Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 116

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Psychiatry: Gender dysphoria in children article

Eyes and assistance are needed at Gender dysphoria in children (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). The latest dispute is seen at Talk:Gender dysphoria in children#Supposed myth and "junk science". It concerns the widely reported statement that the majority of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria cease to desire to be the other sex by puberty, with most growing up to identify as gay or lesbian with or without therapeutic intervention. This is supported by numerous reliable sources, and James Cantor, a researcher in this field, also included some sources in support of the statement on the talk page in the past. However, in transgender discourse, this report has been challenged. In this discourse, it's referred to as "the desistance myth." This is why an editor removed the material from the lead. I reverted, stating that we go by what WP:Reliable sources state and with WP:Due weight. Also, I see a lot of blog and media material about "the desistance myth," and references to Julia Serano, but hardly anything on Google Books and Google Scholar about it (at least under that name). The editor pointed to this critical commentary concerning "the desistance myth," and I pointed to this response commentary on the matter. Per the weak support for "the desistance myth" (meaning I don't see it supported by a lot of solid sources), I object to the editor removing the aforementioned material as junk science. The material does not fall under WP:Fringe. This debate can, however, go in a Society and culture section for the article. But then again, the "Management" section currently already includes debate material, which is where more on this matter could go (if it's felt that the "Management" section should remain mostly about debate). And, yes, the article obviously needs cleanup.

Thoughts? Doc James, any thoughts? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:53, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

LibrePrincess, again, we have rules to follow here. I suggest you thoroughly read WP:MEDRS and WP:Neutral (especially its WP:Due weight section). On Wikipedia, being neutral does not mean what being neutral means in common discourse. I've already pointed you to WP:Advocacy. Advocacy will not be tolerated on this site. Your personal opinions of the researchers do not matter. What matters is covering the literature with WP:Due weight. On a side note: Indent properly. Stop drawing a line for your responses. See WP:Indent. I fixed the indenting for you above. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:22, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd also like it to be noted that your attempt to return primary research to the article is to the detriment of it (this point was with regard to the initially contended papers, not the secondary sources you replaced them with, the distiction between the 2 is vital if we're going to converse coherently and I feel neither of us have been doing that), if I recall, Wikipedia guidelines prioritise citing secondary sources, that cite their sources, from reliable publishers, and reputable authors. The Elsevier Endocrinology book you used in numerous places in the article accounts for both this and my objections so far, making it entirely unnecessary for you to insist on the matter. LibrePrincess (talk) 14:19, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS states, in part, "Ideal sources for biomedical information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals; academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers; and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies." So how does that book source fail WP:MEDRS? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:29, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Now since the first book is an endocrinology book, I can see replacing it with a different source, which I can easily do. And I used neither source in numerous places. I used them once in the lead and once lower. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:48, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Let me put this as clearly as I can. The book I removed doesn't cite its sources. I and the academics I cited contend that the sources you used with regard to desistance are methodologically faulty. As the book I removed doesn't cite it's sources, I (or you or anybody else) can't possibly know if the book used those papers as a source, despite making more or less the same claim about the state of trans science as the papers in contention. I thus propose we remove it to hedge against the book being a product of a faulty set of studies.

The other book (the aformentioned endocrinology one) you cited has citations, and the citations it uses weren't the ones I was taking contention with. This is fine, because a book is only as good as the sources of information it uses to construct itself presuming it doesn't include original research; and neither book does original research. Basically, you already have a citation there that passes all the quality standards we're both applying (which is why I'd also make the contention that a second citation isn't strictly necessary).

As per your edit on the article in question it seems you've already formed a caricature of me in your mind in which I'm jumping at every oppurtunity to call people transphobes. I'd like you to be mindful of that because from my perspective I'm acting in WP:GOODFAITH and trying to resolve an issue with the article (in that I don't believe the specific book I removed the cite of to be up to scratch), and though we evidently haven't gotten off to a great start, I'd like that to change. LibrePrincess (talk) 15:09, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I pointed to a Wikipedia sourcing guideline for my argument. Can you point to a Wikipedia sourcing guideline that says that the source in question must clearly cite its sources for its material? It is common for us to validly cite sources that don't clearly cite their sources for a statement. In a number of cases, they are reporting on the literature. It's not uncommon for them to state things in their voice, without a citation beside their statement. In the case of that source, it does not appear to be going by its own data. It refers to evidence, and the "About" page for it says it "provide[s] a focused overview of the core knowledge in pediatrics." Are you focused on citation indexes, like what WP:SCHOLARSHIP says? Generally, in the case book sources like the above, we judge the quality of the source per Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources...and follow what the source states if it passes our WP:Reliable sources guideline. For medical content, however, we follow what WP:MEDRS states. As for a caricature of you with regard to calling people transphobes, you are the one who stated, "The studies cited have numerous methodological flaws and were written by people who in polite conversation could be readily described as transphobes." And you are the one bringing up Blanchard's transsexualism typology. Given your arguments here, I would not be surprised to find you at that article next, editing in ways that are questionable. This is not about Blanchard's transsexualism typology. It's about many people who had gender dysphoria as children not having it/not identifying as transgender as adults. There are many gay, lesbian and bisexual people who state that they felt like/were convinced they were supposed to be the opposite sex when they were a child and ended up "growing out of it." A famous example is Ruby Rose. As for not having a rocky editing relationship with you, I would like that too. And if you really want me to replace the source with one that clearly cites its sources, I will. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:51, 4 August 2018 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:02, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

"Can you point to a Wikipedia sourcing guideline that says that the source in question must clearly cite its sources for its material?"

I can't because I'm not experienced enough as an editor on this site (if it doesn't exist then it should), my point is that you have the endocrinology citation there that works fine, and the source of information for the pediatrics book is questionable because it doesn't cite any sources, ergo it seems sensible to leave out the pediatrics book as a matter of caution, given that very popular research in recent history, that says more or less the same thing, has methodological flaws, and we can't know if it's citing that or not. If policy on this doesn't exist, then direct me to the proper channels by which to propose it, because I think the idea that because a reputable press published it the information therein is therefore reliable despite not citing it's sources is a laughable idea and it stinks of Scientism and appeal to authority, or rather, appeal to the reputation of the publisher. I frankly feel that the issue has been overblown because we could've just settled the matter on having that endocrinology citation in the article and leaving it at that.

As for calling anyone and everyone a transphobe, I called some specific academics transphobes because of things they've said and published that I take issue with and consider transphobic, which really isn't the same thing as calling anyone and everyone a transphobe, and to suggest as such is frankly silly.

With regard to Ruby Rose and my personal opinions, I don't deny that there is some desistance, I never denied that desistance existed, my contention is with the faulty methodology of the primary research you used before you replaced it, and one of the books you replaced it with because it doesn't cite any sources.

"And if you really want me to replace the source with one that clearly cites its sources, I will."

This is what I was trying to make happen the entire time lol (well, that and avoiding use of those aformentioned studies with methodological flaws) keep the Endocrinology book and ditch/replace the Pediatrics book

LibrePrincess (talk) 16:39, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

You can propose the matter at the WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliable sources talk pages. Rather one of them, and link to the matter at the other per WP:TALKCENT. I never stated that you would call everyone/anyone a transphobe, but it did seem to me that you were likely to call me or anyone else transphobic for simply trying to adhere to this site's rules by retaining the material. This matter was not overblown; and that's because not only were you calling the material junk science when it's supported by numerous reliable sources, you were removing the material based on your personal feelings. You stated that you "don't deny that there is some desistance." But you removed the entire lead paragraph on the matter and called it a myth. So, yes, this requires more eyes. As for the methodology of the primary research, a number of reliable sources cite those studies when making the statement. We're not going to disregard such sources simply because of a few sources going on about a desistance myth, or because of this source. Also, per WP:BLP, you need to be careful with the transphobe language. WP:BLP applies to talk pages in addition to articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the help on the WP stuff, I've not quite learnt my way around the site yet so it's valued help.

Regarding this: "that's because not only were you calling the material junk science when it's supported by numerous reliable sources, you were removing the material based on your personal feelings." and this: "you removed the entire lead paragraph on the matter and called it a myth"

What I was calling a myth and junk science is that the majority of trans folks desist when diagnosed in childhood. I don't think that desistance itself is a myth because to do so would be to insist that detransitioners are liars, and assuming people are liars about their own thoughts and feelings (as noted above with regard to Blanchard) is basically never a productive route. I appreciate that evidently my communication wasn't clear enough in the matter.

Evidently my personal beliefs aren't ostensibly backed up by research thusfar, assuming similar methodological flaws don't appear in the other sources (which I've not checked so whether my beliefs are backed is really an open question for me), and I can only work with what I can find and have time to read.

I don't edit because WP:IDONTLIKEIT, I edited it because I recalled that aformentioned paper at the time and I didn't cite it in the edit notes (though I should've) because I was frustrated that papers that are cited to me ad nauseum in conversations elsewhere were present on Wikipedia, which to some extent may account for their popularity, when I knew they had methodological flaws, and thus were, in my belief, junk science. Now, on to the junk science.

"As for the methodology of the primary research, a number of reliable sources cite those studies when making the statement. We're not going to discard such sources simply because of a few sources, like the one you cited above."

When someone finds methodological flaws in a study that affect the outcome of the study such that the conclusion drawn is self evidently incorrect, that makes the paper not particularly great science. To assert that because other papers cite it, that means the information therein is true, is once again scientism. To paraphrase Deirdre McCloskey in The Rhetoric of Economics, the act of citation, or someone making a scientific claim, is an act of persuastion, not scientific methodology; if the scientist has not performed the experiment or observation themselves themselves then they are saying "you can trust this source", essentially making an appeal to authority. Ergo, citation in a secondary source doesn't really indicate much of anything if the paper itself has been found faulty. I'd also like to remind you that appeals to authority are a core element of psuedoscience because the content is irrelevant provided you can slap the "science" label on it, which is precisely what's happening here. Because of the association to science as an institution, you're saying you trust it more; but however many clever people look over something, it doesn't make it correct, if that was true then Thomas Kuhn would be out of a book. LibrePrincess (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Welcome to Wikipedia, User:LibrePrincess. It sounds like you are discovering what an complex place it is behind the scenes.

On the instant question of whether reliable sources are required to cite their own sources, you will not find any policy or guideline that requires this. In fact, the opposite rule is documented in the last question at the main FAQ on reliable sources. This may be surprising, but if you think about the wide variety of sources that different articles deal with, and the vast types of information that needs to be sourced, then it should make more sense. While it is typical (although by no means universal) for academic papers to cite references, it would be silly to require a list of references for some content (e.g., anything covered by WP:ABOUTSELF). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I accept the difficulty of this applying to all things, that would obviously be unreasonable and unrealistic, my specific expectation is that this apply to scientific claims and scientific publishing because of the numerous instances of otherwise reputable journals having to publish (or not as the case may be, to preserve reputation) retractions to their articles and papers, instances of otherwise popular studies having refutations and criticisms published about them that are critical to the invalidation of the theory or specific paper (as was the case here), and scenarios where the author(s) themselves go on to discuss the methodological issues in their own stud(y/ies) in a different forum; as a matter of the production and discussion of scientific knowledge.

Implemented correctly, when a book or academic paper makes a claim relating to a scientific matter, such as childhood desistance from transgender identification, we know exactly where they got their information from and we can find out whether that paper was retracted/corrected/criticized and so on, and reject the information if it cites nothing, because conjecture and assertion isn't science. I'm actually surprised that that isn't an ongoing standard for academic material. LibrePrincess (talk) 18:55, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

What you'e going to find even more surprising is that the policies and guidelines for editing Wikipedia have evolved over quite a few years and enjoy strong consensus among its editors. So it will also come as quite a shock when I tell you that no Wikipedia editor is judged fit to analyse sources and make the decision to reject a source based on their own analysis (see Essjay controversy for some background). That's why we don't put much store in primary sources because they almost always require interpretation by others whom we deem suitable to do that job. That's why we put so much store in secondary sources and in the quality of the type of source. As for books and journals, we necessarily have to appeal to authority, because we're not equipped to supply that authority ourselves. Reviews published in the Lancet, for example, come with some assurance of quality supplied by the Lancet's editorial policy, its peer-review policy and its reputation. Similarly a good quality medical book publisher will wish to guard its reputation by taking the usual precautions to ensure that the material which bears its imprint is fit for purpose. So, you're right: it's not scientific; it is conjecture about the quality of the source; it is assertion that what a good quality secondary states is the wiki-equivalent of "true". But those are the rules we play by here. If you don't like them, you can always try to gather enough support to change them, but in the meantime, you will abide by them when you edit Wikipedia. --RexxS (talk) 21:02, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

LibrePrincess, regarding this and this, I think it might have been better if you had struck through your comments instead. This is because you took my and WhatamIdoing's comments out of context. See WP:REDACT. I'd rather not look like I'm responding to myself. But let's just leave your removals as they are; perhaps it is for the best.

Regarding your statement that "What [you were] calling a myth and junk science is that the majority of trans folks desist when diagnosed in childhood.," that right there shows that you automatically view the kids as trans. I know that the term transgender can be broad, but the reason that a number of experts advise parents to wait and see if their child will be trans into puberty/adolescence is because many kids who are gender nonconforming may not be trans in the permanent sense. The waiting approach and advising parents on the likelihood that their child will "grow out of" the dysphoria is to separate the ones with "true"/permanent dysphoria from the ones who have a temporary dysphoric state. You can personally contest that the majority of children with gender dysphoria "grow out of it," but you should not let that affect your Wikipedia editing. We must follow what the literature states and with due weight. Perhaps like the Childhood gender nonconformity article currently states, there may be biases in retrospective studies with regard to sexual orientation and gender nonconformity, but we can only follow the literature on things such as "gay men often report being feminine boys, and lesbian women often report being masculine girls," and that the majority of children with gender dysphoria grow up to identify as gay or lesbian (or bisexual) and not as transgender.

As for junk science, we can't reject material based on our personal opinions that the material is junk science. We have the WP:Fringe guideline to go by. In the case of medical material, if WP:MEDRS-compliant sources call the material junk science, then that's something to consider. But even in that case, we must keep WP:Due weight in mind. When it's just different sides arguing against each other, which is what the Gender dysphoria in children article currently is at the moment, at least it's not us obscuring one side. If it's medical and/or scientific consensus that something has been debunked, then we go by that. But there is no medical and/or scientific consensus that the majority of children with gender dysphoria do not "grow out of it." I think it's best that you stop characterizing Blanchard's and similar researchers' views as stating that people are liars. "Growing out of" gender dysphoria is not about having been lying beforehand. And, for the record, I keep putting "growing out of" in quotation marks because (for some) it may not be the best description for the process and/or may seem too simplistic and/or offensive. You do appear to edit with a WP:IDONTLIKEIT rationale (at least somewhat), and I'm surprised that an apparent newbie would know about WP:IDONTLIKEIT. But a lot of editors who come here edit like that before learning the rules and improving as editors. Methodological flaws in a study are worth noting when supported by a solid source. But do keep in mind that, like RexxS stated above, Wikipedia is not as worried about the truth as it is about what the preponderance of reliable sources state and/or what the consensus is. See WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and WP:Truth, not verifiability. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:58, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

"that right there shows that you automatically view the kids as trans."

That might be the source of the problem. Whether "the kids" desist is going to depend upon whether "the kids" are actually trans – that is, whether you are studying "Every kid who ever claimed to be a different gender than the family expected", or "Every kid for whom gender-related treatment was sought", or "Every kid who turned out to be trans when measured at a defined point in time" (or any of many similar conditions). This might be one of those "by definition" problems, in which case, you can't say that "the kids" do or don't do anything, until you've defined exactly which group of "the kids" you're talking about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:54, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

note User:LibrePrincess has since deleted further... (posting here b/c I don't follow that particular article)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:48, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Antioxidant

Folks, this is undergoing a Featured Article Review at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Antioxidant/archive1. Input very welcome! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:35, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

thank you for posting, its an important article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Ophthalmology: Eye color article

There are some questionable claims made in this section of Eye color (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I softened some language, such as changing "are" to "may be." And I addressed the section on the article's talk page. But the section could still use some eyes from editors here. So can other parts of the article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:48, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Arguably, all the citations given fail MEDRS (either very old or not reviews), but I guess MEDRS doesn't really apply...? This is human biology, not medicine. Bondegezou (talk) 12:57, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS applies to biomedical material. We do apply WP:MEDRS to biological topics when it concerns health material. Even though health (usually) is not the focus of our anatomy articles, it's the case that we look to WP:MEDRS for sourcing our anatomy articles, such as with the Human brain article. WP:MEDSECTIONS even has a section for anatomy. In the case of the Eye color article, the section in question deals with light-eyed people supposedly being more susceptible to becoming dependent on alcohol, which is clearly a medical/health aspect. It also concerns people with light-colored eyes supposedly having higher tolerance to pain. Pain is a medical/health aspect, which is why a few of our WP:Med editors watch/edit the Pain article. Testosterone, which the section also mentions, is a biological topic, but we apply WP:MEDRS to it and a few of our WP:Med editors watch/edit that article. That article is tagged as being within the scope of both WP:Biology and WP:Med (and a few other WikiProjects). In addition to the section I pointed to, the Eye color article also has a Medical implications section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:49, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Further, MEDRS is effectively guidance in interpreting the policy WP:RS, which requires secondary sources. They are not just for MEDRS. We are simply more rigorous about them within MEDRS scope. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:36, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Both are guidelines, but your point is noted. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:04, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Please don't be dismissive of guidelines. They enjoy a strong, site-wide consensus and editors need very good reasons to disregard them. --RexxS (talk) 11:52, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

RexxS, I wasn't being dismissive of the guidelines. LeadSongDog called WP:RS a policy, and I was pointing out that both WP:RS and WP:MEDRS are guidelines. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:14, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I get it now! Don't mind me – it's just senility. --RexxS (talk) 20:41, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Wow, it's been a long time since I paid much attention to policy pages. Yes, RS is a guideline, my recollection erred. However, it is rooted in Wikipedia:Verification#Original research and Wikipedia:No original work#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources, both of which are policies, respectively stating "Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources." and "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." LeadSongDog come howl! 18:27, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I looked up a few of the references on PubMed (and I formatting the references to make them easier for you to find). I agree that the claims are definitely questionable, and lacking in independent secondary sources. I have not viewed the book references, nor the 1959 Nature reference (Sutton). I found this paper, which mentions Worthy's work, but the paper is not really about human eye colour.

In my opinion, in the absence of recent independent secondary sources, the whole subsection should be severely reduced. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:45, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Bondegezou (talk) 12:50, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

It is physical anthropology, medicinal aspects would only be relevant if there was any suggestion of screening, treating or otherwise medically intervening. Iris colour is not a disease or indicative of disease (excepting in some exceptional circumstances). The sections are most definitely not "ophthalmology" as in the study of disease states relative to the eyes. Urselius (talk) 18:48, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

The introduction to the rare iris colour selection paper effectively reviews all the other claims supported by primary research. Look at it, it is available online. Fallone and Baluch is a review. Urselius (talk) 18:54, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Urselius, WP:MEDRS applies per what is stated above. There is no getting around it. In what way does WP:MEDRS applying to health claims confuse you? Why do you think making health claims falls outside of what WP:MEDRS states because "iris colour is not a disease or indicative of disease"? Do you also think that the "Medical implications" section in the article should not be subject to WP:MEDRS? As for the rest, I don't see how what you stated gets around what Axl stated. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:43, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Urselius, it is unclear to me if you accept the application of WP:MEDRS here. Flyer22 Reborn already pointed out that the guideline is applicable to biomedical information. Do you agree that the disputed text is biomedical information?

Here is Fallone & Baluch's paper. Unfortunately I don't have access to the journal "Perceptual and Motor Skills". However PubMed does not tag the paper as a review. The abstract states "In this study we found significant differences in choice reaction time." This implies that the paper is a primary study. Urselius, do you have access to the full paper? In the absence of evidence directly from the paper, I do not accept your claim that it is a review. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:21, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I have deleted the offending text. If anyone wants to discuss the matter further, I am happy to do so. Axl ¤ [Talk] 08:36, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia: Request for publication funding

I am seeking support with signatures at the bottom of this page, or alternatively criticism or any comments on the talk page.

meta:Grants:Project/Rapid/bluerasberry/publishing wiki education research in healthcare

Hello, I did a research project about students in a medical program doing English Wikipedia editing in the Wikipedia education program. I have a research paper about this which I have submitted to a journal.

Open access publication fees are $3000, which is typical. The Wikimedia Foundation "rapid grants" program offers $2000 of support for certain small projects. I am requesting this $2000 in grant funding from the WMF to help cover the open access publishing fee. I have the rest.

Beyond my asking for this I also encourage other people doing academic publishing, especially at the intersection of Wikimedia projects and medicine, to publish in traditional journals and seek WMF support to pay the open access fee.

Anyone requesting funds from the WMF does so publicly and has to solicit community comments. If anyone has any comments - in support or in criticism - whatever you have to say is useful and develops the conversation about publishing Wikimedia activities in academic journals. I appreciate anyone who can either sign their wiki user name in support of the funding on the front page, or anyone who can post any criticism to the talk page about my proposal, the broader circumstances of WMF funding, or of wiki engagement in this publishing. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:58, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

please support,thanks--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:58, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Sail sign of the pituitary

Just came across the article Sail sign of the pituitary which was created recently. It's really really short and the specific "sail sign" in question appears to only ever have been discussed in the cited source in the article now (which is itself a primary source). Note that this "sail sign" (of the pituitary) seems to be different from the "spinnaker sail-sign" associated with pneumomediastinum in neonates. This is all pretty technical for a non-physician like me so if others could look at this subject that'd be great. The article seems not to be notable, though. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 03:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that here. Obvious academic spam, trying to promote uptake of the term. I nominated it for speedy, and it was done. Jytdog (talk) 14:21, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Great. So now that it's deleted, the next question seems to be, "Why did Heliosxeros accept this page through AFC in the first place?" IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 18:10, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

AfC reviewers do their best to predict whether a given article is likely to survive a deletion discussion. They won't always be successful, particularly if the topic is something outside of their normal experience, so perhaps we should be encouraging more of them to get advice here if they're reviewing medical draft articles. Would folks be happy to see more of that happening here? --RexxS (talk) 23:05, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

User:RexxS I think that is an excellent idea. Something needs to be discussed in a review article or medical textbooks from a reliable publishers before it should count as sufficiently notable for an article IMO. If all we have is a primary source, yes likely spam. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:16, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Hunger (motivational state)

The above is really bad; very old refs. Satiety is redirect to there. It's not good that our coverage of this topic is so poor, especially given the focus in public health on obesity. The science is complex and we would do a lot of good to summarize it well.

This has been on my to-do list for a while and I keep not getting to it. Just wanted to flag this if anybody is interested to go at it. Jytdog (talk) 13:42, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Presumably "Hunger (motivational state)" refers to "hunger" for something other than food - like to be World boxing champion or something. But the article doesn't reflect that and seems just a shadow of our main "Hunger" article. As such, I think it should be deleted since I doubt that hunger in the "hungry for success" sense is notable (maybe redirect to Motivation ?). Alexbrn (talk) 17:39, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

This is a little confusing, but it looks like the main hunger article is about hunger as a global problem (in the "world hunger" sense), whereas the hunger (motivational state) article is about the actual feeling of hunger at the individual level. I also feel like we don't need both articles and the motivational state article should probably be deleted. But the stuff in Hunger (motivational state) seems like it would be more appropriate for the main hunger article, whereas the stuff in the current main article seems like it belongs in malnutrition or some article like that. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 19:19, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Yep - Hunger = malnutrition due to lack of food; Hunger (motivational state) is the physiology page. Seems that Hunger could be merged into Malnutrition? The latter covers much of the same ground but is broader. Hm. Jytdog (talk) 03:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Dermatology: Diagnosis of skin cancer

Moved this content from skin cancer. Was added by the author of the paper in question it appears. While it appears to be OA content and the journal has an impact factor of over 2, it is not pubmed indexed.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:00, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

doi:10.1111/j.1524-4725.2007.33251.x might be a useful review. Bondegezou (talk) 12:48, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

makes no distinction between what is clinical and what is academic research. That is one of the key ways that academic spam like this harms WP. That page should be nuked as spam; should not have been created really. Jytdog (talk) 17:42, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Yah I am happy to see if aggressively trimmed or simple turned into a redirect. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:53, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

The article reads more like a student's essay than an encyclopedic article. Moreover, the article gives undue weight to non-invasive techniques. There is no mention at all of histological features. This is a consequence of the reliance on a single source.

Some of the text might be salvageable if the article is renamed to "Non-invasive diagnosis of skin cancer". Nevertheless, I would be happy to see the whole article deleted. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:55, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I've redirected the article to Skin cancer#Diagnosis. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks User:Finnusertop Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:04, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Medical director

The article gives off the strong impression that Medical Director is most commonly associated with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) as this is discussed in detail in the first paragraph. Also, EMS services are discussed in extensive details in the following paragraphs further cementing the initial impression. In this author's experience this is misleading; other more general usages are far more common. As the article itself notes the title Medical Director exists in largely a variety of other settings. Examples of more common uses of this term include senior physicians in board level hospital/organization management ^[1] and ^[2], within private industry/pharma ^[3], or as a near-synonym for chief-medical officer ^[4]. The article should therefore be rewritten to reflect the general nature of this term and giving space to the various meanings according common usage - where management of EMS is one, but not particularly prominent, usage of this term.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.173.250.54 (talk • contribs)

Excellent critique <AnonymousIP>. It seems the title of the article should be changed, e.g., "Medical Director (emergency medicine)" or someone (<AnonymousIP>?) should begin editing to achieve more accurate, comprehensive coverage of the topic. ... One more to add to the list: VA Medical Center Directors usually have a graduate degree in hospital administration (healthcare organization management), whereas the Chief of Staff is a physician. - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 13:12, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I suspect that it might be more sensible to expand the missing parts of the article, rather than move it to a specialized case and re-create a generic one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

References

The AIDS War

Wikidata suggestion over at Medical Resources

Interesting article about scientific fraud

Primary genetics studies + MEDRS

Sunscreen pills

Wait list control group

Article Scleromyositis needs help

Music therapy

Conflicts of interest in health information on sugar

I've written a section on COIs in health information on sugar, and proposed it as an edit at ~~Talk:Sugar#Funding of health research~~Talk:Sugar#Sugar industry funding and health information. Unfortunately, I have not been able to reach consensus with Zefr about this edit. May I ask for the views of this community? Specifically, is the edit, or a modified/summarized form of the edit, desirable? Separately, should the section also be spun off into its own article, given that the topic seems to meet notability? HLHJ (talk) 18:47, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I only looked over the talk page/edit/hist for a few minutes, but it did seem like the proposed edit was likely too long to be used in full as a section in the walled garden that is such a prominent/controversial/important article. I think a heavily cited, dense couple of sentences on sugar industry funding as a significant COI would be perfectly appropriate to put in a section (maybe Society and Culture?) of Sugar. I personally think that the topic, at least if presented well, would make for a reasonable article, but i'm sure some people would disagree. Here's from WP: Notability: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." By that rubric, I think your in the clear so long as it's in line with WP: NOT and whatnot. I know there was at least one full length NYT magazine article on it, and I've seen academic articles on the topic too. Just my $0.02. Krb19 (talk) 01:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

COIs in nutrition research in general would make a good article subject, in which case "Big Sugar" could be listed as a prime example. It could cover everything from funding bias to poorly designed trials. There should be an article on the tobacco industry's research programs, and that (assuming that it exists) might have a useful template.

The Sugar article could then have a {{Main}} or {{See also}} link to the bigger picture, with a few sentences about the sugar-specific information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Merchants of Doubt and Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss are two relevant recent bestsellers, although I don't remember whether merchants of doubt discusses corporate influence in nutrition research in depth or only in passing. Certainly whole books have been written on the problems in nutritional research, chief among them being the influence of interested capital. As such I can't imagine notability being an issue. And I see there's a stubby Sugar industry article, maybe a mention could go there although I wouldn't want to overwhelm it with criticism of influence in research being as there's barely anything else there. Krb19 (talk) 18:40, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

The first para of the proposed section is a sublede, and might make a decent stand-alone section in the "Sugar" article, but it consists entirely of (well-referenced) generalizations. Views? Splitting off just the proper medical research would be difficult, and I think it would weaken the article. The proposed section is titled "Sugar industry funding and health information", because it covers attempts to influence not only research, but also public health policies and recommendations, including informal ones in the media (the oddest one was paying social-media "health experts" to recommend mini cans of soft drink as a "healthy snack", on the grounds that they are more healthy than large cans of pop).

"Big Sugar" -- is that a nickname, or a source, WhatamIdoing? My attempts to grep it meet a band by that name. I can't find an article on tobacco research conflicts of interest. In looking I heavily rewrote the history section of Health effects of tobacco (which still really needs attention; the last para seems to claim that non-daily smoking is no big worry, which I suspect may be nonsense).

Krb19, I'm afraid I haven't read those books, though I have come across references to them. I have extended the Sugar industry article with information on direct and indirect subsidies. It seems that subsidy is also a topic often missing, and often deleted, on Wikipedia. HLHJ (talk) 03:22, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Try Big Sugar documentary. IIRC it's an excellent (albeit depressing) piece of work from Brian McKenna. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

"Big Sugar" is a nickname for the sugar industry that is probably more common in recent news sources than in academic sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, WhatamIdoing. It's a useful shorthand. "Big Sugar" seems pretty polylithic: one of the best sources is documents from two branches of the sugar industry fighting a court battle. It looks like a disparate group of people chasing their own interests with what I would consider insufficient regard for public health, but also without the coherence of a single organized group.

(edit conflict) Thank you for all the comments and sources. The latter look good, but I'm going to try and publish the stuff I've written already in the article space first before I go chasing new sources. I currently have the proposed section sourced to nine academic papers in medical journals, a Washington Post article, two New York Times articles, and a series of articles which are essentially long reprints of NYT articles. Also Bloomberg and Time magazine. Everyone from The Guardian to Fox News has published on this (they agree, which is heartwarming). I think I'm safe on notability. :)

I've added a sentence about popular media to the sublede, and a footnote explaining what corn syrup is for non-US readers who may not know. Any more comments on putting all/part of the proposed section in the article, replacing the existing two-sentence "Society and culture" section? Is it decent policy-compliant content, or does it have issues? HLHJ (talk) 03:41, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

There should not be a section called ==Society and culture== in that article. Almost the entire article should be about society and culture: its history, its value, its social signifiers, its production, its uses, etc. Maybe your section should be called ==Sugar industry== or ==History of research== or something else, but ==Society and culture== is something that we made up for articles about diseases, not articles about food. (Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink might have a suggested list of sections for articles about food.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:49, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree. I made that mistake, and you may not recall, but you corrected it ~late last March, and I have been trying to fix it. I called this proposed section ==Sugar industry funding and health information==, though I'm not particularly attached to that. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink guidelines do not have any really pertinent recommendations that I can see; they ask that editors avoid arguing about recipe authenticity, and format affinage information in cheese articles in a table. It looks a bit less controversy-prone than WP:MED. :) I suspect, subject to correction, that this thread will not persuade Zefr that there is consensus for including the proposed section. Any advice on how to proceed? HLHJ (talk) 02:10, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

My recommendation would be to try to add about two short-medium length sentences, with like 8 good inline citations from a variety of high-quality secondary and tertiary sources, to a section of sugar that seems the most related and appropriate. And if that doesn't work, maybe let it (the main Sugar article) alone for a month, and spend your wiki-energy on expanding other related articles (like Criticisms_of_the_sugar_industry) or making a new article if necessary. Krb19 (talk) 15:30, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed that "society and culture" is an extraneous title, confusingly used as meaning "not discussed elsewhere in page" as is often is on Wikipedia. "Sugar industry funding in/of health research and guidelines" might be a more appropriate section title for what we've been discussing? I don't really like "Sugar industry funding and health information" for some reason, I would prefer something more precise/less broad, although it's admittedly better and more informative than the meaningless "society and culture". Krb19 (talk) 15:30, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

And by the way, thanks all for the contributions and discussion; I think this is an important topic, and discussion is vital considering how "controversial" it can sometimes seem and be made to seem. Re: those books I mentioned earlier, I introduced them largely as evidence that this topic meets notability requirements if anyone contests a new article or new section of existing article. They aren't "unbiased" but they aren't crackpot/fringe by any means, and both discuss this topic in some depth. And now that I think of it, Gary Taubes discusses this topic ("Sugar industry funding of nutrition research and public health guidelines") in great depth in "Good Calories, Bad Calories" (which is dubiously named but well and densely cited) as well as some of his fluffier/lighter books including the NYT bestseller "Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It." Taubes especially is a bit of a zealot/polemicist (in that way that people get when they derive much of their income from a series of books on a single thesis), but he did a lot of deep and reasonably well-cited research, whatever one thinks of his conclusions. In addition to those books, he wrote a few opinion pieces for the NYT that are publicly/freely available. Krb19 (talk) 15:30, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. I'm guessing that Merchants of Doubt, "Salt, Sugar, Fat" and "Big Sugar" might make a good "Further reading" section. Taubes seems to be more focussed on medical claims, and is not MEDRS, so I'd be uneasy about using him. Apart from a claim of funding bias, think I've avoided medical claims entirely in my proposed edit, though I think this is disputed.

My current sublede has four short-medium length sentences, and thirteen citations, largely because of a need to back my generalizations with sources that show that things happened at a range of times and places, but also because the idea that there is funding bias was challenged. I summarized the information I wanted to add to the article on the talk page in three points:

*There's good evidence

*such practices are widespread

*and recent to continuing

The sublede runs:

Sugar industry funding and health information

Sugar refiners and manufacturers of sugary foods and drinks have sought to influence medical research and public health recommendations,^[1]^[2] with substantial spending documented from the 1960s to 2016.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6] The results of research on the health effects of sugary food and drink differ significantly, depending on whether the researcher has financial ties to the food and drink industry.^[7]^[8]^[9] A 2013 review concluded that "unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of national or international NCD [non-communicable disease] policy".^[10]

There have been similar efforts to steer coverage of sugar-related health information in popular media, including news media and social media.^[11]^[12]^[13]

References

[1]
Mozaffarian, Dariush (2017-05-02). "Conflict of Interest and the Role of the Food Industry in Nutrition Research". JAMA. 317 (17): 1755. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.3456. ISSN 0098-7484.
[2]
Anderson, P.; Miller, D. (2015-02-11). "Commentary: Sweet policies". BMJ. 350 (feb10 16): –780–h780. doi:10.1136/bmj.h780. ISSN 1756-1833. S2CID 34501758. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
[3]
Kearns, C. E.; Schmidt, L. A; Glantz, S. A (2016). "Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents". JAMA Internal Medicine. 176 (11): 1680–85. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.5394. PMC 5099084. PMID 27617709.
[4]
Kearns, Cristin E.; Glantz, Stanton A.; Schmidt, Laura A. (2015-03-10). "Sugar Industry Influence on the Scientific Agenda of the National Institute of Dental Research's 1971 National Caries Program: A Historical Analysis of Internal Documents". PLOS Medicine. 12 (3). Simon Capewell (ed.): –1001798. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001798. ISSN 1549-1676. PMC 4355299. PMID 25756179.
[5]
Flint, Stuart W. (2016-08-01). "Are we selling our souls? Novel aspects of the presence in academic conferences of brands linked to ill health". J Epidemiol Community Health. 70 (8): 739–740. doi:10.1136/jech-2015-206586. ISSN 0143-005X. PMID 27009056. S2CID 35094445. Retrieved 2018-03-25.(second issn: 1470-2738)
[6]
Aaron, Daniel G.; Siegel, Michael B. (January 2017). "Sponsorship of National Health Organizations by Two Major Soda Companies". American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 52 (1): 20–30. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2016.08.010. ISSN 0749-3797. PMID 27745783. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
[7]
Schillinger, Dean; Tran, Jessica; Mangurian, Christina; Kearns, Cristin (2016-12-20). "Do Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Cause Obesity and Diabetes? Industry and the Manufacture of Scientific Controversy" (PDF). Annals of Internal Medicine. 165 (12): 895–897. doi:10.7326/L16-0534. ISSN 0003-4819. PMC 7883900. PMID 27802504. Retrieved 2018-03-21.(orignal url, paywalled: Author's conflict of interest disclosure forms)
[8]
Bes-Rastrollo, Maira; Schulze, Matthias B.; Ruiz-Canela, Miguel; Martinez-Gonzalez, Miguel A. (2013). "Financial conflicts of interest and reporting bias regarding the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain: a systematic review of systematic reviews". PLOS Medicine. 10 (12): –1001578. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001578. PMC 3876974. PMID 24391479.
[9]
O’Connor, Anahad (2016-10-31). "Studies Linked to Soda Industry Mask Health Risks". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
[10]
Moodie, Rob; Stuckler, David; Monteiro, Carlos; Sheron, Nick; Neal, Bruce; Thamarangsi, Thaksaphon; Lincoln, Paul; Casswell, Sally (2013-02-23). "Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries". The Lancet. 381 (9867): 670–679. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)62089-3. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 23410611. S2CID 844739. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
[11]
O’Connor, Anahad (2015-08-09). "Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets". Well. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
[12]
Lipton, Eric (2014-02-11). "Rival Industries Sweet-Talk the Public". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
[13]
Sifferlin, Alexandra (2016-10-10). "Soda Companies Fund 96 Health Groups In the U.S." Time. Retrieved 2018-03-24.

The authors of a 2016 review of funding bias were less polite; they concluded that "This industry seems to be manipulating contemporary scientific processes to create controversy and advance their business interests at the expense of the public's health".

"Health information" is a bit vague. "Sugar industry funding and health research and advice"?

I somehow hadn't seen Criticisms of the sugar industry. It has some WP:MEDRS issues (any volunteers?), and overlaps with the content proposed here. Given some more content on how sugar is produced in Sugar industry, Criticisms of the sugar industry could probably be merged there. I'd agree that articles should not be multiplied unnecessarily. HLHJ (talk) 03:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia: PUBMED Bot?

More eyes please

Map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy is real enough, but I rather suspect that this syndrome is a fabrication as I couldn’t find any reliable reference in the usual places. CV9933 (talk) 10:29, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

The BOEHM entry archive from Webster mentions "Boehm Syndrome" but with a reference to Wikipedia.

—Paleo Neonate – 12:21, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Hmm... From the original article's author: Special:Permalink/10929014. —Paleo Neonate – 12:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

More interesting edits: Special:Contributions/198.235.157.5 (also created the page, eventually blanked it and edited Recurrent corneal erosion (Special:Diff/53711128, Special:Diff/56132163)). —Paleo Neonate – 12:33, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Should it be tagged with {{Hoax|date=August 2018}}? —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 12:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Well the diffs above suggest to me a bit of OR rather than a hoax, so maybe a prod is required? CV9933 (talk) 13:14, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm getting zero results in pretty much all my searches and the only few places mentioning it are Yahoo! Answers (a question about suffering from it, where someone claiming "10+ years Ophthalmic experience!" answered), a Blogger blog about cat conditions (sourced from Wikipedia), and a book titled Boehm Syndrome (ISBN 9786200578822, it's one of those books created from Wikipedia articles). So maybe it's not a hoax, but I have enough confidence to boldly label it as a suspected one and just did, if only for now. Feel free to change it to a PROD if you want. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 13:19, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

By the way, the reason why I suspect it may be a hoax specifically is the fact that there are zero non-circular sources, even unreliable ones, that discuss it at all. If there were, then the above diffs would seem more legitimate to me. Without any sources indicating that anyone even coined the term to describe a disease, however, then why would this person think they are afflicted with a disease for which there is zero record of having existed? Because their doctor told them? If so, then why is there no literature on it?

Sure, maybe this is a case of an innocent person being misinformed or disinformed by a potentially fraudulent source, but I see no good reason to assume good faith here when this article has been unsourced and up for over a decade and still there is no talk of the condition that isn't traced back to this article. At that point, I don't find it difficult to believe that those original posts were meant to be part of the hoax to provide the appearance of legitimacy. It could be original research, but then why is Wikipedia the only place these novel ideas have been published? Is there not even a blog?

Perhaps I am being premature about all this, in which case I apologize, but I am very suspicious about all this and—if nothing else—labeling it as a potential hoax will attract more scrutiny and warn readers about these concerns.

Regarding sourcing for this article, the best I have found thus far is a single mention in a 2001 book, and it appears the "Boehm Syndrome" there has nothing to do with eyes. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 13:41, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I also suspect a marketting ploy or similar at this point. —Paleo Neonate – 13:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Here's a 2014 mention: doi:10.1097/01.NME.0000450299.57123.95. It states the following:

Who's at risk?
Any patient who has a neurologic deficit, facial paralysis or trauma, or a decreased level of consciousness; has experienced a stroke; or who's sedated temporarily or for extended periods is at risk for corneal abrasions. Patients with a diagnosis of corneal dystrophy, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, or Boehm syndrome are also at increased risk for corneal abrasions. [...]

Given that this is basically an information pamphlet provided by NursingMadeIncrediblyEasy.com and that it was published nearly a decade after the creation of this article, the fact that some professionals have their names attached does not persuade me. Moreover, it appears to only be a mention; no source is provided, nor any further elaboration about this elusive debilitation. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 13:57, 25 August 2018 (UTC); edited 14:40, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Since Bbb23 declined the CSD as "borderline", it's not sufficiently uncontroversial for a PROD, so I've sent it to AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boehm syndrome. --RexxS (talk) 16:40, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Update: the page has been deleted. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 20:34, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

That was brisk. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Creating an article for Jeffrey Drebin

Silk-glove sign

Management of schizophrenia

Reference

need opinion

Quick update on the Wikimed Mini app

Hello everyone, it's been exactly a year since we launched the mini Wikimed app, and I figured a bit of update would be welcome.

Background

As a reminder (or a quick summary), the Kiwix team has been publishing Wikiproject medicine content for a couple of years already, and it's available in ten languages. The idea is to allow readers with little to no internet access to get quality medical content, for free (no ads, no data collection, no catch). The look and feel is exactly the same as on Wikipedia, except that everything is stored locally (as for distribution, we found out that usually a couple of people download the app and then share the apk directly with their colleagues via zappia or similar p2p transfer apps). All articles we include are those tagged with the {{WikiProject Medicine}} tag.

As for all Kiwix content, most (80%) of its users are based in the Global South: for the WikiMed app, this means 8 out of the top 10 user countries, with the larger chunk on the Indian subcontinent (a large anglophone population with little connectivity). If you want to try it for yourself, here is a link (and here for iPhone). As you'll see, it's a fairly big at 1.2 Gb. The guys from Internet-in-a-box have also started distributing small Raspberry-based hotspots in hospitals around Haiti, and soon Nigeria, with this content.

Wikimed Mini

For people without a reliable internet connection 1.2 Gb worth of download is an investment. But it's also a blocker, and that's why we made Wikimed mini: in short, it takes the leade of every article (there's some research showing that 60% of readers will be content with it), plus the infobox, and no images. Magically, it still fits 52,000 articles within 100Mb, which was the upper limit Foundation research found a lot of people were willing to download/store permanently. If you want to try/compare, here is the link).

After a year, here are the learnings (including, hopefully, some for you editors):

What worked well

We got 25,000 installs, without any advertising, in a year. That about twice as much as what we got for the large Wikimed after the same amount of time. It definitely means there is a demand for such a product;
Global South adoption is even higher: 19 out of the 20 first countries of adoption are non-OECD;
Average rating is 4.5 (on par with the Foundation's Wikipedia app!) "best app for medical students", "This app is awesome. no other words to describe it", "Suprising App well done guys". Negative comments are mostly linked to app stability. It is also above WebMD (4.2) and Medscape (4.4), which are not exactly direct competitors but still big players in the same field.

What could be better

At 4.52 the app ranks below the "full" Wikimed (4.69), so people know they are missing out on something;
It still is big. We removed images and biographies. Should we fragment it further and separate fields like sanitation, dentistry, etc.? I think not, but the question is open;
The landing page is, well, not sexy. It has evolved to something simpler since the early days (from this to that after some Foundation feedback), but hopefully we'll soon get help from an actual UX designer and figure out something appealing;
The install rate has plateau'd over the past four months and we do not know why.

Conclusions

Well first of all, thank you! It's one thing to know that Wikipedia is a great project, but it's better to know that real people actually do benefit directly from your work ;
Infoboxes and leade matter: if something really is important, do not assume that people will find it further down the page (and conversely, if it is not really fundamental, ask yourself if it needs to be there);
Do not forget to tag articles. No tag, no inclusion in the app.

And that's it. We've discussed internally the idea of linking symptoms to conditions in the search function, but at this stage it is work we cannot afford to pursue aggressively. another idea was to offer a "core" piece of content (based on usage stats) and then add thematic extensions by specialty that people could download or not, as our biggest blocker so far still is size: hopefully an early version may come next year.

Any suggestion, idea, criticism: feel free to post here, on my talk page, or send me a mail. Cheers, Stephane (Kiwix) (talk) 14:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:31, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Stephane, a huge proportion of articles in WPMED are non-medical (e.g., biographies). Is the app including those? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes the app includes those. Would be happy to see them left out of both versions. Maybe we could just leave out anything tagged with "WikiProject Biography" User:Stephane (Kiwix) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:32, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing to answer your question we did remove articles that intersected with the Wikiproject biographies from the mini App (though a few items like Pasteur Institute still seem to be around as they're harder to chase); biographies are still present in the regular/big Wikimed App. We can also remove them from there (I don't know how much med students need to know about their elders). You guys tell us, and we'll happily comply. Stephane (Kiwix) (talk) 06:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Happy to have the people removed. Not clinically important. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:22, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) How complicated are you prepared to be in your article selection? The WP:1.0 team has some tools that could probably be leveraged to let you select only articles that are relatively popular or central (so, e.g., Galen, but not whichever plastic surgeon just made an article about himself).

You could also use Category:Society and medicine task force articles as an exclusion criterion. It's not used on as many articles as it ought to be, but it might be another way to remove articles about organizations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

One question I have is how many of our medical articles are biographies? Does anyone know how to calculated that? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:20, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Good question, I'll investigate and let you know. Stephane (Kiwix) (talk)

Great work! If more reduction is needed, after the biographies, are medical associations etc included? I guess hospitals are not. You might also be able to filter out articles with very low en:wp page views, especially if the they lack ICD etc codes. Johnbod (talk) 02:33, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Ok, so after a bit of digging, along with Biographies we'll also be removing articles intersecting with the following WikiProjects: Companies, Hospitals, Organizations, History of Science and Academic Journals. Society and medicine task force articles gave a couple of false positives so we'll park it for the time being. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

We're also working with the WP1.0 people so ultimately we'll also keep articles that are currently excluded by the above criteria but high-traffic. It's a 95% completed project, but you know how these things go.

Last but not least, I realize that your stats give 42,990 articles in the project, yet when we collect all mainspace articles with the {{WikiProject Medicine}} template we end up with 52,123. I see there's a little warning just below the table mentioning the page is above the template_include_limit: does it explain the discrepancy? Stephane (Kiwix) (talk) 12:29, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Sbelknap at ANI

Grant endorsement

Endoamnioscopy

Balance disorder

Postcholecystectomy syndrome

Move discussion for Triple X syndrome article and a related article

Phemister graft

Template for ref spam

Therapeutics Initiative redux - MEDRS or no?

This source was discussed a bit at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_10#Ref_sources in 2008. We now have an article on it: Therapeutics Initiative.

Their website is here. It is a project out of University of British Columbia; they don't publish in journals but rather publish on their own website and via a bulletin called "Therapeutics Letter" with an issn (described here). They have their own review process described here.

They assess specific drugs/drug classes like PPIs as well as broader issues, like what they call Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome (what the mainstream calls antidepressant discontinuation syndrome; they argue for the "withdrawal" name as they review the syndrome).

We have folks wanting to cite it at the discontinuation/withdrawal syndrome page, putting it on par with sources we already accept as MEDRS.

So the question comes loaded, somewhat.

Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 22:33, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

My thought: Whether something is "reliable" depends entirely on what you're trying to support.

My second thought: Without looking, I'd bet that this is actually a DUE dispute. I'm going to guess that they have what some editors believe is a minority POV, and that this POV isn't welcome in the article. In that case, the best solution is to see whether that minority POV is presented in other sources as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

If I am asking if it is MEDRS of course it is about using it for biomedical information. I kind of like the source but they seem somewhat opinionated and interested in advocating, rather than describing accepted knowledge, which is what we want. Jytdog (talk) 01:43, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

WP:BIASEDSOURCES can still be reliable. If we're looking for a certain cultural style of sources (I'm not, but I'm not the only editor here ;-) ), then this might not be quite the thing. If we're looking for something that gets the answers right, then it's probably as likely to get us to that goal as any other good-faith systematic review. I'm a little dubious that people will be happy about digging through a 333-page-long review (using the PPI paper as an example). Even the executive summary is longer than most sources we deal with.

It still comes down to exactly what you're trying to support. It's an ideal source for saying that this group said _____. It's harder to figure out whether it's the ideal source for saying that _____ is a widely accepted/mainstream medical/evidence-based view. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Unhelpful which is what I now expect.Jytdog (talk) 10:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Human heart age (calculation)

Asim Duttaroy

International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals and Certified Sex Addiction Therapist

RfC on sugar industry influence on health information and guidelines

Guidance on flagging articles

Wikipedia - sourcing: OMICS journals

Sex determination material at the Sexual differentiation in humans article

Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Sexual differentiation in humans#"A baby’s sex is determined at the time of conception." citing 17th edition of Harrison's. The discussion concerns how to add material such as females typically having two X chromosomes (XX), and other material. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:33, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Ugh! That para used a Bible Belt high school "family life" textbook with the attending POV: Choices in relationships: introduction to marriage and the family. It needs a much better source that won't confuse an embryo with a baby. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Two unrelated comments:

It looks like that textbook is from Cengage Learning (out of Massachusetts) and originally from Penn State, neither of which qualify as Bible Belt locations.
Given the number of times we've encountered new trans* editors who want to add personal self-perception or hypothesized neurological differences as a factor used to determine biological (i.e., not psychological or social) sex/intersex status (i.e., not gender), it might not be a bad idea to have two or three strong sources behind that statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing is correct that WP:Advocacy is a concern. The source in question was added by WhatamIdoing to the Sex article, and I always remembered that (but I was already aware of and using Cengage Learning sources like that one or other ones). I used the same "In humans, biological sex is determined by five factors present at birth" text she used and the source for that. So regarding this and this, I can easily add a different source, but I think the current source is fine. I've used "The Marriage and Family" Cengage Learning sources, such as this 2010 "The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationship in a Changing Society" source, page 186, at sexual articles without any problem. Per WP:BIASED, biased sources are allowed on Wikipedia, but I've found "The Marriage and Family" Cengage Learning sources to be unbiased and to report on matters accurately. The phrasing "The Marriage and Family" does not automatically refer to a heteronormative matter these days. Like the description for the book I just linked to states, in part, "The book draws from research in sociology, family studies, and related fields, and its sound sociological and family studies base is enhanced by other perspectives from anthropology, history, psychology, journalism, literature, economics, and gender studies. The book presents a positive, multicultural approach to today's relationships as it explores recent research on topics such as adoptive parenting, childbearing patterns, gay and lesbian families, the meaning of virginity, communication and conflict resolution, the influence of popular culture, the rights and benefits of marriage, and working families." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:03, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not enthusiastic about the source. It is reliable; it's IMO not great. I chose it partly because it was easy to find and partly because the way it presented the content was clear enough that it would be very hard for anyone to claim that the source says that "something or another about the brain" is one of the factor that is considered in determining biological sex (i.e., male, female, or intersex). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:30, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I'll look into finding a different source to add. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:21, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

There might be some useful sources related to the study of X-inactivation, which seems to be an active research topic. HLHJ (talk) 03:01, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

"Heat-not-burn" tobacco products

There seems to be some debate over PR statements that these products don't burn tobacco, or produce smoke or ash. There seems to be about one independent source, (Auer et al. 2017) and it said that they do combust, just at a lower temperature, and the particulate matter is smoke, and that using them therefore violates a smoking ban. Does anyone have any better sources that have actually looked at this issue and discussed it? Or any opinions on what terms Wikipedia should use? The views of an editor for Phillip Morris can be read at Talk:Heat-not-burn tobacco product. HLHJ (talk) 05:56, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

It's pretty clearly a distinction without a difference. The traditional use of tobacco in "smoking" is to smolder it, not burn it. That's why it smokes -- incomplete combustion. If it really burned, there'd be next-to-no carbon monoxide remaining. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:14, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

The source says "incomplete combustion", as I recall. The distinction clearly makes a difference from the marketing perspective, as PR reps here and elsewhere are very insistent on it. I suspect that people read "smoke-free" to mean "less harmful, because smoke is harmful", but I'm going by analogy from other nicotine marketing methods. HLHJ (talk) 14:28, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Undue suggestions // More eyes needed

More eyes needed, considerable activity from paid editors that need to be counterbalanced. Carl Fredrik^talk 09:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

See Talk:Heat-not-burn_tobacco_product#Undue_weight_when_assessing_suggestions,_especially_regarding_controversy

It is important to remember that even disclosed contributions from paid editors risk violating WP:DUEWEIGHT. This holds also when acceptable sources are suggested, or when suggestions seem reasonable. The corollary is that these edits would not occur without suggestion by the editor, and when compared to the rest of Wikipedia the article is made to read as a puff piece. We lack the time to find and evaluate the sources that are intentionally excluded from suggestion by paid editors. Each second spent evaluating suggestions from paid editors hinders research into non-biased coverage. It is not enough to find your own sources if the suggested edit is from a paid source (see ). The relevant policy by which we can entirely ignore paid requests is WP:CONFLICTOFINTEREST.
— [[User:Carl Fredrik^talk 09:56, 10 September 2018 (UTC)]]

False memory syndrome

Request article review: Levonorgestrel

Our article on Levonorgestrel is likely to be in the news in the next few days, based upon this news story:

I would like to request a review of the article and its sourcing to make sure that everything is accurate.

When it comes to medical topics, an electronics engineer like myself is pretty much lost (I have this mental picture of a non-engineer M.D. trying to "fix" our Cockcroft–Walton generator or Hall effect articles...), but the following quote from a citation in the article seems to my untrained eye be in conflict with WP:MEDRS, even though the source seems otherwise reliable.

'"In 2002, a judicial review ruled that pregnancy begins at implantation, not fertilisation"

As I said, I have zero expertise here and am making no suggestions for specific changes. Its just that the above quote looks more political than medical to me. I just think medical questions should be answered through research, not judges and juries. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:21, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Combined oral contraceptive pill--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:53, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
- That's one of those "by definition" things. Decades ago, maybe a century or two ago, a bunch of men decided to write a definition of "pregnancy". They decided that "pregnancy" began upon implantation. It is a reasonable but fundamentally arbitrary definition; it works pretty well for some purposes and not so well for other purposes. It is probably better overall than the one that says women get pregnant at the start of the preceding menstrual period. If you are, say, the Roman Catholic Church, then this definition is not wrong but entirely irrelevant: they seem to have little interest in "the start of pregnancy" and much more interest in "the start of life", which they have defined as "at the time of conception". If you buy that line of argument, then the failure of a fertilized egg to implant (which is tolerably common) results in a person dying. This is a highly political statement, because we then define "abortion" as "ending a pregnancy" rather than "making a zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus die". I suppose that if technology advances to the point that the "future baby" could be extracted and incubated Brave New World-style, then we would have "abortions" without "killing". (Presumably most of the moral objections would evaporate then.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
  - This also highlights some other religious doctrinal and legal concerns over terminology. The RC position would mean that a frozen, never-implanted zygote or blastocyst (typically intended for artificial insemination) is already a living human. This then would logically make its preservation until implanted to the future mother or surrogate into a moral imperative. Similarly, that RC position would make Levonorgestrel, the contraceptive coil and other contra-implantation measures tantamount to premeditated homicide.
  - The long-argued American positions around legal dates for induced abortion hinge on "viability", the specification of which might be (more or less arbitrarily) resolved to any stage from quickening up until the earliest gestational date at which life will be sustained with no medical intervention, or even to completed gestation (the purported "full-term abortion"). There is of course no one answer which can truly be defended as correct, it is essentially a matter of degree.
  - In any instance, the judicial review mentioned should be properly attributed to: Munby. Judicial Review of the Prescription-Only Medicines (Human Use) Amendment (No. 3) Order 2000 (SI 2000/3231). 2002 -- LeadSongDog come howl! 20:09, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia in the Classroom - Reproductive Biology workshop for Honours students

Medical articles on Russian Wikipedia

WikiCite, Wikidata, Scholia, health information on Wikipedia

I am writing to share a prototype project. WikiProject Medicine as a group and even its individual members have more use for this than any other community right now.

Check out this d:Wikidata:Scholia profile for Health information on Wikipedia:

Health information on Wikipedia in Scholia

Scholia is a front end (user friendly interface) for generating visualizations of the scholarly literature and related metadata which Wikidata is collecting in the meta:WikiCite project. WikiCite is the project for ingesting source metadata into Wikidata.

If anyone here ever needs to showcase the academic literature which discusses health information on Wikipedia (or any other topic) then Scholia is a way to generate that information. These visualizations are a consequence of my tagging academic articles as having main subject (P921) health information on Wikipedia (Q16235120). I did this manually but there are ongoing efforts to use automation to tag academic articles with subject identifiers.

WikiProject Medicine should be aware that Wikidata, through the WikiCite project, is in the process of ingesting PubMed citations. Half of PubMed's citations are in Wikidata now. Maybe the rest of them will be there by summer 2019. Implications of this include the option of generating scholarly profiles of topics, researchers, and institutions. Eventually this will lead to being able to get quantitative information about which Wikipedia articles cite which journals, or suggesting which papers Wiki editors should consider to develop which articles.

For now I mostly wanted to share the "health information on Wikipedia" profile, but WikiProject Medicine is a major stakeholder in many aspects of WikiCite. If anyone here is interested, consider applying to attend the WikiCite conference 2018 in San Francisco by applying by the instructions at meta:WikiCite 2018. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:21, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks, Lane, for all your efforts in building resources like this. It is much appreciated. --RexxS (talk) 17:52, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this Lane. JenOttawa (talk) 21:42, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Health Drinks category

Medical writers vs Physician writers

Hi, maybe someone can shed some light on this: On Commons Category:Medical writers is now redirected to Category:Physician writers because that is the way it was linked from here (Category:Medical writers links to commons:Category:Physician writers. I am looking for a category of physicians that have written extensively within their field (esp. historically) - at the moment it looks as though there are only categories for people that have written outside of their field --> physicians that write poetry, plays etc. There is also this deletion discussion from 2007 which links to Category:Health and wellness writers, which also doesn't sound as though that's what I need. Any ideas are appreciated, thank you. Deadstar (talk) 18:04, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:58, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Ozzie. I had a quick look at the Dutch medical writers category, as there are only 7 in it, 4 of which are medical writers (they wrote about medicine) and 3 are physician writers (writing works of literature) - is there any point in having both Physician writers and Medical writers? I understand they have two different definitions, but as my small sample shows, are undoubtedly mixed together. If I should ask elsewhere, please point me in the right direction. Deadstar (talk) 20:10, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if you'd find some of the people you're looking for by intersecting Category:Historians with Category:Physicians (does WP have an easy way to form an intersection of categories)? Perhaps I misunderstand. — soupvector (talk) 01:24, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Nevermind - I see see Wikipedia:Category_intersection — soupvector (talk) 01:32, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

And use of PetScan like this - interesting! — soupvector (talk) 01:34, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that - in conclusion, as there seems to be a "Medical writers" category here, I might use that to link to (ie create a new cat on commons) and forget about the physician writers (that are of no interest to me). But as I said, the two are very similar, and most definitely mixed together. Deadstar (talk) 14:00, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Mayoclinic.org as a source

Familial amyloid polyneuropathy

IRC

Input needed

MEDRS for non medical articles (e.g: animal development)

A colleague asked me a question today about the necessity of WP:MEDRS for bio articles (e.g: animal reproduction). It is my understanding that for articles that have medical content but are not deemed "medical" in nature, MEDRS would only apply to the medical content. The herb WP articles outside of WPMED are a good example. MEDRS would not apply to the whole WP article, only the medical content or content that applies to human health. The example that I was asked is Giant Panda Reproduction. I told him that if the knowledge being adding is making references or applications to human development (for example) than MEDRS is the guideline, otherwise the general guideline on identifying reliable sources would apply. Am I correct here?

Thanks.

Jenny JenOttawa (talk) 13:57, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS links to WP:Biomedical information, which defines biomedical info as information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health. We should be cautious about the interpretation of the 'or could reasonably be perceived as...' bit, as POV-pushers might seek to introduce animal studies in an attempt to imply effects on human health without stating it directly; nevertheless, I would not have thought it would apply to the example you mentioned. You are also right about the issue of of non-medical content in articles that also contain medical information - MEDRS is explicitly limited to biomedical assertions, not entire articles. The link above gives lots of types of assertions that it wouldn't apply to - Giant Panda Reproduction isn't on that list, but I'm sure that's just an oversight... GirthSummit _(blether) 14:21, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:SCIRS, see also, fwiw, User:Jytdog#NPOV_part_1:_secondary_sources. Jytdog (talk) 14:34, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

I think sometimes we overestimate the difference that MEDRS makes. All articles' assertions should be based on the best current secondary sources available. The wp:SECONDARY section of the wp:NOR policy emphasizes this...

Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source.

It is simply that within the MEDRS scope, we have more rigor and clarity about how we implement this. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:34, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for all the helpful feedback. JenOttawa (talk) 02:32, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Sugar industry funding and health information

References

Background

Wikimed Mini

Conclusions

A search

WP:CRAPWATCH: Early version

Undue suggestions // More eyes needed

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