related Wikipedia article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Thoracic diaphragm#Requested move 3 September 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Thoracic diaphragm#Requested move 3 September 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:RSN concerning a paper about COVID origins and bioengineering

There is a discussion at WP:RSN concerning this paper by Yuri Deigin and Rosana Segretto in Bioessays which may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject. See discussion here.

Segreto, R., & Deigin, Y. (2021). The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin. BioEssays, 43, e2000240. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000240.

Thanks.— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:46, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:28, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Ivermectin

A new editor, BruceSanderson is adding information to several articles claiming that ivermectin is efficacious against COVID-19. I'm rather ignorant about these things, so perhaps a more knowledgeable member of this project could have a look at these edits. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 12:51, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Happy to, thanks for the heads up :) Edit: looks all reverted and user blocked. Love to see it. Glad to get the notification, though. This WProject will always be here to help. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:26, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Gastroenteritis vs Enterocolitis?

I have justed added reciprocal "See also" sections to Gastroenteritis and Enterocolitis. It would be very useful, IMO, to have a short section in each article discussing the relationship and distinction/differentiation between the two diseases, which certainly appear to be quite similar, especially in terms of how they present. (My sense of things is that Enterocolitis might possibly even be regarded as a subset/"special case" of Gastroenteritis.) Anomalous+0 (talk) 21:47, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

PS - Please {{ping|Anomalous+0}} me if you reply. Thanks! Anomalous+0 (talk) 23:23, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Help needed at Talk:Nurse anesthetist

Would a kind soul have a look? I ran into this by way of WP:RFPP and I don't really understand what's happening. But there's no shortage of hostility, so be forewarned. ←I really know how to sell it! El_C 23:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Working on it. Hoping to fill my hostility quota before bed. Ajpolino (talk) 05:44, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Ajpolino! Fruit basket pending. El_C 11:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
It looks like a familiar problem. The physicians declared, at least a century or two ago, that there is a definite and necessary hierarchy in Real™ Medicine, and that they are the top of the hierarchy and indisputable bosses of everyone else. Healthcare professions that developed independently (e.g., nursing, and therefore nurse anesthetists) dispute this hierarchy and do not like to see their professions "denigrated" as being "less than" physicians – for example, by saying that a nurse is "only" a mid-level provider, and not an equal member of the healthcare team. Mid-level practitioner mentions the title-related disputes; I would be surprised if we couldn't expand that with scholarly sources about sexism and classism.
From the POV of the "mid-levels", the physicians are unfairly arrogating status to themselves. From the POV of the physicians, the "lower" providers are trying to pretend that there's no difference between going to medical school plus spending three years in a residency vs. working for one year in a hospital and then getting a master's degree. But there are some practical differences. It's still true, at least where I live, that physicians are legally allowed to perform procedures that they haven't formally been trained on (e.g., experimental procedures, or acupuncture), which no other providers are legally allowed to do. A nurse's scope of practice is limited to what the nurse has previously been trained to do, which could be almost anything, but which is also why you can't pull any random nurse out of the hospital hallway and say "Here, you're a nurse: do this procedure you've never even heard of before". You can legally do that with a physician (in California; different places have different rules. Also, just because it's legal doesn't mean that it's wise).
Also, this dispute might be primarily an American thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
User:Ajpolino Thank you for your help and edits they were a great compromise! Mmackinnon (talk) 15:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Is OMIM a good medical source

There is this website called OMIM. I have stumbled upon it when researching on rare diseases. But, I’m not entirely sure it’s an ideal medical source what do you guys think?CycoMa (talk) 18:32, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

A broken link and a pop-up wanting money does not bode well. A weird and onerous licence[5] seals the deal. Avoid. Alexbrn (talk) 18:35, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
I fixed the link (which was broken here, not there). I'm curious what you think it onerous about the license. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
This is Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, a widely used database in genetics (which I wish would change its dated name, but I think the ship has sailed on that one) maintained at Johns Hopkins. We already have a link to OMIM entries autopopulated in {{Infobox gene}} if there's a wikidata entry, and for diseases in {{Medical condition classification and resources}}. It's just a database, not really a source on its own. The text summaries can be handy pointers to useful (though mostly primary) sources.
As for the donation popup, you'll see this stuff a lot lately in commonly used curated databases (compare eg FlyBase) because of changes to the way NIH funds database resources. OMIM is not one of the affected projects for this specific issue AFAIK but has had similar issues in the past. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:38, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
If data is pulled from the database and relayed on Wikipedia, that would seem to be in breach of the license? One for the lawyers? Alexbrn (talk) 19:50, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
AFAIK we're not actually pulling any data from OMIM, just using the identifiers to auto-format a link to their entries. For example, BRCA1, or for a disease example, the footer links in Breast cancer (though it looks like that one is manual). I suppose it's up to whatever bot populates wikidata to make the requested weekly updates. At least for genes and proteins, it's also possible to get these mappings from other sources (UniProt, for example). Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:04, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
OMIM has been discussed several times, and I believe we have usually concluded that it is generally considered an acceptable source for non-controversial information about rare diseases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

CycoMa, no, it is not, but ... as in prior cases, whether this source can be used depends on what you want to use it for. I would not use it for anything, and don't see much good reason for it to be cited anywhere on Wikipedia, but that said, it is possible that, for a rare disease, you can find something of use in it, but you should be certain that what you found is not outdated or that you are not giving undue weight to something useless recorded there.

It points to primary studies, without providing any context about those primary studies, much less updates, is often outdated and even inaccurate, and contains information that (depending on how you plan to use) would fall afoul of our DUE WEIGHT policy.

Case study for Tourette syndrome

OMIM entry for TS, last updated on 10/23/2014 (see WP:MEDDATE)

With respect to due weight, I direct your attention to the section on Clinical Management (I cannot get the page to link directly). OMIM gives one entry: a case study of one boy with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome-- a rare condition easily distinguished from TS by experts because of the extreme severity of the self-injurious behaviors associated with Lesch-Nyhan. While our article warrants one line in differential diagnosis, the OMIM entry has this one case study of one individual as the entirety of its entry on clinical management.

Regarding relevance of the primary studies cited there, note that one of the most highly discredited researchers in the realm of TS (Comings) has at least 24 entries: how is the average reader to know that most of what Comings published was since discredited or disproven? Secondary literature reviews would put those entries in perspective (in this case, by mostly ignoring them).

Case study for Dementia with Lewy bodies

OMIM entry for DLB, last updated on 6/27/2018

Inaccurate: mentions that guidelines were updated in 2005. In fact, they were updated in 2017 (before this article was updated in 2018).

WEIGHT: REM sleep behavior disorder-- a key feature of DLB, representing a significant breakthrough in diagnosis-- is not mentioned once.

I stopped there. I could go on, but these are short examples of why I strongly discourage you from using this source, especially for a rare disease. Could you tell us precisely what you want to use it to cite, so that others might do a literature search for better sources? It is hard to imagine that you could find anything useful at OMIM that would not be better covered in secondary literature, even for a rare disease, but my particular concern is with DUE WEIGHT, along with datedness and accuracy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Trauma triggers

Could someone please look at Trauma trigger and check the sentence 'Among people without traumatic experiences, "trigger warnings did not affect anxiety responses to potentially distressing material in general"' for me? I haven't found a non-paywalled copy of the source, but the quoted sentence doesn't line up very closely with what I see in the abstract.

If anyone's interested in having a go at the article in general, please feel free. So far, with a very small sample size, the 2014-ish sources seem to be fairly political and polemical, but even slightly more recent sources seem to be aware of a distinction between individual medical disability (e.g., some combat survivors can be triggered by firecrackers) and uncomfortable content (e.g., everyone should expect racist and sexist content in 19th-century literature). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Emailed you the paper for your viewing pleasure. Not sure I'll be much help at the article though. I'm a bit in over my head with the topic. Ajpolino (talk) 23:31, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Recurrent Cancer (Need expert in cancer)

I'm working on a draft called Draft:Recurrent Cancer The topic for the article is notable. It has been mentioned by Cancer.gov, American cancer society, webmd, Mayo clinic, and other sources have addressed the topic. So it's clearly notable but, I do have some knowledge on cancer but I feel like I need editors who have more experience on cancer th help with this draft.CycoMa (talk) 03:47, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Or anyone who has more knowledge about cancer than would be useful.CycoMa (talk) 17:44, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Also I’m commenting this here because I have noticed articles for different types of cancer do not address or mention anything about cancer coming back.CycoMa (talk) 18:21, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@CycoMa, thanks for tackling this subject. It's a major hole in our articles. A few notes for you:
  • There are two kinds of "getting cancer again". One is when they didn't kill all of the original/primary cancer, and it grows back. The other is when you get a different, unrelated cancer. The main article on Cancer has some information on these second primaries. (The cited source must be a bit elderly by now, but those numbers don't change much, so don't worry about that too much for right now.) The difference between "more of the same" and "lightning strikes twice" should be explained.
  • Cancer survivor#Fear of cancer recurrence has some information about the human side. Thinking back to when I wrote Breast cancer awareness, one of the problems is that when treatment fails the patient (sources sometimes write that the patient failed the treatment, which is both factually incorrect and also a cruel thing to say), recurrence has both personal implications (you might die) and social implications (people treating you poorly, perhaps due to their own fears of death).
IMO it might be worth focusing less on individual statistics, and more on the general concept. You might look in Google Books for a good textbook (nursing texts are often good for this sort of content). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
The article for Cancer recurrence has been accepted. But I feel like there is a lot more information on this topic that I’m unaware of.CycoMa (talk) 03:29, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Reproductive Biomedicine BSc - suggested edits w/c 22 Sept to 6th October 2021

Hi all, at the University of Edinburgh our cohort of Reproductive Biomedicine BSc Honours students will be learning to edit Wikipedia as part of their course programme and contributing their group research to articles related to reproductive medicine. I just wanted to flag their suggested pages to edit to see if there are any thoughts/suggestions/potential banana skins and also to highlight that these are students trying to positively improve the sum of all knowledge so if you come across their fledgling edits then do help/support as appropriate! many thanks.
Professor Norah Spears is keen to do a Wikipedia page on a scientist, which would be her top preference. Her suggested topics (in order of preference) would be:

  1. Prof. William ‘Twink’ Allen (no wiki article)
  2. Prof. Roger Short (no wiki article)

Other suggested topics not in any particular order of preference:

  1. Additional subpage to be added to the ovarian follicle activation on ‘inducing activation’ – about the hippo signalling field.
  2. An additional subpage to be added to ‘organoids’ on ‘testis organoids’
  3. Expanding the extremely brief section on ‘sex reversal in mammals’ within ‘sex reversal’ (there will be quite a lot of information for students to get into)
  4. Updating the ‘embryonic diapause’ page which is quite brief

Further suggestions, in order of preference:

  1. Ovary culture (no wiki page)
  2. Endocrine therapy resistance
  3. Fertility preservation for transmen
  4. Metabolic imprinting
  5. Bisphenol F
  6. Prolactin receptor - To be expanded. There are several reviews with good detail about the structure of the receptor, the molecular pathways involved, but also the pathology associated with dysfunction and/or mutations in both humans and mouse models.
  7. Fertility preservation of endangered wildlife species (no wiki page, although there is one on ‘wildlife conservation’ – so could be a subpage added to this, it doesn’t currently include things like use of reproductive technologies in wildlife preservation)
  8. Reproductive toxicology (just comes up with the journal, but there could be several subpages from this topic as well)
  9. Nanos gene (no wiki page).

Thoughts welcome! Research will begin 22 September with a view to publishing edits on 6th October 2021. Stinglehammer (talk) 11:05, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Stinglehammer, is the first for a man who died recently (potential source), rather than William Allan (geneticist)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing, yes this guy [6].
How about just simply update Fertility preservation. Based on my experience of student editing we are likely to get length essays most of which is not to do with the intended primary topic that are based on bad sources like primary journal articles, remain unedited for their lifespan, and are later merged into their parent article. So why not skip out that middle step (for Fertility preservation of endangered wildlife species and Fertility preservation for transmen) and simply update the skimpy Fertility preservation article first and create two redirects? Some other basic and impactful articles that your class could edit are Reproductive system, Human reproductive system, Female reproductive system.Tom (LT) (talk) 20:32, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Date palm health section

Hi all, can someone please take a look at the Date palm section "health benefits". The text says "Dates are reported to have good potential in diabetes treatment due to the presence of polyphenols exerting strong antioxidant activities. They were found to reduce fasting plasma glucose and postprandial plasma glucose in a 2021 meta-analysis."

This content is sourced to [7], an unreliable food journal by MDPI and another review [8] in the Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences. I have never heard of the latter journal but it doesn't look very reliable [9]. I believe we need some stronger sources here.

I have had a look round for reviews on dates and cannot find any decent sources. A lot of dodgy journals seem to publishing on this topic [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16] etc making all kinds of health claims but none of these journals appear reliable for Wikipedia to be making such biomedical claims.

What can we do to improve this section considering some content out there in journals on this subject is not entirely reliable? I would like to improve the section. Psychologist Guy (talk) 12:12, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I removed the "Health benefits" section as none of the sources were sufficient for the claims being essayed. pmid:32588917 looks like it might be more useful, but I don't have access currently. Alexbrn (talk) 14:14, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
The Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences rated better than I expected at Scopus (right in the middle of the pack). Still, a single good source for a surprising/exceptional claim is not great. For this kind of subject, one might want to know how it compares to eating raisins, or apples. "Eating fruit is good for blood sugar control" would not be surprising, but presenting it that way makes it sound like there's something more than just "eating fruit" in this instance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Autism Featured Article review

Autistic stacking cans

I have nominated Autism for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --Bangalamania (talk) 18:20, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:44, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion about wikipedia "Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans"

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans, which is about a wikipedia that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Bangalamania (talk) 20:27, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, see the RFC related to Wikipedia:LUNATICS. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:36, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Duodenorenal ligament

Hello WT Med! Is duodenorenal ligament a notable enough feature to need a standalone, or can it be merged? If it should remain standalone, where can I link it from? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:30, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Seems like a rather archaic anatomical term, appearing in anatomical dictionaries and little used since the 1930s. I've added a couple of reference. If it was to merge anywhere, perhaps Peritoneum#Other ligaments and folds, but locating it accurately might need someone with more anatomy (or surgical knowledge) than I have. Klbrain (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
@Tom (LT) and Iztwoz: if either of you have a moment, your thoughts would be appreciated. Ajpolino (talk) 17:37, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Agree with Klbrain for its relocation. - duodenorenal ligament - “a fold of peritoneum occasionally passing from the termination of the hepatoduodenal ligament to the front of the right kidney.” [17] --Iztwoz (talk) 21:52, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Since it is not mentioned in Gray's, and in dictionary definition is said to occasionally pass...perhaps it could be classed as an anatomical variation.? --Iztwoz (talk) 06:59, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps an anatomical variation, but regardless, merge to peritoneum seems reasonable; I'll place the relevant templates. Klbrain (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
I was still in favour of your proposal just that it might have been referred to there as a variant.--Iztwoz (talk) 07:24, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. This ligament seems interesting and fairly unique as what I think is a notable historical anatomy entity and a stub. I don't support merge to the much broader article peritoneum as it's a tiny stub of a rare entity and I generally don't support merging those kind of tiny entities into much broader articles. Merging tends to mean the large articles have to give undue prominence to the tiny structure and I worry over time there is a risk of the tiny structure being deleted from the broad article because of its relative unimportance. As we don't have space requirements as an online encyclopedia, I see no reason why there has to be a merge even if the article is a stub. Happy of course to follow consensus on this one if the community feels otherwise. Tom (LT) (talk) 23:49, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
Tom (LT) what do you think of its being a variation?--Iztwoz (talk) 07:28, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Sorry Tom, you had stated it to be a rare entity.--Iztwoz (talk) 05:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Hello ♠PMC♠ It has been added to Hepatoduodenal ligament and linked from there, thanks --Iztwoz (talk) 20:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Much appreciated guys :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Institute for Creation Research paper cited in Antimicrobial resistance

Since 2014, the article Antimicrobial resistance has cited a paper from one Institute for Creation Research, which is troubling. The two claims currently cited to the paper look innocuous enough, so I'm tempted to just remove the citation and wait for some other editor to find a new citation for them, but I don't know anything about the topic, so I'm afraid to let them stand. —Kodiologist (t) 07:49, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Kodiologist: The reference in question is number 88. The first thing that strikes me is the letters "n.p." which I am not sure about. Perhaps they mean "not published" since no publication details are provided. So I searched and found the paper on the ICS web site, and expanded the reference to have that link. Unfortunately, ICS is not listed on the perennial list of reliable / unreliable sources. It is not clear what, if any, review or editorial oversight were applied to this paper. So it is up to each editor to make a judgement on whether it meets the standards of being a reliable source.--Gronk Oz (talk) 15:16, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
@Gronk Oz: Creation science is pseudoscience, so a publication dedicated to it can't be a reliable source for scientific claims. Right? That was my thinking, anyway. —Kodiologist (t) 15:40, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
The abbreviation "n.p." means "no page numbers".
@Kodiologist, the best practice is to replace worse sources with better sources. Have you attempted to find a better source? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
I have not. I don't even really have the background to understand the claims being cited. —Kodiologist (t) 19:35, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Replaced with {{cn}} tags. Things don't need to be listed at RSP to be deemed unreliable. realultimatepower.net isn't a reliable source on ninjas, for instance, despite not being listed at RSP. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:24, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Normally I would leave the existing reference in place and use a {{bsn}} tag instead. But then I realized this article is within WIKIProject Medicine, so presumably the stricter medical reliability standards (MEDRS) should apply. And I am pretty confident that ICS does not meet those standards.--Gronk Oz (talk) 05:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
MEDRS applies to something closer to "sentences", rather than "articles". Tagging by this group is not a reliable indicator that any given sentence would ideally be supported by a MEDRS-type source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Yikes! I updated the first of the two statements sourced to that paper, and added new sources. The second was a bit of a muddle to begin with, and now reflects the other source used there - but that's a primary source from 2000, so I'd say this article could use some cleanup and updating in general. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:40, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Nice, thanks. —Kodiologist (t) 13:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
The Institute for Creation Research and its publications are never reliable sources for anything (except perhaps for the opinions of the Institute for Creation Research). Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:22, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal (Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous into Alcoholics Anonymous)=

Please see Talk:Alcoholics_Anonymous#Merger_proposal Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:43, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Multiple chemical sensitivity

This FTN thread may be of interest to editors familiar with the coverage of medicine: WP:FTN § Multiple chemical sensitivity etc. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 06:36, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:24, 1 October 2021 (UTC)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:24, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Concerns with dropping Cochrane sources in lots of articles

Greetings User:Harrisonnelson1205 and others. (I'm tired, so I'm sorry if this is excessively grumpy.) For what it's worth, I am not a fan of the recent contributions I see from this editor. In general, I dislike it when contributors think there's 1 journal that's so great that they then go along dropping sentences in random articles to cite a single publication. I dislike the flow of the prose that results from this approach, and I find it a myopic approach to editing. I recently reverted one contribution at deep vein thrombosis that was added in this manner, and I explained my rationale on the talk page and the edit summary. (There are other gripes I state there, and they relate to the source, but I won't repeat them here.) Maybe others would like to review these contributions. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to do so myself. I have been concerned for a long time about conflicts of interest in these cases. I fear that editors who adopt this style of contributing are blinded by the desire to cite 1 specific journal or publisher and that they do not consider the rest of the medical literature and the totality of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines so that the net effect is that they aren't really here to help build an encyclopedia. I'm concerned that editors who contribute in this style are instead actually here to promote a publisher to Wikipedia's detriment. Biosthmors (talk) 02:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I suppose Cochrane is an unusual case in that its content is (nearly) always representative of the kind of WP:BESTSOURCES Wikipedia likes to use. I haven't reviewed any of these specific edits but suppose one factor is how well-developed the articles are to which Cochrane material is being added. Adding it a some poorly-sourced raggedy article is always going to be a win; dumping it disjointedly into a well-sourced, well-developed article ... not so much. Appropriate care should be taken to ensure this is taken into account. Alexbrn (talk) 04:25, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't think that Cochrane sources should be put on such a pedestal. Sure, they are a reliable source for biomedical information. Sure, I think some citations are appropriate and helpful for readers. But let's take for example the recent seminar on VTE that was published in the Lancet [18]. Only 4 out of 164 references are to Cochrane sources. I also cite Cochrane sparingly at deep vein thrombosis (an article that is currently up for peer review and one I've tried to maintain over the years). I have repeatedly had to clean up what I consider to be "Cochrane clutter" from people dropping in Cochrane sources in an unwise manner. Personally, I don't find Cochrane sources to be particularly useful for article development. For example, deep vein thrombosis uses 4 Cochrane-published articles out of 199, and none of them are highly-cited within the article. (Contrast this with the Mazzolai et al. source, which is cited over 20 times there.) In other words, I think a well-developed article will cite Cochrane sources only very sparingly. Therefore, I hold a negative view towards single-purpose accounts whose goal it is to tilt the balance of an article towards Cochrane sources in a haphazard manner, as was the pattern of edits I see with Harrisonnelson1205. Wikipedia citations are something Cochrane keeps track of, as you can see here. Clearly there is the potential for conflict of interest editing. Because I think Cochrane should only be cited occasionally in a well-written article, I don't agree with the assertion that adding Cochrane-sourced content to a "poorly-sourced raggedy article is always going to be a win." Such use of sources could be wp:undue and mislead readers about what subtopics are actually of import to an encyclopedic summary. Biosthmors (talk) 22:51, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Similarly (undue weight / promotion of Cochrane), I just noticed on fingolimod that there is content in the lead that is not in the body, thus violating wp:lead, and I think the content unnecessarily mentions and promotes Cochrane by linking the organization in the lead. At DVT, I never mention Cochrane by name in the body of the article. I just report the biomedical information. I haven't done the digging to see who added this content. Biosthmors (talk) 17:55, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Biosthmors, I would agree with Alexbrn that Cochrane sources are some of the best possible systematic meta-analyses that exist in the literature. They would be second only to clinical practice guidelines in terms of quality of MED sources. In fact, they are called out explicitly in WP:MEDRS as high quality, and as exceptions to the "5 year rule": "Cochrane Library reviews and NICE guidelines are generally of high quality and are periodically re-examined even if their initial publication dates fall outside the 5-year window."--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 02:47, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Oh, I also forgot that WPMED really endorses Cochrane as generally reliable and one of the most useful sources for med articles, see: WP:COCHRANE.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 02:51, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Over at wp:cochrane it is stated that this initiative "supports the inclusion of relevant evidence within all Wikipedia medical articles" (my emphasis). I'm expressing concern over the interpretation of the word relevant. Who gets to decide what is relevant, someone who works for Cochrane? Surely we don't believe every recent Cochrane publication deserves citation on Wikipedia, do we? The Lancet in their recent seminar did not find much among Cochrane publications to highlight as relevant. I don't feel like the arguments I've stated are being addressed. The user whose edits prompted this thread was rapidly citation spamming medical articles in my opinion. An uninvolved administrator cautioned them against promotion on their user page. Biosthmors (talk) 00:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
And Shibbolethink, for what it's worth I'd much much rather use clinical practice guidelines and review articles to develop content here than start by looking through Cochrane sources. The source that was added to DVT recently addressed an issue I have seen no secondary sources mention. In other words, it's appears like that publication might be an example of writing a high-quality systematic meta-analysis for the purpose of publishing a high-quality systematic meta-analysis. I have concerns that Cochrane has more incentives to publish high-quality systematic meta-analyses than they have disincentives that would focus them on real-world relevance. Just because they publish something doesn't automatically make it relevant to an encyclopedic summary, in my opinion. Do others disagree? Biosthmors (talk) 01:06, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
WP:Balancing aspects always requires editors to use their judgement. In the specific case, I'm not convinced that was a good addition (that edit used a lot of words to say "we don't know if this detail matters"), but it also wasn't obviously irrelevant. If I'd wanted to cite that source myself, I might have added it as a four-word parenthetical in an existing sentence: "...compression stockings (knee or thigh length[1])..." and trusted that the very tiny fraction of readers who were interested in this detail about this would check the source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, WAID. I think that's a wise approach. I agree. We need editors to have a wp:clue so that they can make similar determinations. Sometimes 4 words (or none) might actually be what is called for instead of unbalancing articles with single or multiple sentences. Biosthmors (talk) 00:15, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Surprise surprise. Someone who claims to be working in the best interest of Wikipedia (and Cochrane?) was name-dropping and linking Cochrane in the lead at fingolimod (which goes against WP:LEAD, for one).[19] User:YetiHed, in light of the concerns I raise, do you think that that edit to fingolimod was entirely in the best interest of Wikipedia? How so? Biosthmors (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi there - It sounds like my edit was not in the right place, if so thanks for moving it. I'm not sure what you mean by name-dropping. If the issue was the placement / wording, okay. If you mean the issue was including the review in general in the article, I'm not sure what to say. It's one source of evidence on the question of efficacy that, alongside other sources, does seem appropriate and relevant to me. If more experienced editors think this is in error, fine. I will say that when I was volunteering for the Cochrane/Wikipedia project it was under the auspices of WP:COCHRANE, and it seems like that is what you have an issue with.YetiHed (talk) 09:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
You're welcome, thanks for the reply, and sorry for the delayed response. By name-dropping what I mean is that I think linking the publisher, journal title, author, university, etc. that is associated with a reliable source runs the risk of wp:overlinking. It could be in Cochrane's interest to have as many hyperlinks as possible to their Wikipedia page so that they can feel like they are "building their brand," but that is not in the best interest of Wikipedia. Imagine, for example, if at DVT I started specifying the publisher or journal title (and linking them) for every study and described every study type. That would create a lot of wordiness and links that do not help people learn about DVT. I simply try to report the relevant information without going into unnecessary factoids about where the information came from. (I concede that I do sparingly mention the source of clinical practice guidelines.) Please see mos:ul for the real purpose of links on Wikipedia. Also, would you mind telling us who helped you fashion your contributions to Wikipedia as part of this initiative? And I'd like to know the same for you too User:Harrisonnelson1205 if you don't mind and if you are affiliated with this initiative. Best wishes. Biosthmors (talk) 16:28, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Biosthmors thank you for staying on top of this issue, which has been an ongoing problem for many years; it is time we did something about this problem. I have noticed over the years how much effort you have to put in to correcting the Cochrane entries, but the problems go well beyond formatting. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Cochrane is a misguided venture which, rather than leading to significant improvements of Wikipedia articles, has instead appeared to benefit Cochrane more than Wikipedia in terms of advertising. The goal of the "collaboration" appears to be to get every Cochrane article cited on Wikipedia, and this is often done by newly recruited volunteers who don't know how to format their entries, in which part of the article to place them, whether they are repeating better information from better sources already in the article, and even, at times, whether they are linking to dated information. The idea seems to be simply to use Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Cochrane/Cochrane Review List to make sure Cochrane is represented everywhere-- even if there are better or newer sources.

The goal of this newly recruited volunteers appears to be simply to add an entry, any entry, somewhere on Wikipedia to make sure Cochrane is cited, and I have been raising concerns about the sloppiness of these entries for years. JenOttawa is pinged, she promises to speak to the new trainee, everyone involved is nice and kind and well intentioned and helpful, but ... lather, rinse and repeat and the same things happens with every new trainee. There appears to be no sustained commitment to quality.

I don't know why the "search archives" button isn't working, so I am unable to link to the number of times I have raised this issue-- also, I often raise it on article talk pages, rather than here. I do not see the benefit of this "collaboration", but have repeatedly seen that it creates too much work for other editors to clean up the faulty entries. This is a collaboration with a purpose contrary to the goals of Wikipedia-- to push Cochrane into higher visibility, and I wish we would stop this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Does this work? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:21, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Thank, Jo-Jo … I am not sure what happened to the “search archives” feature, but that link did lead me to at least one sample, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 137#Old Cochrane reviews. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:21, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
You're welcome SandyGeorgia. JenOttawa, I see from User:Harrisonnelson1205/sandbox that the user essentially self-declared an affiliation with the Cochrane initiative by linking to a Cochrane review list. Does any part of this initiative advocate (even implicitly) for the viewpoint that all published Cochrane reviews deserve inclusion in Wikipedia's encyclopedic summaries? I see this user had a self-described template. Do you know where they came up with that style of writing? You don't advocate for editors to cite every Cochrane review that is published, do you? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 23:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
I just emailed JenOttawa to see if this discussion could be continued. I feel like aspects of this initiative (which I understand poorly, to be honest) should be modified judging from the quality of contributions I've seen. I would say there's no consensus for poorly-considered edits or contributions to continue. Biosthmors (talk) 12:33, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Alzheimer's Disease Article - Live Changes Request

Hi all! I'm a student at the BHSc program at McMaster, and User:Bharatss-SB,User:Joyjxu1 and I are currently taking a course where we have to update an article for a class assignment. We would love to edit this article, however our professor has concerns that the need for group consensus would significantly impede our progress. We were wondering if we could be granted permission to make live edits? No worries at all if this is not possible! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joan1087 (talk • contribs) 13:10, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

@Joan1087, if you go to Alzheimer's disease and look at the top of the page, I believe that you will already see a button saying "Edit" (instead of "View source"). If so, you are already technically capable of making live edits. Is that what you're asking about?
Also, could I make an optional, personal suggestion? I think you will have an easier time with discussions if you all go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures and find the item labeled "Discussion tools". Click the box to turn that on, and then click the blue button at the bottom of the page to save the change to your preferences. That will give you a [reply] button on talk pages. It has a visual editing mode (or a live preview, if you prefer the wikitext source mode), and it adds the :::: indentation and ~~~~ signature codes automatically when you post you comment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Fetal cell lines in drug testing

I was hoping to help a bit with the COVID-19 vaccine articles. The US news says unvaccinated healthcare workers are hoping to get an exemption from COVID vaccine mandates. The main theme is that the HEK 293 cells were derived via abortion, the cell lines were used in testing and/or production of all the vaccines, and that avoiding anything remotely connected to abortion is religiously necessary.

In looking for more information on this, I ran across this webpage, which lists other, non-vaccine drugs with similar uses of the same cell lines. The answer appears to be "just about everything". If you can't take the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines because they were tested on these cells, then you also can't take aspirin, ibuprofen, paracetamol, Benadryl, or, you know, just about any other drug, not to mention several altmed things like Quercetin. Or, if we want to put a fine point on it, Regeneron, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquinone, and whatever else anti-vaccine folks have touted as COVID cures. Presumably, if you have a religious objection against taking (and prescribing?) drugs tested on fetal cell lines, then you would have identical religious objections to using any of these other drugs as well.

I've thought about adding this webpage to the ==External links==, but it seems a bit unfair to the author (who could get harassed) and although the list comes complete with footnotes, it's not any sort of official page. Does anyone have any ideas about where to find a more formal page with a list of drugs that are known to have been tested on this cell line? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Well I certainly wouldn't worry about the author being harassed. They have put this out there, and in a direct and challenging manner. BD2412 T 02:13, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
I assume you were thinking of it being a EL for HEK 293 cells, rather than COVID-19 vaccine or COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and hesitancy, which don't mention HEK cells. Your linked essay notes a difference in ethical problems with those manufactured using those cell lines and those which at some point have been tested on them. Perhaps this is something the article could be clearer about. A source in the article ([20]) notes that Pfizer/Moderna used the cell line for testing whereas Astra/Johnson used it for manufacture. Wrt testing I think there is a similarity with animal testing. I'm not aware of anyone forgoing shampoo, soap, deodorant, face cream, etc, because some of the ingredients were once tested on animals in the 1970s. It seems to me more appropriate, like your author notes, to encourage the use of alternatives to things one objects, than to take a view that the product is now forever tainted with evil because someone once did a certain test. -- Colin°Talk 12:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Modern vaccines do not contain any fetal cells and a fetal cell line doesn't either. The cell lines were derived from fetal cells many decades ago and these extant cells are millions of generations removed from the original tissue. The cells are obtained from cell banks, the ATCC (company) in the US for example. Graham Beards (talk) 13:08, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
This seems to be the typical view of researchers, but I imagine that if you are sufficiently desperate to avoid the vaccine, then you might grasp at anything that offers. There might even be a few people genuinely holding such a position. But I confess that I doubt the sincerity of a claim that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines must be rejected as inherently tainted by evil from anyone who accepts other drugs that also used these cells lines. Perhaps it is due to a lack of information, and the person would stop using nearly all modern drugs. Or perhaps the person doesn't hold this view sincerely, and the religious objection to COVID-19 vaccines is just a fairy tale that they believe the US courts will accept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:00, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
The linked decree Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines would suggest these are views held by more than just a few people. All this "cooperation in evil" theology is way above my level of contemplations. Outside of Northern Ireland, in the UK there isn't quite the same attitude, as your first article puts it, that abortion is some special kind of evil above all others. It is certainly odd to us how it skews the US political and legal system from top to bottom. And even Northern Ireland was brought into line with the rest of the UK when its local politicians were too busy squabbling to do their job. What's the view about the Astra and Johnson vaccines? Are they considered even more evil? -- Colin°Talk 18:06, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
I think they are, according to this model of thought.
If someone genuinely holds the position that any drug that uses these cell lines is immoral – "do not handle, do not touch, do not taste" – then that's fine with me. But if that person is cheerfully taking other drugs that were also using these cell lines, and that person only objects to the vaccine but not the others, then I doubt their honesty.
Of course, if you said to them, "Oh, did you know the same is true for all of the drugs you've taken in the last 20 years?" and their response is "I had no idea. I'll stop taking them all, beginning immediately", then that would be a sign of a genuine belief. But I don't expect that to be the case. I expect them to say "I don't want the vaccine, but I'm going to keep taking my asthma medication, my blood pressure drug, and my pain killer". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes I get why we have an imperative to say something on this issue. Maybe the way to approach it is to just list a few of the other drugs which were directly tested using HEK-293T cells, or
I would think vanishly few are aware they are used elsewhere. The Vatican statement concentrates entirely on Covid vaccines, and references an earlier one on other vaccines. So I suspect there isn't a Vatican statement about drugs in general, and that people don't ask their doctor if their medications have been tested on foetal cell lines. The social media posts peddling this anti-vaccine scam won't mention it I'm sure.
I am a wee bit concerned that your effort to enlighten someone might make them stop some important medicine. Do we really need a list of "Here's all the medicines you can't take because then you are cooperating in evil and will go to hell". I think it is worth Wikipedia noting that pretty much all modern drugs are tested on these cell lines. I'm not aware of other kinds of drugs that are manufactured using them, but that's just my ignorance... perhaps some antibiotics are?
In the UK, the health secretary has today reinforced their commitment to require all care home staff to be vaccinated by 11th November: "If you work in a care home you are working with some of the most vulnerable people in our country and if you cannot be bothered to go and get vaccinated, then get out and go and get another job. If you want to look after them (care home residents), if you want to cook for them, if you want to feed them, if you want to put them to bed, then you should get vaccinated. If you are not going to get vaccinated then why are you working in care?". The same rules do not apply to nurses and doctors in the NHS, who also work with "some of the most vulnerable people in our country". It also does not apply to visitors. Care home staff earn minimum wage. Many do leave to work in the NHS instead and can earn more money on the tills at an Aldi supermarket or filling boxes in an Amazon warehouse. It is estimated around 40,000 will be required to leave. We shall see if that happens. But there is already a crisis with care homes, being short of staff and going bust due to high costs of dealing with covid. I think this sort of thing demonstrates the really difficult problem when what seems to be us to be a straightforwardly obvious science-based decision meets legislation, personal rights and staffing compromises. -- Colin°Talk 10:32, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
I'm curious whether the UK has as many people making the same argument. I suspect that for many people, this claim exists purely due to a quirk in US law. If you are an employee, and you are required to do something as part of the job – anything, really, whether it's working on Friday evening or getting a vaccine – and you have a genuine religious objection, then US employers are normally required to accommodate that. There are limits, because it's not reasonable to pay someone to be a bartender if the person refuses to sell alcohol, but the exemptions usually cover everything that isn't absurd.
In the case of the vaccine, if you say that you want a religious exception because of the way the drug was made (or the way it was subsequently tested, in the case of old drugs like aspirin), then the employer normally has to accommodate this. We have no similar exemption for just being afraid of it, or believing that the costs to yourself outweigh benefits to everyone. The lever you can use to get out of a workplace requirement is claiming a religious exemption; no other reason works in this case. As a result, I suspect that there are many people claiming a "religious belief" that they don't really hold.
I don't want people to stop taking life-saving drugs, especially not without appropriate medical advice about alternatives and an awareness of the consequences. But I also don't want people lying to the courts, either, and I also don't want the courts to blindly accept a claim that Dr This or Nurse That rejects everything involving fetal cell lines but still is willing and able to do a job that normally involves prescribing, dispensing, and administering drugs they reject on religious grounds. I think that if a licensed healthcare worker refuses the vaccine because of genuine abortion-related reasons, they will also refuse other drugs with similar development histories. And when that is true, I think we have reached the point of a devout Muslim or Mormon being a bartender: that person can't do that job. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it bears mentioning that the list is essentially endless, because there are more "turtles all the way down" aspects... Even if a drug was not directly tested on a fetal cell line, it is likely that a technique used in its creation would not exist without a fetal cell line. as Colin suggests about Shampoos, cosmetics, etc. And perhaps the cell line which it was tested on was not fetal in origin, but was at one point reliant upon fetal cell lines for its own development (to synthesize plasmids used to alter its genetics, or to test its nutrient broth, or to test its growing conditions, or to test antibiotics used in its culture and upkeep, etc etc.) Indeed, the protein serum that we add to 90-95% of cell cultures comes from fetal cows. I'm guessing that's not what we're worried about here, but still. No hands are free of blood in this scenario.

Where do you draw the line? It's fetal cell lines all the way down!

They are such an integral part of medical science. because they are some of the only truly renewing and immortal non-cancer primary lines... Some have argued that it is much better to test drugs on fetal cells than cancer, when it comes to safety of that drug. Because cancers mutate into organisms that are pretty distinct from humanity... Each cancer cell line is screwed up in its own way. We need fetal cell lines to avoid the problems that creates. That's why this list is likely extremely long.

I think we'd be artificially cutting it at "directly tested on," when any truly moral person who holds this conviction would want to avoid any medicine which would not exist without fetal cell lines. And that line is basically as long as any medicine which has existed since a few years after the cultivation of these cell lines. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:51, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Experimental cancer treatment

From its illiterate and nonsensical lede, to its jumble of content mixing mainstream cancer research with with out-and-out quackery, this article is a misleading mess. I'm thinking any viable content could be moved to alternative cancer treatments and cancer research, but before proposing this, I wonder if there is a distinct topic here, maybe around participation in clinical trials? Thoughts? Alexbrn (talk) 02:08, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I would agree this should be deleted/merge any non-unique non-patent-nonsense content into alternative cancer treatments. Maybe some of it into List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments? — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:46, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
I haven't looked at that article for years and years. The idea is that we should cover mainstream, non-altmed cancer treatments that are in development (e.g., stuff listed at clinicaltrials.gov, stuff being hyped by biotech companies that are looking for investors). It should be less about listing the individual experimental treatments (which change constantly as drugs move through the pipeline) and more about the general idea. Drugs don't spring fully formed out of Zeus's head; they start off in preclinical trials, move into clinical trials, and then either get approved or disappear. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

V1 Saliency Hypothesis

(Am I at the right place?) This article cites whom it claims to be the proposer of the hypothesis, for all(-ish?) on-topic claims, many of which are extraordinary. From the article,

  • V1SH was proposed in late 1990's by Li Zhaoping.
  • V1SH is the only theory so far to not only endow V1 a very important cognitive function, but also to have provided multiple non-trivial theoretical predictions that have been experimentally confirmed subsequently. two citations, both to Zhaoping
  • Opinions started to change by a surprising piece of behavioral data: an item uniquely shown to one eye among similarly appearing items shown to the other eye (using e.g. a pair of glasses for watching 3D movies) can attract gaze or attention automatically cited to Zhaoping

etc.

There are other refs in the article but they seem to be for unrelated claims like:

  • In the 1960s, David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel discovered that V1 neurons are activated by tiny image patches that are large enough to depict a small bar Hubel et al. (1962), and
  • This work led to a Nobel prize , and V1 has since been seen as merely serving a back-office function (of image processing) for the subsequent cognitive processing in the brain beyond V1. However, Hubel and Wiesel commented half a century later that little progress has since been made to understand the subsequent visual processing cited to an interview but all this is there only to be contradicted by our article with a primary source: Outside the box of the traditional views, V1SH is catalyzing a change of framework to enable fresh progresses on understanding vision. cited to Zhaoping.

Because the article uses Zhaoping's works to support on-topic claims, I am concerned that this may be WP:FRINGE and may need to be covered accordingly, or not covered at all. Would someone confirm that this is a topic that's got attention of independent academics and is notable enough for a standalone article (This seems to be independent, but is it, and is there more?)? If the topic is notable, should we do anything about what these authors are doing, for example, the promotional WP:SYNTH in the last paragraph of the article, and apparent WP:COI with Zhaoping? Could you also check that links to this article, accompanying text, and other unrelated material cited to Zhaoping, that these editors have been adding to other articles are appropriate? Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:26, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Should MEDRS apply to advocacy of high-fat diet?

The subject is almost the entire question: should Nina Teicholz be tagged with {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} requiring WP:MEDRS sourcing with respect to the veracity of the diet claims that the subject is a proponent of? ☆ Bri (talk) 19:57, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

If those claims are for human health effects, certainly. The schtick is that sugar-is-poison as I recall. For WP:FRINGE views, however WP:PARITY may apply. Alexbrn (talk) 20:02, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Sugar is poison, in sufficiently high concentrations. That's how Fruit preserves become "preserved".
From a quick glance, I think this mostly amounts of "journalist with a viewpoint". The article covers who said what, which is not something that one expects to find medical sources discussing. It should not be tagged as needing MEDRS sourcing.
As for the viewpoint, if the question is whether you should eat your fruits and vegetables cooked in butter and topped with Parmesan cheese vs cooked in processed oils high in trans fats, then she's probably right. If the question is whether you should eat your fruits and vegetables steamed rather than coated in fat – hmm, I haven't looked at all the sources, but I don't see any evidence that anyone ever asked her that question. The mainstream nutritional POV is that trans fats are worse than saturated fats, but the main thing is to not eat too much, and to eat your fruits and veggies. (Personally, I vote for not sautéing the strawberries, but a bit of butter works nicely in an apple compote.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Anne Wyllie#Publications

Opinions would be welcomed there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:50, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Merging articles about abuse in healthcare

I think we should merge Workplace safety in healthcare settings and Patient-initiated violence into a single article that deals with "abuse in healthcare" which would deal with abuse by patients, professionals, relatives of patients and people generally in a healthcare setting, and the causes of it.

How this topic should be split up editorially is unclear. I suspect concepts like "patient-initiated violence" and workplace safety are in part designed to "beg the question" of what the causes of abuse of healthcare workers in the healthcare setting are, insofar as an implicit assumption is created in the concepts of abuse themselves that presupposes that healthcare workers have no role in the abuse that occurs in a healthcare setting. However, these concepts and terms *are used* in a reasonable amount of research. On the other hand, a review of the research does not convince me that the research actually suggests or even addresses the question of how involved healthcare workers are in the abuse they receive. Rather research mostly addresses factors exclusively to do with patients and their relatives and ignores the interactions with healthcare workers themselves.

To turn to a metaphor, If one instead of the concept of "dog" always discussed the concept of "dooog" that does not include rottweilers, bull dogs, or alsatians, then we might be able to conclude that dogs are safer animals than they actually are. Alternatively if we included tigers and lions in the category of "caaaaat" we would conclude that cats are very dangerous indeed. There is most likely not a scientific basis for either non-standard category, but if we were to suppose that these concepts were used in literature should be use them?

So we have an editorial question about how we "cut up" the concept of abuse in the healthcare settings. I personally think that drawing a massive line between "blameless abuse of healthcare workers" and "abuse in the healtcare sector" artificially reduces understanding, so the broader term should be used editorially despite the literature. It's also worth noting that research in mental health *does* acknowledge the role of interpersonal relationships in violence - so if we are to address abuse in mental healthcare settings at the same time as other settings the broader category is necessary.

Turning to the literature itself. I think this discussion of literature in this (primary) source does a reasonable job of summarizing this situation: https://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12875-016-0454-7

Previous research on workplace violence in primary care has often focused on risk factors mostly related to characteristics of the patient, the general practitioner or the work environment [2–6]. In emergency primary care the patient is often unknown, and this limits the usefulness of warning signs related to the patient. However, aggression usually occurs as a result of interpersonal interactions [7, 8]. Cox and Leather [9] claim that “human aggression is typically the product of interpersonal interactions wherein two or more persons become involved in a sequence of escalating moves and counter moves, each of which successively modifies the probability of subsequent aggression”. Existing studies on the dynamics of the interaction between staff and patients have mostly been performed in psychiatric institutions and general hospitals [10]. The in-patient premises, settings and incidents differ in many respects from emergency out-patient settings [11], thus the transfer value of findings from in-patient settings is uncertain.

It is also worth noting that qualitative research on the topic is rather lacking, so the support for the current conceptualization in the literature is weak, based on a recent theoretical review:

However, as noted by Landau and Bendalak a weakness of most studies in this field is their strong emphasis on empirical findings with very little (if any) theoretical orientation.

[1]

So the more restrictive conceptualization of "patient initiated violence" does not yet have real support in the literature, perhaps supporting a more general article that can comment on the lack of theoretical clarity. And straying into OR territory, we might like to note that research from the limitied "abuse by patients" viewpoint found that involuntary treatment, and unsolicited touching were some of the most predictive factors of patient violence.

Discussing the surrounding literature general, the literature seems to be sourcing some concepts from criminology. ([2]). Some research is taking concepts from sociology. There is research of sociology within mental health settings and violence, including historic theoretical conceptualizations like "the total institution" from Goffman. Discussions of inpatient involuntary eating disorder treatment talks about dehumanization of patients.

Talpedia (talk) 17:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello Talpedia. I was involved in writing the article Violence against doctors in China and can confirm that the two topics (patient initiated violence, and healthcare workplace safety) are both independently notable and both have received significant coverage. As nothing to do with health exists in a silo by itself there is definitely some overlap. Workplace safety in healthcare settings is an extremely broad topic and I think there is enough that could be said about both to keep them separate. I think you make some good points but that they are probably best addressed in the literature itself or in discussions or forums, but that our job here is to base our encyclopedia on good quality secondary sources. Tom (LT) (talk) 04:52, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

are both independently notable and both have received significant coverage

Hmm, that is almost certainly true. However the article Workplace safety in healthcare settings is exclusively about abuse was moved from a page "Aggression in healthcare settings" (edit) and covers much the same material as Patient-initiated violence.Patient-initiated violence being created *after* "Aggression in healthcare settings" was fairly complete (diff)
I agree that an article about worplace safety in healthcare is broader and probably interesting (topics like drug safety, slips and falls, chemicals etc), however none of this content exists within Workplace safety in healthcare settings as it stands.
Alas, I suspect most journals (or indeed forums) would not accept my post on whether one wikipedia page should be merged into another and have its title changed. [
I don't think making editorial decisions about article titles - and by implication what information (mostly from high quality secondary source) goes where is at odds with basing these articles on good quality secondary sources. This is implicitly acknowledged in policies like WP:POVFORK and WP:COMMONNAME. [User:Talpedia|Talpedia]] (talk) 08:07, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
Looking into the policies now, I think WP:CRITERIA is relevant to this question and specifically WP:COMMON, and WP:POVTITLE. Although it does not specifically seem to address the question of generality here. ("German initiated conflicts of the 20th century" comes to mind here as an analogous topic). Talpedia (talk) 08:52, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
Well, how about we fix the article with the broader title so it's actually broad? That would involve splitting off almost all of the current content and merging it into the article titled Patient-initiated violence, and then adding the missing information. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/article/occupational-injuries-and-illnesses-among-registered-nurses.htm says "overexertion" is the most common problem (lifting's dangerous), and falling is second; these two represent 70% of lost-work injuries among nurses (the most common licensed healthcare profession). Violence is third with 12% (this includes, e.g., frightened dementia patients), and "contact with equipment" (e.g., needlesticks) is fourth with about 10%. It would be good for the article to reflect the real-world risks.
BTW, it it sometimes possible to use this tool: https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Workplace_safety_in_healthcare_settings to figure out what kind of content most readers are looking for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ienj.2017.08.004
  2. ^ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ienj.2017.08.004
Sure. That's a defacto merge together with a new article on health and safety in heatlchare. I'm still not sure about the phrase "patient-initiated violence", but I suppose this can be considered separately from the merge itself.
I agree that a workplace safety article would be valuable for the large number of people employed in workplace and interesting in general Talpedia (talk) 20:43, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
I had a go at replacing the lead of Workplace safety in healthcare settings with a broader concept, cited to the source linked above. Most of the work still needs to be done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:52, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Alt-med flowchart

This alt-med flowchart might help. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 17:12, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Aaaand now I've heard of ear candling. Something new every single day. Ajpolino (talk) 03:38, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Have to admit, that one was new to me as well Before following the link, I tried to guess what it was, strictly from the term itself; I pretty much had it right, but rejected my guess out of hand, thinking, "Naaah, couldn't possibly..." The other new one for me was CST. Mathglot (talk) 18:30, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
If you were looking for what Ernst calls "non-specific" effects, CST looks like it might be pleasant – like a bit of pampering at a spa, probably suitable for people with fibromyalgia (whose tender spots presumably make normal massage unpleasant) or frail elderly people (whose skin would bruise easily). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Come on project members, never heard of ear candling or CST!!! You medics need to get out more. -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 16:20, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Is this WikiProject notable?

It could be. I've written up a section at WikiProject#WikiProject_Medicine (note that the COVID section existed before, I added a history of / reviews based on academic sources). Anyway, good job guys, you represent the best this project has to offer :) Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Molnupiravir‎

MK-4482

This potentially significant new COVID-19 drug has inevitably caused a lot of editing activity. While there is a lack of WP:MEDRS sources it's probably okay to use some lesser sources with appropriate caveats and restraint. However, we now have a user pressing hard for using a primary source (pmid:33961695) to include speculation that the drug can cause cancer and birth defects. More eyes from MEDRS-savvy editors would be welcome. Alexbrn (talk) 12:29, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Now at Talk:Molnupiravir#Cancer and birth defects claims. Also, thank you to Michael D. Turnbull for adding the other viewpoint to the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
will watch (a most important topic apparently)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:44, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Student editing, English course on medical topics

All of these articles will need watchlisting:

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Creativity and mental health#Requested move 13 October 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Creativity and mental health#Requested move 13 October 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 17:05, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

This has already been re-listed for lack of editors sharing their views. The proposal is to move the page to Creativity and mental disorders (since the current content is largely about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other disorders). If you have an opinion, please share your thoughts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:10, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Sourcing and statements in nickel allergy

Nickel allergy may have some inadequate sourcing. Some statements also verge on the contradictory; for instance, it says that "These researchers have correctly identified foods high in nickel content (e.g., nuts, chocolate, beans), they have sometimes incorrectly advocated the avoidance of cutlery, bowls, etc. made from stainless steel [8-10% nickel, usually], which do not release significant amounts of nickel", but that "common kitchen utensils" can be irritant and should be avoided by allergic people. HLHJ (talk) 02:54, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Yikes, much of the article is referenced to the publications of a trade group of nickel producers. Hardly an independent source on allergy to their product. Ajpolino (talk) 18:24, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes, there seems to be a lot of that for medical information on metallic elements, not to mention their alloys. HLHJ (talk) 03:22, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Pharmacognosy Research phcogres.com

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Pharmacognosy Research phcogres.com. Venkat TL (talk) 10:18, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

thank you for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Women in Red - Endocrinologists & World Diabetes Day

Hello WP Medicine! Just a heads up that over at WikiProject Women in Red one of our themes in November is Endocrinologists, Diabetes and hormonal health more widely. We're hoping to new a bunch of new pages about the role of women in these disciplines, please do join us! Lajmmoore (talk) 11:11, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Very cool! Thanks for sharing! TJMSmith (talk) 22:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Vitamin A5

Could someone from the project review Draft:Vitamin A5 . The references seem good, but the discussion of therapeutical potential is not sourced specifically, though it is probably covered in ref. 4. Nonetheless, it seems very speculative at this stage. -- DGG ( talk ) 00:32, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

@DGG, it's probably a notable subject, and therefore probably doesn't belong in the draftspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:46, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
Moved to main space. Article can be improved there or redirected to an appropriate topic. TJMSmith (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness

In September 2021, the European Journal of Epidemiology published a study demonstrating that increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States. The study also indicated that the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with a higher percentage of their population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. The authors of the study advised that sole reliance on vaccination as a primary strategy to mitigate COVID-19 and its adverse consequences needs to be re-examined, especially considering the Delta variant and the likelihood of future variants.[1]

References

  1. ^ "Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2,947 counties in the United States". European Journal of Epidemiology. September 30, 2021. Retrieved 22 October 2021.

This is a request to evaluate if this source is reliable and is well represented. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 08:14, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Adding: another discussion already existed, Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science § Article Cited by Anti-Vaxxers as Evidence COVID-19 Vaccines Are Not Effective. suggesting that the source's conclusions may be misrepresented, —PaleoNeonate – 09:58, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for this note, @PaleoNeonate.
I wonder what that article says about people dying from COVID-19, and if that little detail is being conveniently overlooked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
I couldn't take the time to completely read the article yet. If it's a good source, the intent of my post is to make sure that enough eyes see it, so that its summary includes any caveats or details (for instance, in my area, statistics show vaccine efficacy as conclusive yet not to completely avoid transmission, also to reduce the likelyhood of severe disease). It's a source that's been quote-mined from by some anti-vaccination activists, so scrutiny is welcome. —PaleoNeonate – 04:02, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Havana Syndrome

It would be great to have some experienced WP:MEDRS editors look at the Havana Syndrome page. The lede of the article currently starts by saying ringing in the ears, fatigue and dizziness are symptoms of Havana Syndrome. Thanks in advance. DolyaIskrina (talk) 08:10, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

The lede of the article currently starts by saying ringing in the ears, fatigue and dizziness are symptoms of Havana Syndrome. No, it doesn't. Nice canvass, though. Geogene (talk) 22:45, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
The current first sentence is "Havana syndrome is a set of medical signs and symptoms that include ringing in the ears, fatigue and dizziness".
@Neutrality, do you need help, or have you got this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Commons' Picture of the Year

Voting is open for the final round of Commons' 2020 Picture of the Year. Almost everyone reading this page is eligible to vote. In this round, you get to vote for three pictures out of the 59 finalists. All of them are good, and a few are medicine-related this year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 20 October 2021 (UTC)


Sugar, literature reviews and reviews of reviews

Likely of interest to this wikiproject: WP:RSN § Sugar, literature reviews and reviews of reviews —PaleoNeonate – 03:57, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:33, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Adventist diet and health

The third paragraph of Seventh-day_Adventist_Church#Health_and_diet makes health claims based on news articles, not medical reviews. The related Adventist Health Studies cites a lot of publications from Loma Linda University (a Seventh-Day Adventist institution), and only one scientific article, all of whose authors are at Loma Linda. I'd think that the strong claims made here should require, like other medical claims on WP, third-party reviews published in reputable journals, not individual research studies published by advocates. --Macrakis (talk) 16:56, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Discussing articles WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:15, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Health effects of chocolate

New editor here with a question. Health effects of chocolate states that there are essentially no positive health effects of chocolate. I found a recent review article that lists lots of cardiovascular benefits to chocolate. This is a review article, which is what is needed under WP:MEDRS. I edited the article to insert these findings and delete the statement in the lede that there are no positive effects. An existing editor immediately reverted my edits. Here is our discussion about it: [22] He seems unwilling to admit that there are legitimate studies showing a health benefit.

Am I in the wrong? Why? How am I wrong? If I am not wrong, how do I handle this? --Isabela31 (talk) 01:06, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Weak reference. A big problem in this area of research is evidence for biomarkers, but not for clinical outcomes. A PubMed search on cocoa and cardiovascular, limited to meta-analyses, yielded what appeared to be better quality refs. David notMD (talk) 01:35, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
I believe that chocolate is a good thing, and I am sure that this is The One True™ Belief That All Good Editors Hold. However, the little things I've read in the past feel like those "red wine is good for the heart" claims: what most people actually eat (high-sugar candy that contains a small amount of chocolate) isn't what the lab test studied (sugarless, low-fat, high-fiber cocoa powder, various purified phytochemicals), and the studies in humans are textbook examples of correlation not proving causation. If you are the kind of person whose health and socioeconomic situation means you could eat chocolate (or drink alcoholic beverages) regularly, then you are automatically going to be healthier than the kind of person who can't make that choice.
@Isabela31, I don't think you're wrong, and I'm sure that the article could be improved, especially by updating it to sources from the last few years. However, I think you find that it's more complicated than saying that chocolate has health benefits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing "chocolate has health benefits in humans" is the conclusion is two different recent review articles, one of them from a couple of months ago. Do the articles really rely on correlation? Where? Even if they do (which they don't), saying that for this reason they are invalid is WP:OR.
I have a different theory. Some people have studied the topic in depth and have concluded that chocolate has no health benefits. They are against any edits that contradict this conclusion. That's WP:OR and is not allowed in Wikipedia. --Isabela31 (talk) 13:38, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
When you cut to the chase, pmid:31064163 says "there are limitations in the available data that make it difficult to draw firm conclusions". So the use of this source to assert firm conclusions in Wikipedia's voice would appear problematic. Alexbrn (talk) 13:49, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
That same review article also says that "consumption of cocoa, particularly rich in flavanols, is beneficial to promote cardiovascular health". We can't cherry-pick the caveat while ignoring the plainly and directly stated conclusion.
Isabela, I don't doubt that there are editors who are more interested in their personal opinions, or the level of evidence that would personally convince them to start eating chocolate. Personally, I am more concerned about the difference between "cocoa" (what's studied) and Candy bar (what's eaten). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:02, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
If the evidence is described as all weak, that's a governing consideration that affects how the paper must be read (and reported). The text you quote is what studies apparently demonstrated, but the review goes on in conclusion to discuss many limitations with the findings. Alexbrn (talk) 16:15, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Surely someone has studied the psychological benefits? There has to be a reason that every introduction to mindfulness involves chocolate. -- Colin°Talk 08:12, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
I had a past COI on this topic, because as employee and later science consultant, I worked for/advised several food companies on how to conduct research and make Structure:Function health claims for foods that contained proanthocyanidins and other polyphenols. For the (unnamed) chocolate company, I was paid money and briefcasefulls of chocolate! Foods in this constellation of polyphenol health claims include the well-known red wine, dark chocolate (for higher cocoa content) and green tea, but also Concord grape juice, hazelnuts, almonds, dark-colored berries and fruits, etc. For a while, an extract of hazelnut skins looked promising. Claims need to be tempered, because most of the evidence is biomarkers and putative biomarkers (flow-mediated dilation as an indicator of arterial stiffness) versus disease endpoints. I do believe the article can be improved, but with better refs than the one Isabela31 added. David notMD (talk) 11:31, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

To summarize, this is the section currently in the article, while this is my proposed rewrite. Going through the discussions has helped me see some of the points of favor of the current section, and has even lead me to rewrite and improve the proposed section, though I still disagree with some of the arguments made in favor of the current section. I will take a step back from this for now. If any of you good people would like to take a stab at it, please go ahead. @David notMD, @WhatamIdoing, @Alexbrn, @Colin --Isabela31 (talk) 14:55, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Vaccine passports during the COVID-19 pandemic

Vaccine passports during the COVID-19 pandemic is a controversial subject and it would be nice to have some more eyes on it. CaffeinAddict (talk) 16:55, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

will watch(have edited)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:26, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Just started an article Medical volunteerism

I am surprised this didn't exist. Setting aside how significant this is, it probably also describes what we do here at this project... btw, has there been any academic study about WP:MEDICINE? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:06, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Google scholar--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:05, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
Question, is volunteerism a word you guys use in America? In the UK we definitely say volunteering. Dr. Vogel (talk) 00:59, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Volunteerism might not quite have the same feeling as volunteering. IMO choosing that name slightly hints that there could be an ideological view underlying the decision: I am going to save the world, without wondering why the world is set up so that patients in poor countries see a different set of outsiders each week, instead of just hiring long-term residents to do this permanently. I know that it might make sense for a small country to have a visiting physician in an uncommon specialty, but it doesn't make sense to fly in someone to weigh children or to tell people that using condoms reduces HIV transmission (and these are typical activities, as many participants have no more qualifications than the hospital volunteer who delivers flowers to the rooms).
There's a third word, voluntourism, that implies that the healthcare-related activities are secondary to the participant's desire to travel. It is more derogatory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
@Ozzie10aaaa Well, yes, I meant, beyond those easy pickigs (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_153#Is_this_WikiProject_notable? where I alraedy cited all of these). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:51, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Frazier's point

Hello friends, I come to you with another curious medical orphan stub: Frazier's point. Same questions as the last one: is it notable? Can it be merged, or should it be deleted? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:25, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

I would say merged into VP shunting. I can find a few sources about it, more than others like that random anatomical variant ligament. At least everybody has one of these... [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:42, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
agree w/ Shibbolethink--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:12, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
ventriculoperitoneal shunt redirects to cerebral_shunt#Shunt_routing, which mentions the Peritoneal cavity as the drainage site. Would cerebral_shunt#Shunt_routing still be a good merge target? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 12:40, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
Ah yes, I had only moused over, not even noticed the redirect. That is a perfectly fine merge, as VP shunting is just one type of cerebral shunt. Frazier's point should be merged into Cerebral shunt#Shunt location, in my opinion, though. That appears to me to be the most pertinent part of that article to anatomy and localization. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:43, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
 Done And expanded it a little bit. Dr. Vogel (talk) 13:01, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
And by the way, Frazier's point is NOT what the picture on the right is showing! Dr. Vogel (talk) 01:01, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
have left a message on talk(with above editor) --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:01, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Hi Ozzie, do you mean we should create an image for it? If so, that sounds like a great idea. Dr. Vogel (talk) 14:21, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:05, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
but what did you mean? is that what you meant? Dr. Vogel (talk) 13:50, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Vaccine equity

We need more MEDRS information on the public-health effects of vaccine inequity, especially at the high-traffic COVID-19 vaccine#Access, and at Deployment of COVID-19 vaccines#Equitable access. The information looks generally sound, but is sometimes cited to news media citing the WHO etc., and it could really benefit from being clearer, more comprehensive, better organized, and expertly integrated with the related non-medrs-needing information (who is doing what with vaccines where etc.). Thanks! HLHJ (talk) 03:29, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

several editors are apparently already working on the article[29]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:18, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Ozzie10aaaa. I've linked to it from the other articles now; hopefully that'll help. HLHJ (talk) 21:07, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Melioidosis

Hi all, I've put Melioidosis on my watchlist (not least so I don't have to remember how to spell it). The most recent addition is unsourced info on an outbreak linked to aromatherapy oils. I'm not even sure what counts as a good source for that sort of thing, so I am flagging it here. Red Fiona (talk) 20:59, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I removed the IP's content, not least because it was jammed in in the refs section for some reason. Added a CDC ref to a sentence about the 2021 American outbreak. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you :) Red Fiona (talk) 22:06, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources

I'm a new editor, trying to learn about reliable sources. I read Wikipedia:MEDRS and related pages, and just trying to understand what all of that means in practical terms. Check these 3 references, based on this.

The first one is clearly bad. Not in MEDLINE, no JIF, very low Scopus. The second one has positives and negatives. In AIM, good Scopus, but low JIF. Do you consider it reliable? The third one is in MEDLINE (but not AIM), good JIF, good Scopus. What is your opinion?

Citation Journal MEDLINE JIF Scopus
PMID 34485569 Journal of Education and Health Promotion no NA 24 percentile (bad)
PMID 33549287 The Nursing Clinics of North America AIM 1.208 (low) 68 percentile (good)
PMID 34405933 Phytotherapy Research yes 5.878 (good!) 84 percentile (very good)

--Isabela31 (talk) 20:11, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

as inPremenstrual_syndrome#Alternative_medicine your going to find that even when you follow MEDRS, you need to build consensus with other editors on the article/talk as to what is the best option(IMO, I'd say #3) good luck--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:18, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Some editors are very strongly biased against what they call "SCAM" information ("Supplements, Complementary and Alternative Medicine"). We do see knee-jerk reactions against sources that fully comply with the guidelines. I once had a couple of men objecting to a source that claimed a reddish berry "improved skin tone". The problem, it turned out, was that they thought skin tone was a medical thing, similar to muscle tone. It's not. (A much more reasonable objection would have been that making skin redder by smearing red stuff on it is not always considered "an improvement", especially if you have rosacea.)
I agree with you here that the first source is poor and the other two are likely to be acceptable – within the usual limits (e.g., not overstating things). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
The first question to answer is 'reliable for what'? doi:10.1016/j.cnur.2020.10.006 would be enough to establish that X is used, but probably not to establish that X is effective. Also, there's often an incestuous relationship in SCAM-fields. Without taking any stance on whether or not Phytotherapy Research is reliable (I have literally no expertise in that field), it might be in the 84% percentile because its category is silly '84% in complementary medicine' would be pretty meaningless, but 84% in pharmacology would be a lot better. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:09, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
That journal is in the 84th percentile for the category "Pharmacology".[30] It ranks in between Wolters Kluwer's Journal of Immunotherapy and Elsevier's Progress in Medicinal Chemistry.
Review articles in top-quintile pharmacology journals should be accepted even when the subject can be derided as "SCAM". We do not maintain neutrality by setting forth rules that say to use review articles in well-ranked journals and then acting like there's a secret exception that means only regulated pharmaceutical products can be written about. There is no secret exception.
Obviously, in all cases, editors need to be careful not to exceed the sources. That is true whether the subject is a drug with FDA approval, or those useless knee surgeries, or Grandpa's belief that a hot toddy is a good treatment for a cold. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
Welcome to WikiProject Medicine Isabela31! :0) Conscientious, thoughtful editors like you are our most valuable resource. // In addition to the excellent advice you have already received, keep in mind that (1) in the context of applying WP:MEDRS to Wikipedia articles, we define "biomedical" broadly, i.e., "human health" (contrast that definition with the article, Biomedical sciences); and (2) most health-related articles include discussion of topics such as etiology, assessment, diagnosis, treatment (management), etc., that, in many instances, require literature searches in the social and behavioral sciences and subsequent citations to journal articles published in psychology (and other social science) journals. In my field (clinical psychology), most of the top journals are indexed in MEDLINE, and are included in Index Medicus, but most reputable psychology journals are not included in the much shorter list of core journals. Some new editors assume that only National Library of Medicine core journals (Abridged Index Medicus), or only journals indexed in MEDLINE constitute reliable sources, which is not true. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 06:03, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
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