Talk:Meg Patterson

A User has removed the following sentence, despite it being properly referenced: She established that electro-acupuncture analgesia, usually applied to control pain post-surgery, could also significantly ameliorate the symptoms of opiate withdrawal. Mais oui! (talk) 12:06, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:PROFRINGE. We can't state such things in Wikipedia's voice without very strong sources. Alexbrn (talk) 14:10, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Dave Marsh's biography of The Who is a bit old (well, about 35 years old), but aside from one or two howlers (like getting Keith Moon's date of birth wrong), it is the best source going for everything related to the band. I cited it extensively for The Who, Tommy (album), Who's Next and Quadrophenia, all of which are good articles, and using it here to cite that he went to the clinic is absolutely fine in my view. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not a good source for asserting a dubious therapy is effective. Alexbrn (talk) 18:42, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

According to the sources, Townshend and Clapton never went anywhere near smack once they'd visited her - that sounds pretty effective (for them, at least). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:44, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Testimonials are the lowest form of evidence. And Wikipedia does not imply medical effectiveness on that basis because it would be very foolish. Alexbrn (talk) 18:52, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Well if you've got a source that shows some heroin addict tried Dr Patterson's therapy and snuffed it, present it here. Actually, I think we're talking at cross-purposes, at the moment I'm just talking about sources that show notability, full stop. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:57, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

That's a reversed burden of evidence. All I'm saying is we cannot assert or imply a treatment is effective without WP:MEDRS. Alexbrn (talk) 19:09, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

An assertion like "Mainstream scientists have dismissed NET as quackery" gives a strong impression that the therapy has been subject to studies by mainstream science, and found it faulty, but the source provided does no such thing - in fact it sais quite the opposite, that mainstream science has NOT studied the phenomenon. The wording is thus misleading. The general tone of the source is one of providing anecdotal evidence in favor of the treatment; IMO using it to support calling "quackery" because of an in-passing comment largely misrepresents the article. I don't deny that the therapy might have been viewed as pseudo-science, but a much better reference will be needed to claim that in Wikipedia's voice.

The only part of the article that could remotely support this claim are two convoluted sentences ("You would be forgive n for thinking the doctor a quack. This is precidely[sic] how the medical establishment has viewed Meg Patterson's neuro-electric therapy"). This would require require WP:SYNTH to arrive to such general claim, as it only supports mentioning that some unidentified mainstream scientist have expressed an opinion that this is quackery, based on its superficial features (the weirdness of expecting electric currents "behind the ears" to heal). Definitely not proof of scientific consensus" describing this as quackery, I'm afraid. Diego (talk) 12:07, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

"This [quackery] is precisely how the medical establishment has viewed Meg Patterson's neuro-electric therapy" gives us it plain. And of course it's obvious. Using different "frequencies" of shock to cure different substance addictions, is obviously bogus. We are obliged by WP:PSCI to view this from the mainstream perspective. Alexbrn (talk) 12:11, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok, and where are the references that provide this mainstream perspective? We don't write articles from what is obvious, nor interprete sources to make general claims by specific assertios by its author. Instead we follow the wording of the sources as closesly as possible, which the current article as written doesn't do. Diego (talk) 12:17, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Obvious pseudoscience may be labelled as such. But here we have the luxury of a source. We must paraphrase sources to avoid WP:CLOP and the source clearly states that mainstream medicine viewed NET as quackery. It's really very simple. I have posted to WP:FT/N about this. You are warned that DS applies here. Alexbrn (talk) 12:24, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I wasn't aware of that arbitration result (BTW, shouldn't that radical exception to WP:V be included at WP:BURDEN?)

Given that the source doesn't explain in any way how they come to that conclusion regarding the views of mainstream medicine, it cannot be considered a reliable source with respect to the established scientific consensus. I'm content with describing it as "what an article New Scientist said", per WP:ASSERT, though; even when I think that is not the primary focus of the source, and using it to support the claim is not given proper weight to its contents in the article. Diego (talk) 12:55, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I wasn't aware of that arbitration result (BTW, shouldn't that radical exception to WP:V be included at WP:BURDEN?) I don't think so because we don't need sources for obvious things like the earth going round the sun, or that giving different kinds of electric shock corresponds to a cure for addiction to particular substances. That's where we're at and you're editing against sense. Alexbrn (talk) 14:14, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Does it say it is the scientific consensus.Slatersteven (talk) 13:34, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Per WP:ASSERT we shouldn't attribute this, as it has the non-neutral effect of making it seem "just one opinion." It's obvious quackery and accordingly we have a source saying that's what mainstream scientists think. No need to shilly-shally: we call it what it is. I see Diego Moya has now removed this from the lede in direct contravention of Wp:PSCI. We are obliged to make it prominently clear that pseudoscience is pseudoscience, not just leave it hanging. Alexbrn (talk) 14:07, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Lets make this easy, can we have three RS saying that the consensus is she is a quack?Slatersteven (talk) 15:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Don't think there's a source which uses the word consensus, but the New Scientist source says: "You would be forgiven for thinking the doctor a quack. // This is precisely how the medical establishment has viewed Meg Patterson's neuro-electric therapy." [my bold]. Alexbrn (talk) 15:38, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

We still need multiple RS if we are to not have to attribute this to the new Scientist.Slatersteven (talk) 16:22, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Why? It's such a niche thing we're lucky to have any serious sources on it. Alexbrn (talk) 16:33, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Because one source saying it is pseudoscience does not make it so.Slatersteven (talk) 16:35, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes no sources are necessary. It's bogus, we've a good source saying so, and we are obliged to relay that by policy. You're inventing rules. Alexbrn (talk) 16:37, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

• Couple of points, first ArbCom doesn't override WP:V. As much as they would like to think they do, there is nothing in the annals of Wikipedia that could or should give them that power, or even make it seem that way other than their own poor choice of wording when writing decisions.

Second, just say what the dang article says, and get over it... because that would give an encyclopedic overview. No one took it seriously. She was repeatedly turned down for funding. She finally got funding for a clinic and reported positive results (which btw New Scientist make sound vaguely positive but don't explain very well). Someone else tried to replicate those results and failed. She disputed the accuracy of the failed replication. If possible, find those original studies and cite those, as well as her published letter, in addition to the New Scientist piece. There's not really a point in arguing about it. Just find the sources and say what they say. GMG^talk 18:10, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Pretty much this is what needed, yes. And of course if a sentence in the article is WP:CHALLENGEd for verifiability or for not supporting what the article says, you need a better source. Diego (talk) 18:54, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

There is no reason to suppose the New Scientist is unreliable for the claims made. Sources are not unreliable just because as editor says so. I agree: let's just says what the sources say: no one took this seriously; mainstream medicine called it quackery; there is no evidence it works. Simple. Alexbrn (talk) 19:01, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I mean, you can probably use New Scientist just fine. I'm not saying they're unreliable. I'm saying that so far the source has been pretty lazily used. Write an actual section based on the story they give, rather than taking two snippets out of a two page article and trying to piece together a sentence that gives comparatively little actual information. And as I said, it would help to get the original publications also, rather than referencing someone who references someone else, because this would increase the extent to which the content is verifiable by readers. Presumably the replication study was published, and we know her response was. I assume her original study was published as well. Unfortunately I have little to no scholarly access.

Also to Alex, there isn't strictly no evidence. From what it looks like, there is just bad evidence, namely a single study with a fairly low sample size produced by its primary proponent which failed to be independently replicated. And that's pretty much what we should say. Yelling pseudoscience and calling it a day is mostly just half-assed, and doesn't really benefit our readers much as to understanding what exactly went on to establish the evidence or lack thereof. GMG^talk 19:07, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes the wording we had in the lede was "... there is no good evidence that it works" which is a fair summary. In the body we should mention the one trial that failed to establish its efficacy. Alexbrn (talk) 20:06, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

They's not one trial. There's two trials and three publications. There's the one by the originator, and there is the failed attempt at replication. Both are relevant, as is her objections, since they were good enough for the British Journal of Psychiatry to feel the need to publish as a rebuttal, and good enough for New Scientist to mention as well. If you've got more sources that fail to consider all three publications as pieces of the story, then we can do the DUEWEIGHT on it, but right now we got one, and so that's where the weight falls. GMG^talk 20:17, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

The source mentions one study. Patterson's attempt to contact her ex-patients is not really a trial is it? (was it published?). At any rate none of these things are WP:MEDRS. Just so long as we're clear in the lede and body that this stuff isn't taken seriously, we'll be neutral. Until today the article entirely lacked that view, and had instead celebrity endorsements. Alexbrn (talk) 20:28, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, there's at least three publications that at least I have access to, in order of decreasing woo: Stress Medicine, The Journal of Alterntive and Complementary Medicine, and Subtle Energies. All of these published after the New Scientist piece. And if we want to talk about strict MEDRS, the New Scientist piece is probably old enough so as to be entirely useless for either confirming or denying. Looks like we need better sources all around. Still not totally sure if her original study was publisher or not. I'm still assuming it was for there to be a replication attempt, and it would have been stupid of her not to. GMG^talk 21:02, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

We don't need a WP:MEDRS to report what the medical establishment thought, since that is not WP:Biomedical information. I don't think there was an "original study", just an attempt to contact patients to get some figures (perhaps when pressed for evidence? I don't know). Alexbrn (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

That's playing entirely too fast and loose with the policy, akin to We're not saying smoking causes cancer, we're saying most doctors believe smoking causes cancer, so it's not biomedical information. That's a trick from the woo camp, and we ain't having none of that. (We're not saying patients get better, we're saying patients feel better.)

Anyway, I asked IRC who have a lot better access than I do. The 1980 story might be from this book (also originally published in 1986), but I don't have access to it either, I just know it was published in 1986. Other than that it's dead ends all around, but if the best thing we have is a 30 year old article, we're not working with very much. GMG^talk 22:03, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Not a trick from the woo book at all: it's a matter of (uncontroversial) fact that the medical establishment rejected this stuff. We report it accordingly. Beliefs & views are not WP:Biomedical information. Alexbrn (talk) 05:23, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

• As I said at WT:V, each individual subject needs to come up with a standard by which we judge whether it is "obvious" pseudoscience.

In this case, I believe the proper standard is If the totality of evidence does not support it (and thus it is not real science) and there is a person or group who nonetheless promotes it (and thus it is presented as real science) then I think we're safe. We don't cite that the sky is blue, so we shouldn't need to attribute the claim that something is pseudoscience when it is pseudoscience by definition. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:38, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

The Quackometer piece (currently linked from Further reading) says:

Can it really be true that different addictions to different sorts of drugs respond to different sorts of electrical waveforms giving you shocks? It’s a highly reductionist view of what addiction might be and smacks of pseudoscience.

Alexbrn (talk) 05:52, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Which raises the additional question of why we're linking to a blog in the further reading section. GMG^talk 09:36, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Right who wrote this blog is it RS?Slatersteven (talk) 09:49, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Quackometer - a handy source for WP:PARITY. Alexbrn (talk) 10:29, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Well te Scottish NHS do not seem to think it is pseudoscience. So yes we need more sourcing saying it is before we can.Slatersteven (talk) 09:55, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Source? There was some interest many years ago - but then again the NHS offered homeopathy so this means nothing. I'll ping WT:MED. Alexbrn (talk) 10:11, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Just in case it's useful in any way, here appears to be a fan-made bibliography. GMG^talk 10:16, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

There's also this book which references this paper and this paper (access required). So that's probably getting more in the area of MEDRS. It's a heckuva lot better than passing mention in the BBC. But they're talking about the therapy and not Patterson seemingly at all, and the abstract of the first paper seems to confuse wording, and it's not totally clear if they're talking about Patterson's treatment or a similar one. GMG^talk 10:27, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

There does appear to have been a 2012 review conducted in Scotland, NeuroElectric Therapy™ in Opiate Detoxification Fingleton and Matheson - Academic Primary Care, University of Aberdeen, December 2012. Unfortunately it's not online, though appears to be excerpted here. Money quote: "The evidence base for the use of NET™ in opiate detoxification is generally poor. NET™ was found to be no more effective than placebo at reducing withdrawal and craving during opiate detoxification.". AIUI the device is still marketed by Patterson's son. Alexbrn (talk) 10:28, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Also "There is insufficient evidence regarding the effectiveness of NET™ at improving drugfree

behaviour and further research of good methodological quality is required." that is not the language that would be used for an obvious pseudoscience one.Slatersteven (talk) 10:58, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

It is. "More research is needed" signs off practically all research into pseudoscience (and we're not meant to say it on WP). Alexbrn (talk) 11:23, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Really? Can we have a source that says that pseudoscience is any scientific theory that needs more study? As the materiel stands (we attribute the claim) I have no issue with, but it must be attributed.Slatersteven (talk) 11:26, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm trying to put something together. I'm almost fully alive caffeinated, but my daughter is bound to wake up any minute. Standby. GMG^talk 11:27, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

• Quick note. In the field of health, there have been since... forever... (and I mean the prehistoric ages) people offering various treatments for X, with motivations ranging from "trying to help" to "making money", and often mixtures of those things. It is something humans do.

Today we have a) science and b) regulatory agencies. The first allows us to understand if something is safe and effective or not, and the second prevents people from selling treatments unless they are proven to be safe and effective.

Today, when people offer services to treat diseases/conditions that haven't been proven to be safe and effective, we call that "pseudoscience" and regulatory agencies call that "illegal".

Every day people try to abuse Wikipedia to sell snake oil; some of them are "fans" and some are actually trying to make money one way or another.

And no we will not say "more research is needed" or "promising" or any of that other marketing crap that people try to shove into articles to hype things.

I am very comfortable using AE to get people topic banned who bludgeon talk pages pushing for this sort of thing. Jytdog (talk) 13:16, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Alexbrn, please stop pushing the bogus and too generic wording of "medical establishment called this quackery". The New Scientist is a medical magazine, the lowest admissible quality barely barely over the WP:MEDORG threshold; the sentence about the medical establishment is an in-passing mention and not the focus of the article.

And it is not even gramatical. If we deconstruct the two sentences like you're doing, the precedent of "this" in "This is precisely how the medical establishment has viewed Meg Patterson's neuro-electric therapy" would be "thinking the doctor is a quack", but the adjective "quack" is applied to "doctor" and the "medical establishment" is applied to "therapy". The composition of these sentences does not add up as the generic "medical establishment dismissed Patterson's therapy as "quackery"" that you wrote.

I've rewritten the Effectiveness section to something closer to what can be extracted from those two sentences. If you want to use the article to support a claim of quackery, please use a wording like that, being as close as possible to the source per WP:STICKTOSOURCES. Diego (talk) 15:16, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

That's fine. Needs to be in the lede too though, then we'd be good! Alexbrn (talk) 15:30, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Proposal

I'm personally fine citing the two journal studies based on the abstracts, since we do have access to the book which references them, and who has presumably read them carefully, probably with a higher level of competence than we have, and summarized them in a secondary source. Basically, I'm citing the secondary source and giving their own citations in turn in the case that a reader is particularly interested and has access. Anyway, this attempts to cover everything in a fair amount of detail, rather than oversimplifying down to a single sentence, saying "pseudoscience" as if it was a magic word and calling it a day. And when all is said and done, there appear to be two sides to the story: people who think the case is closed and we're pretty much done here, and people who are open to additional research. However, there does not appear to be a serious and independent side anywhere claiming that the research so far represents strong empirical support for effectiveness.

In 1980 Patterson conducted a survey, and successfully contacted 66 out of 130 former patients. She found that 53 reported being drug free.^[1] In 1981, Philip Connell attempted to replicate these findings in a comparison with methadone treatment for opiate withdraw. Connell concluded that the effects of NES were "not incompatiable with a rather ineffective treatment or even simply a placebo effect." Patterson took issue with Connell's methodology, including small sample size, high rates of attrition,^[a] and insufficient training for nurses providing the treatment. She published her response in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1985.^[1][2]

Later studies have failed to find evidence that NES was more effective than a placebo.^[3][4][5] However, NET may have influenced the dosing used by similar therapies decades later.^[6] As recently as 2006, Laurence Gruer of NHS Health Scotland, suggested NET may treat withdrawal symptoms, and others such as Ken Barrie of Alcohol and Drug Studies at the University of the West of Scotland, described the research as being in an early stages, requiring additional study.^[7]

Notes

1. [a]

   Of the 24 participants who began the study, only four completed it.^[1]

References

1. [1]

   Sattuar O (16 January 1986). "Cross currents in treating addiction". New Scientist (1491): 57. Retrieved September 30, 2017. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)
2. [2]

   Patterson, MA (1985). "Electrostimulation and opiate withdrawal". British Journal of Psychiatry: 146:213. PMID 3872148. Retrieved 30 September 2017. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)
3. [3]

   Platt, Jerome J. (2000). Cocaine Addiction: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Harvard University Press. p. 254. ISBN 9780674001787. Retrieved 30 September 2017. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
4. [4]

   Alling, Frederic A.; Johnson, Bruce D.; Elmoghazy, Elsayed (1990). "Cranial electrostimulation (CES) use in the detoxification of opiate-dependent patients". Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. 7 (3): 173–180. doi:10.1016/0740-5472(90)90019-M. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
5. [5]

   Gariti, Peter; Auriacombe, Marc; Incmikoski, Ray; McLellan, A.Thomas; Patterson, Lorne; Dhopesh, Vasant; Mezochow, John; Patterson, Meg; O'Brien, Charles (1992). "A randomized double-blind study of neuroelectric therapy in opiate and cocaine detoxification". Journal of Substance Abuse. 4 (3): 299–308. doi:10.1016/0899-3289(92)90037-X. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
6. [6]

   Knotkova, Helena; Rasche, Dirk (Nov 15, 2014). Textbook of Neuromodulation: Principles, Methods and Clinical Applications. Springer. pp. 10–11. Retrieved 30 September 2017. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
7. [7]

   "Electric therapy trial for heroin". BBC News. June 16, 2006. Retrieved 30 September 2017.

Overall, she seems to have been a fairly legitimate scientist testing a new treatment approach, but one who in the end just happened to be wrong. At least two of her three objections to Connell seem like unquestionably legitimate methodological concerns about a pretty objectively weak study. Although the self-selection bias in her own survey pretty much ruins it (i.e., if I'm passed out in a crack house with a needle in my arm, I'm not very likely to respond to a survey).GMG^talk 12:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

We also need to get the quackery reaction in. The BBC source is not WP:MEDRS and is a bit misleading, since we know from the other NHS documents that this went no further because of lack of evidence of NET's worth. Ref 4 is primary research and can't be used for health info. Alexbrn (talk) 13:06, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

1) What NHS documents? 2) No, we're not going to take the unsourced appraisal of a 40 year old magazine article over the assessment of a 17 year old book published by Harvard. 3) Ref 4 is cited in the book, which is why its used. GMG^talk 13:11, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

No - the refs fail MEDRS and we will not say this sort of thing for content about health. Jytdog (talk) 13:12, 30 September 2017 (UTC)'

The fact is in the 1980s this was dismissed as quackery by the medical establishment. There is no source suggesting otherwise to take "precedence". This is the only record we have of the mainstream view as a whole. We don't cite primary research here, but rely on secondary sources. The NHS document is the one detailing the review for the "NHS Grampian Current Evidence, Reference and Guidance on Addictions (CERGA) group" I linked in the section above. Alexbrn (talk) 13:17, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

How exactly does Cocaine Addiction: Theory, Research, and Treatment fail MEDRS, and how exactly is it not a record for the mainstream view, one which happens to account for the two decades of research in the interim? The idea that a referenced, Harvard published, 2000 book is somehow less reliable than an unreferenced 1986 magazine article is getting into the territory of silliness. GMG^talk 13:32, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

There is nothing in there to contradict the quackery charge: rather it reinforces it since it further confirms there is no good evidence this therapy works. By definition then, people selling it are quacks. Alexbrn (talk) 13:45, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

If the problem is with the BBC source, then that can be nixed and I won't debate it. Until the point that I posted this, no one had reverted it. So we get something like this instead:

The thing that refutes the quackery charge is stacking up an outdated lower quality source against a more up to day higher quality one. If you want to call it quackery, and challenge Platt's characterization of the issue, you're going to have to do better than the New Scientist source. GMG^talk 13:47, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Platt has zero bearing on what the medical establishment of the 1980s thought. The proposal above is too detailed: we don't give participant numbers and so on when summarizing health research. I don't think Patteron's objections should be given any space. They are not WP:MEDRS and are just so much Mandy Rice-Davies. Alexbrn (talk) 13:57, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Why do we care about what the medical establishment in the 1980s thought?

I'm also eagerly awaiting an explanation of how WP:PARITY is somehow an excuse for blog spam, on a topic that's been covered on both sides in at least 40 or 50 books and peer reviewed publications, because I'm struggling to find an answer to that question that doesn't end up on or around intellectual laziness.

If we want to have an actual discussion about the issue then I'm all for it. If we want to ignore basic policy because it suits us, then please just let me know that's how we intend to proceed, because I have no problems opening an RfC and saving us all the trouble. GMG^talk 14:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:PARITY is part of the WP:PAGs. It applies here since NET is a WP:FRINGE topic. The view of this as a question of "sides" is to commit the WP:GEVAL fallacy. Research can take place, yes - fringe subjects are researched all the time (there are entire journals devoted to homeopathy). But there is no good evidence this is a safe and effective therapy: there is no other "side" to that. That alone would make it just a curiosity, but the fact that NET been marketed and sold as an effective therapy makes it quackery pure and simple. There is no other "side" to that either. Alexbrn (talk) 14:58, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Alright, well, RfC it is then I guess. Should we do the section first or the blog? GMG^talk 15:05, 30 September 2017 (UTC)r

Nevermind. Let's do the blog first. That one seems pretty straight forward. GMG^talk 15:14, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

I have no strong opinion of the Quackometer here - it's not needed as a source but is in "Further reading". It provides some interesting background on the intersection between religion and electrical "therapy". WP:PARITY means we use this source all over the place. If you want it outlawed entirely a higher-level RfC would be necessary. It would probably be better for you to get some general familiarity with the application of WP:FRINGE first since this source, Quackwatch etc. have been discussed before. Alexbrn (talk) 15:29, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm well aware of FRINGE. I just take fringe and politics articles in small doses, because the editing environment is exceptionally toxic. And I don't plan on arguing it at length for three weeks against folks who are going to cite policy, say exactly the opposite, and simply wait to yell discretionary sanctions. GMG^talk 15:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

I suppose I would add that these articles (, , , , ) are not really about fringe topics at all, they're about anit-fringe topics, and are just examples of using an unreliable source because it happens to be convenient. DNA teleportation actually is a fringe topic, but the citation was used to support contentious information about a living person, and so I have removed it. Most of the rest are talk page links. GMG^talk 16:30, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

In 1980 Patterson conducted a survey, and successfully contacted 66 out of 130 former patients. She found that 53 reported being drug free.^[1] In 1981, Philip Connell attempted to replicate these findings in a comparison with methadone treatment for opiate withdraw. Connell concluded that the effects of NES were "not incompatiable with a rather ineffective treatment or even simply a placebo effect." Patterson took issue with Connell's methodology, including small sample size, high rates of attrition,^[a] and insufficient training for nurses providing the treatment. She published her response in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1985.^[1][2] Later studies have failed to find evidence that NES was more effective than a placebo.^[3][4][5] However, NET may have influenced the dosing used by similar therapies decades later.^[6]

Notes

1. [a]

   Of the 24 participants who began the study, only four completed it.^[1]

References

1. [1]

   Sattuar O (16 January 1986). "Cross currents in treating addiction". New Scientist (1491): 57. Retrieved September 30, 2017. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)
2. [2]

   Patterson, MA (1985). "Electrostimulation and opiate withdrawal". British Journal of Psychiatry: 146:213. PMID 3872148. Retrieved 30 September 2017. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)
3. [3]

   Platt, Jerome J. (2000). Cocaine Addiction: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Harvard University Press. p. 254. ISBN 9780674001787. Retrieved 30 September 2017. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
4. [4]

   Alling, Frederic A.; Johnson, Bruce D.; Elmoghazy, Elsayed (1990). "Cranial electrostimulation (CES) use in the detoxification of opiate-dependent patients". Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. 7 (3): 173–180. doi:10.1016/0740-5472(90)90019-M. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
5. [5]

   Gariti, Peter; Auriacombe, Marc; Incmikoski, Ray; McLellan, A.Thomas; Patterson, Lorne; Dhopesh, Vasant; Mezochow, John; Patterson, Meg; O'Brien, Charles (1992). "A randomized double-blind study of neuroelectric therapy in opiate and cocaine detoxification". Journal of Substance Abuse. 4 (3): 299–308. doi:10.1016/0899-3289(92)90037-X. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
6. [6]

   Knotkova, Helena; Rasche, Dirk (Nov 15, 2014). Textbook of Neuromodulation: Principles, Methods and Clinical Applications. Springer. pp. 10–11. Retrieved 30 September 2017. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)