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Template:COVID-19 treatments (current consensus)

coronavirus

Hi all. I recently created a consensus template on COVID-19 treatments, because I (and many others) have become frustrated at the endlessly repetitive discussions on relevant talk pages. See, for example: Talk:Bret Weinstein, Talk:Ivermectin, Talk:Didier Raoult, Talk:Pierre Kory, Talk:Hydroxychloroquine. My hope is that writing all of this down in a template could be helpful as a place to direct new and inexperienced users who have repeatedly come to these talk pages to push a POV. Much like it has worked for Template:Origins of COVID-19 (current consensus), Talk:Donald Trump, Talk:Joe Biden#Current consensus, Talk:Sushant Singh Rajput. (credit to ProcrastinatingReader on those prior templates).

However, I would appreciate your feedback. Overall, of course, but also on the following specific issues:

1. Too long? I'm an academic and I'm verbose as hell. They teach us to be this way in graduate and medical school. :) Help me trim the fat.
2. Represents actual consensus? I want it to be rock solid so please steel-man my claims. These templates only work if they are pretty indefensible. Of course nothing is 100%, and bad faith editors will disagree no matter what... but I appreciate criticism on this nonetheless.
3. What else should be included here? I'm sure there are other topics I'm missing, like maybe Vitamin D? ...Forsythia? (kidding, kidding)
4. Which articles would this be good to include on? So far, I'm thinking Talk:Ivermectin, Talk:Hydroxychloroquine, Talk:Bret Weinstein, Talk:Didier Raoult, Talk:Pierre Kory. Any other suggestions?

Thank you for any help you can provide.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:00, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I feel like we've played around with new concepts as a result of the COVID-19 disruption and there's currently not too much evidence on which approaches are most effective. There are only so many of these templates so it's difficult to assess exactly what effects they've had and how different variables (e.g. length/style) affect their usefulness. I think it's fine to change it up a bit as appropriate, or to experiment with a different approach.

With the origins of COVID-19 one I wanted to be as uncontentious as possible - to the point of blandness - to help with documenting a moderate position everyone could get behind. I think in that topic area many of the disputes were on major issues (should this article exist, should this group of sources making exceptional claims be used, etc.) and less on specific content presentation, and the former sets of issues were usually discussed at XfD, which made the resource have less points on 'the big issues' than I expected. I also realised that sometimes it's the case that outcomes are so obvious to everyone and only some IP/non-confirmed users are debating the issue, hence it's never really subject to a 'consensus discussion', which limited the amount of things that could go on that template. Mostly I was concerned that opening the scope too wide would introduce more contentious bullets and thus make it a dubious resource. Perhaps I was too paranoid on that aspect.

As it applies here, some of the discussions of point #3 only had one editor participating saying the sources were unreliable (Alexbrn). I'm pretty sure he was/is right, but I'm not sure "current consensus" is the right word to use (it's then more of a FAQ). I do think something like "Treatments for COVID-19: Important [information/notes]" may be more correct, but I think it's only me who sees a distinction. Either way, I personally wouldn't cut it down; that would lose high quality information in exchange for a perceived increase in trustworthiness that may not even exist.

I like the bolding to make it more readable and make the main points stand out. It certainly seems like there are more relevant points for those articles (e.g. on specific sources, on specific outcomes by authoritative bodies, plenty of discussions about the issue), which makes it a good candidate for a template like this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:22, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, thank you for your thoughts, as always.

I think maybe the saving grace of a template like this is that it's for an extremely narrow, obviously inarguably WP:MEDRS-relevant topic. So we don't necessarily need as robust discussion-linking as a topic like viral origins, which is much more grey and debatable! I totally buy that it's as you say. These things are so uncontroversial that it's only IPs and brand new folks showing up to disagree!

Maybe what would help with point 3 is a clarifying RfC at RSN about these sites? But, as soon as I type that, I realize how annoying and tedious that would be to everyone involved! I think it's okay to fall back on the fact that it's pretty uncontroversial that these sites don't meet MEDRS. And thus this template just serves as a place to hold all the reasons why that is, as expressed in article and talk space.

I think if someone comes along and challenges 3, then we can do an RfC. Doesn't consensus default to the status quo in situations like this? I just don't want to make RSN mad, lol.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:46, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I personally don't think it needs an RSN. There's no active dispute, and it seems fairly obvious what the outcome would be. I meant that the difficulty with respect to the template just arises in that I dunno if those discussions can accurately be called a "consensus" per se. But I find it very difficult to imagine someone coming along and disputing it, and being able to introduce those sources, without having to go to RSN and show consensus for their position. In that sense, actually, I suppose it is accurately described as a consensus (but more of the WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS variety, which IMO is the weakest variety but valid nevertheless). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:52, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Are we (still) having problems with those websites? The Wikipedia:Spam blacklist is an option to consider if it looks like there might be any effort to promote them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:25, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I think it's mostly died down, now it's just people pushing individual meta-analyses in off-topic journals more than anything. But if it becomes an issue again, I think that's definitely what we should do. The edit warning alone would probably be a big deterrent. As far as I can tell, nobody is citing them in article space, probably because these articles are all SP or ECP after persistent abuse. I will say that I have been filing google search complaints whenever I can, because these sites are still some of the top 2 or 3 results for things like "ivermectin meta analysis" or "ivermectin data." Which is really disappointing.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 04:32, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Speaking of search results, if you search "COVID-19" (and some related terms) you get no link to Wikipedia; I think Google are manually setting the results for that page as I don't think the first page is an SEO thing. Of course, it's interesting because we've probably maintained one of the most consistently reliable sources throughout the pandemic, but I can understand why an encyclopaedia everyone can edit isn't first page for pandemic results. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:12, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Google has historically avoided intervening in the search results, although they are customized per person (and their guess at your identity, if you aren't logged into one of their accounts). For COVID-19 I get a link to the COVID-19 article as sixth in the list. For longer phrases, such as COVID-19 treatment and COVID-19 vaccine, it's not in the top 10, but Wikipedia was sometimes linked in the sidebar as a source of information about the number of cases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:29, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Kindling (sedative–hypnotic withdrawal)

A request from a user using an IP address about the article Kindling (sedative–hypnotic withdrawal) was posted on my talk page. It seems like it would be better handled here. Whywhenwhohow (talk) 04:27, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• I'm unable to really effectively improve the article at this time, but I'm not going to nominate it for deletion - there's plenty of MEDRS sources: [1] [2] [3]... and that's just on the first page of Google results for the term "gaba kindling". It's definitely a real thing - from personal experience I can say that it's even significant enough to be flagged as a drug utilization program in medical information systems - people who've potentially repeatedly gone through periods without a GABAergic drug are flagged for potential review for increased effects from new withdrawals for counseling and education. I'll throw it on my to do list for if I get some time soon to improve. It is a real phenomenon, and while I can't say whether sources in the article now use the term, it can certainly be improved to cite the term itself. The user seems to be trying to form policy based reasons they object to the article (such as "the lead has no citations") and they're making vast misinterpretation of the MEDRS in the article now. Seems to be a case of an ulterior motive, especially given their post on the talk page where they talk about their personal experience trying to convince people this isn't a thing (I presume when they were told it was a thing by a professional). If anyone wants to use the sources I found to add in the meantime while I find time to improve it, please do feel free to do so. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 04:37, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Literaturegeek worked on that article years ago, and might be able to take a look, if he's on wiki again some time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:36, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Draft:The British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology

The notability of this subject is unclear, some advice would be appreciated. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:39, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

its been declined three timesDraft:British_Society_for_Allergy_and_Clinical_Immunology and IMO there has been no improvement (including notability)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:06, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I just saw this, as well, during AfC reviewing and decided neither to decline nor approve. It seems like it could be on the edge notability but barely. I don't think anyone will fault your decision either way (or at least I won't). Chetsford (talk) 19:47, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence for ILAE Wikipedia Epilepsy Project

Dear members of WikiProject Medicine

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

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

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

Reason a paid position is felt to be needed

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

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

@Diptanshu Das, can you get the page created for your Wikimania session? Some editors here might be interested in attending. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: How and where do I create a page for the same? Can you please guide? Otherwise, any specific inputs on the issue particularly discussed here? Diptanshu 💬 16:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

 Done here. Thanks for pointing out. @WhatamIdoing: Diptanshu 💬 16:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Ideological contributions to articles on sex and gender, including intersex/DSD articles

A small number of editors are making radical changes to a range of articles, including articles within the scope of this project, aligned with views that presuppose that gamete size is the sole determinant of sex. Sex determination is far more complex in cases of intersex/DSD. Changes relevant to this project have been made to intersex, disorders of sex development, 5α-Reductase deficiency‎ and true hermaphroditism. Changes made in other associated pages include hermaphrodite, gynandromorphism, sex, sex and gender distinction, sex differences in humans, and also LGBT-focused pages such as non-binary gender and queer. The modus operandi appears to impose a narrow view of sex determination as uncontested and incontestable, remove all content on social, cultural or human rights aspects, and add material on gender and LGBT issues to make them as contestable and even be perceived as ridiculous as possible (such as an attempt to add 'xenogender' to non-binary gender.

These changes are associated with narrow views about medicine and the diverse global settings where people with relevant traits - and Wikipedia readers - live. For example, recent changes to 5α-Reductase deficiency‎ have been justified on the talk page by an assertion that all infants go through sex chromosome testing that can identify whether or not that infant has the trait. That editor has just proposed a RfC on this little-watched talk page.

I would very much appreciate a wider range of eyes on these articles. Thank you. Trankuility (talk) 00:59, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

That RfC is somewhat confusing. XOR'easter (talk) 01:09, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

The RFC is at Talk:5α-Reductase deficiency#RfC about sex specificity of 5α-Reductase deficiency. It may get re-written/re-started, but if you go into it with the general idea that we're trying to decide whether the article should say something like "5α-Reductase deficiency can result in males having female genitalia at birth" or "5α-Reductase deficiency can result in genetic males having female genitalia at birth", and you actually look for MEDRS sources to see what kind of language they use, then we might still be able to get somewhere with the current question. However, it might prove more effective to shut it down and start over to run as a clear-cut vote, so if you do (please do!) comment, please check back in a few days to see if you need to repeat your comments.

Also, the sourcing in the article is lousy – stuff from the previous century, case reports from developing-world journals, etc. It'd be a real service to the world if anyone found a decent source and did a quick update. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:02, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

What's the status of "Endotext" [4] vis-à-vis MEDRS? Also, I found this from Application of Clinical Genetics, which is a Dove Medical Press journal; it looks like they were iffy in the past, but the review in question is more recent than the troubles. XOR'easter (talk) 05:21, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@XOR'easter, sorry that we didn't reply earlier. Endotext is probably okay. Dove Medical Press is ...maybe okay. In particular, since we're talking about a rare disease, it's really important to be practical about sources. You're not going to get a handful of review articles in top-tier journals for every rare disease (there are about 7,000 of them) every year. The hope is that articles will present mainstream views, and a reasonably complete (if sometimes vague or hedged) overview, even if that means citing a less-than-ideal source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Update: The RFC was re-written, but not with the question that had been discussed. I have started a Talk:5α-Reductase deficiency#Straw poll. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Sex determination is far more complex in cases of intersex/DSD. Changes relevant to this project have been made to intersex, disorders of sex development, 5α-Reductase deficiency‎ and true hermaphroditism. you have no idea how complex it can get. There are species with ZW sex determination and some species don’t even have sex chromosomes.

The modus operandi appears to impose a narrow view of sex determination as uncontested and incontestable, remove all content on social, cultural or human rights aspects, and add material on gender and LGBT issues to make them as contestable and even be perceived as ridiculous as possible (such as an attempt to add 'xenogender' to non-binary gender.

Just to make things clear Wikipedia is not a place to advocate a particular view. Please read on WP:ADVOCACY. Look here on Wikipedia fringe views are looked down upon in general. If a certain view by an group is considered fringe to the scientific community then we shouldn’t include it all. I mean we don’t include fringe views from religious groups in articles about religion so it makes no sense for us to give fringe views by certain groups special treatment.

These changes are associated with narrow views about medicine and the diverse global settings where people with relevant traits - and Wikipedia readers - live. Sure views regarding topics like this are indeed broad but, one view is clearly more reliable than the other.CycoMa (talk) 05:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:FRINGE, we do write about views and groups that the scientific community considers fringe, if reliable sources indicate that those views or groups are significant and provide us with details we can use to write about them. Fundamentally, it's not the views that we ask to be "reliable", but the sources which document those views. Fringe religious beliefs get their mentions at Noah's Ark, and we have multiple articles on different types of creationism. We simply try to find the best sources available for each aspect of a topic. If the aspect is something that needs to be investigated in a lab, WP:MEDRS guides us on how to find and evaluate sources; for other aspects, we might turn to WP:SCHOLARSHIP, for example. XOR'easter (talk) 06:30, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Okay but should we treat views from activists groups the same way we treat views from the scientific community?CycoMa (talk) 06:46, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

"The same"? No. "Appropriately?" Yes, absolutely. There was a proposal (years ago now) to elevate the scientific viewpoint above all others, and it was rejected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:04, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

And of course, depending on the topic, "activist groups" and "the scientific community" might not diverge so much. Activists can be up-to-date on the science, while those defending the status quo might be a generation or two behind, or have a habit of passing off the oversimplifications taught to schoolchildren as the final word. Furthermore, neither side of that supposed dichotomy is actually monolithic. Geneticists who work with Petri dishes might hold on to terminology that pediatric endocrinologists have learned to move beyond. XOR'easter (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Or you will find different perspectives. A scientist might see severe congenital deafness as a disease, and a Deaf person might see it as a difference that confers advantages. The scientist's view should generally be preferred for describing objective/physical situations, but a scientist has no advantage over anyone else when it comes to interpreting it as "good" or "bad" or how facts relate to various human values. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Well here’s the thing tho, sometimes activists groups may have information that’s problematic. For example many intersex articles cited the study that claimed 1.7% of people are intersex. However, I and other found a good amount of reliable sources that pointed out why this statistic was problematic. Like the biggest problem with that 1.7% statistic was that it included LOCAH as intersex however, individuals with this condition have phenotypes that clearly match up with their sex chromosomes and don’t have ambiguous genitalia. Not to many of the conditions Anne Fausto Sterling labeled as intersex were never once considered intersex from a medical perspective.CycoMa (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Scientists, too, may have "information that's problematic". (Just browse Retraction Watch if you want a visceral sense of that.) And when it comes to definitions, things get truly slippery. Anne Fausto-Sterling and coauthors published a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal laying out a specific definition of "intersex", adding up the percentages while noting how they depend upon the inclusion criteria, and noting that not all conditions "usually call for surgical intervention". They also observe that earlier estimates that intersexual births might run as high as 4% are unwarranted, except in populations in which a particular genetic condition occurs with high frequency. That's all just part of the scientific process: propose a hypothesis or a definition and see what follows. The revision of diagnostic criteria and of the classification of conditions is likewise part of the medical-scientific process. Why shouldn't Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, and late onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia fall under the general DSD rubric? (After all, they treat Kleinfelter and Turner with hormone replacement therapy, and T blockers are one of the medications for LOCAH.) It's not an easy judgment call to make in either direction. You have all the problems of deciding what counts as a species or as a planet, with the added difficulty that the goal is to provide the best standard of care to actual patients. Activists are, of course, entitled to quote the higher percentages, particularly if they see themselves as representing all those stigmatized by sex/gender abnormality, rather than being an exclusive club for carriers of a specific mutation. Intersex Human Rights Australia takes this line, for example, with substantial and interesting caveats for all their numbers. XOR'easter (talk) 18:52, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

That's fair, I guess that's how the scientific method works. We have scholars debating with each until a consensus emerges.CycoMa (talk) 20:21, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I know this discussion is kind of dead but I want to comment on something you said. aligned with views that presuppose that gamete size is the sole determinant of sex. Just to make things clear articles like sex and anisogamy have defined biological sex that way for a very long time. Like this [2008 version of sex] defines male and female that way. I understand why people would find that weird or say sex is more complex than that but, I have read reliable sources that explain why male and female are defined that way.

I'm just commenting this down because too any editors have gotten on to me for adding sources for that claim.CycoMa (talk) 02:52, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Creat - herbal treatment for RTIs

• Andrographis paniculata (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Creat (Andrographis paniculata) is a herb which has been touted in Thailand as a COVID-19 treatment. Phyzome is repeatedly[5][6][7] adding text to the article saying that a PLOS ONE review of the herb's use for ARTIs "concluded that it was likely safe and beneficial but ...". Even if PLOS ONE is a usable source for this striking claim (maybe doubtful), I don't think it says this. Rather it says,

Paniculata appears beneficial and safe for relieving ARTI symptoms and shortening time to symptom resolution. However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously owing to poor study quality and heterogeneity.

I do not like the leap from something merely "appearing to" do something to it being "likely", especially given thw weak nature of the evidence. Since this has devolved into a bit of an edit war, newer eyes would be helpful. Alexbrn (talk) 18:59, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• I think the content added by Phyzome —

-A 2017 meta-analysis evaluating Andrographis paniculata to treat acute respiratory tract infections concluded that it was likely safe and beneficial but that the studies reviewed were of poor quality, and better-designed studies should be performed.

—is a more accurate representation of the source material than the alternate text proposed —

-A 2017 meta-analysis evaluating Andrographis paniculata to treat respiratory tract infections was inconclusive because the trials reviewed were of poor quality.

Changing "was likely" to "it appeared to be" would be a relevant point of discussion but wordsmithing that should occur on the Talk page; slash and burn reverts seem very unproductive over a two to three word passage. Chetsford (talk) 19:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• I don't typically delve into medical discussions but I respect Alex and I respect experienced editors like Phyzome, as well. Alex works hard to push back against non-neutral points of view in regards to, primarily but not completely, the COVID crisis that has gripped the world. I have and will continue to commend them for that. That being said, the current wording of the article seems to suggest the findings were inconclusive. The word "inconclusive" was never used in the official findings. At the same time, neither is the word "likely" used. In my opinion both instances represent slightly opposite views of the actual findings of the study, one not giving it enough weight while the other gives it too much. Regardless this is nothing to be having an edit war over. Why not try to find middle ground and simply state what the findings were? In this case it can be placed in the article as a simple direct quote with proper attribution or summed up in a way other than using "inconclusive" or "likely". --ARoseWolf 19:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
  • From the source's conclusion: "The evidence is inconclusive due to limited methodological quality of included trials and study heterogeneity". Alexbrn (talk) 20:00, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

    Alexbrn, yeah that's pretty damning. I would support the "inconclusive" wording based on this.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:03, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

    • Also from the source's conclusion: "A. Paniculata appears to be beneficial and safe for relieving ARTI symptoms and reducing time to symptom resolution." While leaving room for improvement with respect to "was likely" versus "it appeared to be", Phyzome's version seems to better and more holistically summarize the contents of the study's conclusion. The alternate version [8] cherry picks one sentence. Chetsford (talk) 20:09, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
      • It only "appears" to be because it is an appearance (not a reality); elevating this into some kind of probability is OR/misreading. The underlying data is too poor to conclude anything, as is stated. Alexbrn (talk) 20:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
        • It only "appears" to be because it is an appearance (not a reality) While a social constructionist argument is a ... novel ... one to advance in a content discussion, I don't think it's for us to reimagine the content of any source. With some room for improvement, Phyzome's version is a better and more holistic summary of the study's conclusion. The alternate version, in cherry picking a single sentence, deceives readers as to the content of the source. That said, I do appreciate what I think your intent is here; to guard the dullest of our readers from irrational conclusions. Chetsford (talk) 20:30, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I stand corrected with the fact "inconclusive" was used later in the study, twice no less. --ARoseWolf 20:28, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The full conclusions section reads:

A. Paniculata appears to be beneficial and safe for relieving ARTI symptoms and reducing time to symptom resolution. The evidence is inconclusive due to limited methodological quality of included trials and study heterogeneity. Well-designed trials evaluating effectiveness, efficacy and safety of A. Paniculata as a monotherapy, or as an herbal mixture, as well as exploring its potential to reduce antibiotic prescribing in primary care, are warranted.

That's a pretty clear conclusion that tells me, in no uncertain terms, that we should not be reporting this herb as beneficial for COVID-19 until we have more conclusive evidence. If this is enough, we should also be reporting Ivermectin, Vitamin D, and energy healing as beneficial for COVID-19.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:36, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I think Phyzome's suggested edit is consistent with that view: "A 2017 meta-analysis evaluating Andrographis paniculata to treat acute respiratory tract infections concluded that it was likely safe and beneficial but that the studies reviewed were of poor quality, and better-designed studies should be performed." I would never include Phyzome's suggested edit in a patient treatment pamphlet, but a WP article is an accurate summary of RS and has no role in public safety. "we should not be reporting this herb as beneficial for COVID-19" We should not "report" anything as beneficial for anything. WP is not a journalistic endeavor or a public health campaign. We provide encyclopedic treatments of information gleaned from reliable sources and nothing else. Chetsford (talk) 20:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Chetsford, listen I have great respect for you as an editor and admin. I think your judgment is usually extremely level-headed and sound. (such sentences always come with a "but", don't they?) However, I have to disagree with you here: I would never include Phyzome's suggested edit in a patient treatment pamphlet, but a WP article is an accurate summary of RS and has no role in public safety.

As a medical professional, I am extremely uncomfortable with the notion that we should abrogate responsibility for the impact of our medical content simply because WP shouldn't play a role in anyone's medical decisions. What should and shouldn't be is less important to me than what is, and we have reason to believe that individuals come here to research their health. That's the point of WP:MEDRS, right? To make sure we aren't delivering inaccurate or poorly contextualized material that misleads readers about these extremely important ideas.

MEDRS tells us that we should be following the treatment recommendations of government bodies, treatment recommendations, etc. We should be essentially mirroring that patient pamphlet you've described. Where such information is not available, we should be more cautious about the sources we use. WP:MEDASSESS tells us that unpublished RCTs are less reliable than published ones. From the methods of the 2017 article: This review included published and unpublished randomised controlled trials (RCTs).. MEDASSESS also says: To prevent misunderstanding, the text should clearly identify the level of research cited.

We should be reporting what is said in the RSes, but in particular the fact that Phyzome's edit does not have the word "inconclusive" anywhere in it is extremely troubling in that regard. When the source isn't willing to say that a treatment actually has any benefit, or even that it likely has benefit, then we probably should not be saying it either. "appears to be" is the same sort of hedging that we do on attributed quotes. It's the equivalent of a newspaper saying "alleged." --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:54, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

"As a medical professional, I am extremely uncomfortable with the notion that we should abrogate responsibility for the impact of our medical content simply because WP shouldn't play a role in anyone's medical decisions." I appreciate and empathize with your professional discomfort. The correct way to resolve this would be to advance a change in our policies or guidelines at the Village Pump. Unfortunately, we can't simply ride rough over our policies and guidelines when we feel either personal or professional discomfort with content we read on WP. "We should be reporting what is said in the RSes, but in particular the fact that Phyzome's edit does not have the word "inconclusive" anywhere in it is extremely troubling in that regard." I have no problem, in fact I would support, modifying Phyzome's suggested phrasing to include the fact this is inconclusive. What I don't support is obliterating information that accurately represents the content of a reliable source to resolve individual feelings of personal or professional discomfort. If your objective is to curate information for laypeople to help them make decisions that will lead to the best possible personal health outcomes, there are projects for that [9]. This, however, isn't one of them. "MEDRS tells us that we should be following the treatment recommendations of government bodies, treatment recommendations, etc. We should be essentially mirroring that patient pamphlet you've described. I don't find anything in Phyzome's suggested text that conflicts with the guidance of MEDRS. That said, I disagree with your reading of MEDRS; I don't believe it suggests we should be mirroring a treatment pamphlet. Chetsford (talk) 21:25, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

MEDRS tells us that we should be following the treatment recommendations of government bodies -- surely you don't believe that, as stated. Several government bodies have strongly recommended Andrographis paniculata for COVID-19 (in the absence of any sufficient evidence, in my opinion!) I have never seen anything indicating that Wikipedia has decided to follow the guidance of any one government except where failing to would actually break laws in specific jurisdictions. This is of course tangential to the issue at hand, but this stood out to me enough that I had to ask. -- Phyzome (talk) 22:20, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Phyzome, I mean that we should be following the consensus of such recommendations. But you're right that just because the Indian public health agency says Ivermectin works, doesn't mean we say it. I should clarify to say "Government bodies and professional organizations help us clarify the scientific and medical consensus." Fair? --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:36, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think we're more in alignment, then. My trust in my own government on medical issues has gone through a pretty turbulent year and a half, but I suppose I agree that when there's a broad consensus there, it's not something to ignore. :-) -- Phyzome (talk) 22:41, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm! Thanks for highlighting "inconclusive". It's troubling that a handful of smart people (here in this discussion) are having difficulty in ascertaining the intent of the authors of this review—the purpose of preferring reviews is to make sure the science is understood, but that's apparently not happening here (one way or another). Taking a closer look, « The evidence is inconclusive » in the Conclusions might be mirroring « Our safety findings are inconclusive » in the Safety discussion, whereas the part on efficacy under Summary of Evidence is more boldly stated. I'm no longer happy with either phrasing, and would be happy to do some further wordsmithing. It seems correct to say that there is evidence of efficacy, but no conclusive evidence of safety (despite the phrase I picked up from the Conclusions.) Maybe also throw in something about how COVID-19 was not included in the RTIs that were studied, just to be sure people understand it may not be relevant for this virus. Or... perhaps this source should be removed entirely. Bleagh. -- Phyzome (talk) 21:40, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Those all seem like great ideas and outcomes that would satisfy everyone (I think, if I'm reading this correctly). Minor wording disagreements are best handled on article Talk pages and this is definitely a valuable lesson of the need to utilize a collaborative and discursive approach versus aggressive reverting. Chetsford (talk) 21:55, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

As a general rule of thumb, when a (good) source is using words like "inconclusive" or "poor quality", you should handle the subject gently. Think about "under-promising" as a model, or even sidestep the question of efficacy entirely. "It's been researched for ARTIs" is verifiable, encyclopedic content, and it remains verifiable, encyclopedic content regardless of whether you understand the source as saying "the authors would definitely give this to their beloved family members" or "nobody actually knows, and we wish people would stop running poorly designed studies". Sidestepping efficacy also has the advantage that if the next paper says the opposite, then the statement that research had previously happened continues to be true and verifiable. (The 0.3% of readers who actually want to know more will be able to read the cited source.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:17, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I disagree a bit with Alexbrn and Shibbolethink wrt the "appears" statement. That 'It only "appears" to be because it is an appearance (not a reality)' or '"appears to be" is the same sort of hedging that we do on attributed quotes. It's the equivalent of a newspaper saying "alleged."'. The "Summary of evidence" section is quite solidly pointing towards efficacy based on the available trial results, though there is no such conclusion that safety has been demonstrated. The problem with jumping from "in the trials, patients got better" to simply "it works" or even "it is likely to work", is summarised in the conclusion, that the trials are of "limited methodological quality" and "heterogeneity" prevents us doing any serious meta analysis. The result is much more of a "we don't really know for sure" and not "but we think the trials results are probably wrong" or "we have reason to be suspicious and want to distance ourselves". I'm not sure that WAID's suggestion of merely saying "It's been researched for ARTIs" is going to satisfy the reader, because our failure to offer a conclusion will encourage a reader to make their own conclusions. Those are likely to be "well the doctors wouldn't research it if there wasn't something promising here".

The (current) text seems reasonable, but I would change "the trials reviewed were of poor quality" to something like "the trials conducted and published at that time". The review is systematic, but the existing text might suggest to some readers that the meta-analysis cherry picked low quality trials. -- Colin°^Talk 11:38, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Readers who read the original and make their own conclusions from those originals are not our problem.

And if people think that everything researched is promising, then they need to head over to clinical trials, which, if memory serves, has numbers on just how few (cancer?) patients receive a significant medical benefit from trying out the latest, greatest experimental treatment in trials. In practice, while few are significantly harmed, the trial drugs don't usually perform better than standard treatment, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "read the original". I don't think that an argument that "saying X is likely to mislead a lot of readers" is successfully countered by "well those readers are ignorant and should go educate themselves". We can avoid misleading readers by accurately and fairly summarising the conclusions of the analysis paper, which is presumably the best source we have currently on the state of research wrt that treatment. The doctors who do trials are not stupid and don't want to waste their time and money. They think there is a chance the treatement is helpful. Unlike novel cancer therapies, this is the sort of treatment where people do trials because there is already anecdotal evidence of help, or longstanding use in folk medicine. So the mere fact that there are larger trials is suggestive, and if those trials have failed to provide good evidence of efficacy/safety/consistency then we ned to say that, rather than leaving the suggestion hanging. -- Colin°^Talk 09:06, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

If the Wikipedia article says "There was research", and the readers read the original sources themselves and they decide that the original source says "I should drink a liter of this stuff every day", then the Wikipedia article has not misled them at all. What they decide the sources say is not our problem. We have not misled them in that case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but we don't write articles where the reader has to read the original source to figure out how the story ends. By deliberately choosing not to mention the conclusions of the source, we leave them hanging. There's no other good-faith reason for researching a therapy than that one hopes that it works and have some reason that the hope isn't delusional. You may well be statistically correct about most clinical trials having negative of inconclusive results, but that doesn't change how most non-robots will interpret the fact that research is being done. -- Colin°^Talk 11:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

OTOH, the research on readers interacting with citations indicates that when we provide too little information, they're more likely to look at the refs. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's definitely better than overstating the conclusions, or having editors fight over whether to focus on the more optimistic or the more pessimistic phrases in a sources whose overall feeling is "Would y'all please finally stop doing poorly designed and underpowered trials already?"

I'm not saying that being very restrained is satisfying or fun, but it might be better than the practical alternatives for a question that's seeing more attention in the press than it's seeing well-designed, adequately powered clinical trials. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure why there's even a debate here. An analysis that says something "appears" to be something, but then follows it with "inconclusive" and continues to state that the studies were poorly designed is no better than a review that says "no evidence exists for it". When an analysis specifically calls into question the validity of the studies in it, it does not matter what the studies "appear" to show. Poor quality evidence is no better than no evidence at all for all practical intents and purposes. Something cannot be "likely safe and effective" when there is no evidence at all to suggest that it can be. It is not our job to second guess the conclusions in an analysis that meets MEDRS standards. It is not our place to counter the conclusions present in an analysis simply because our personal reading of the evidence suggests their conclusions are incorrect. The conclusions in this analysis are clear - there is no evidence of sufficient quality to suggest that this treatment is safe or effective. What low quality evidence "appears" to show is irrelevant - WP does not cover what low quality evidence "appears" to show - we cover, when available, what reviews and analyses state about their interpretation of the evidence. We also do not sugarcoat the conclusions in MEDRS analysis articles by attempting to draw our own conclusions about things. Alexbrn is in the right here, and I second Shibbolethink's view that it is quite surprising to see editors who are quite experienced wantonly violating WP:OR by attempting to ignore the clear conclusions in a MEDRS compliant source. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:30, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Berchanhimez, et al, can we please all try harder not to ratchet up tension, especially on covid topics. Accusing editors of deliberate policy violation and bad faith editing isn't warranted here. The analysis and its conclusions may be obvious to some, but wasn't to everyone here. Everyone, as far as I can see, were good-faith trying their best to summarise the results. We all take our biases into this, and that includes for example, a very strong bias at WP:MED against herbal medicine and a zero tolerance approach to dodgy covid remedies. There was a respectful discussion and as far as I can see, consensus agreed with the "inconclusive" summary and that the trials were not of adequate quality. I had a nit pick about wording.

The "summary of evidence" section of the paper does not agree with an interpretation that "there is no evidence at all to suggest...". A different systematic review, that perhaps set a higher quality threshold on study inclusion, might well have reached that conclusion after failing to find any trials or finding only trials with negative results. But that is not this paper, which described the evidence in detail. It uses language like "Findings suggest limited but consistent evidence that" and "Evidence also suggested that" and "has a statistically significant effect in improving". The conclusion also says "beneficial and safe for relieving ARTI symptoms and shortening time to symptom resolution". If there really was "no evidence at all" then the "summary of evidence" section would be much shorter, and they would not have said anything about relieving symptoms or shortening illness in the conclusion. But of course, the paper qualifies this conclusion with "appears to be" and sticks a huge caveat ("However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously" / "The evidence is inconclusive"). And this is vitally important. But it is not at all the same as "there is no evidence at all to suggest..." -- Colin°^Talk 13:16, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Poor quality evidence

It is claimed above that "Poor quality evidence is no better than no evidence at all for all practical intents and purposes." If this was true, and if it was true that western medicine is solidly evidence based, requiring gold-standard research, many therapies in widespread use would not be used at all.

Let's look at one I'm most familiar with: ketogenic diet. This is an extreme diet that treats epilepsy and is effective for some (mainly children) who have failed to get seizure control after trying many anticonvulsant drugs. These children often have profound neurological problems and have many seizures every day. The KD has been used for one hundred years. It is offered by specialist paediatric neurology departments worldwide (European list). It is recommended by national clinical guidelines in Scotland (SIGN), and in England and Wales (NICE), and available on insurance in the USA. And yet, until PMID 18456557 was published in Lancet Neurology in 2008, there were no RCTs on it at all.

But have a look at the Cochrane review 2020. It begins badly with "Ketogenic diets ... have been suggested to" and a qualified "may be beneficial" which very much sound like someone reporting on, hmm, a dodgy folk herbal covid remedy. Their description of the evidence: "We assessed all 13 studies to be at high risk of performance and detection bias, due to lack of blinding. Assessments varied from low to high risk of bias for all other domains. We rated the evidence for all outcomes as low to very low certainty.". And while the paper reports, for example, "Up to 55% of children achieved seizure freedom" and "up to 85% of children achieved seizure reduction", they say "We judged all the evidence described as very low certainty, thus we are very unsure whether the results are accurate."

The Cochrane paper's conclusion "The evidence suggests that KDs could demonstrate effectiveness in children with drug‐resistant epilepsy" sounds alarming like the "appears to be" that folk above said should be read as though it was "not a reality" or being made with air quotes describing what some deluded and hopelessly biased third-party thinks, but not us real scientists. They continue "Due to the associated risk of bias and imprecision caused by small study populations, the evidence for the use of KDs was of low to very low certainty." And yet they finish with "For people who have drug‐resistant epilepsy or who are unsuitable for surgical intervention, KDs remain a valid option." It isn't explained how they reach that conclusion, if the evidence is so poor.

The very algorithmic approach taken by Cochrane reviews has its problems. The authors spend more time encouraging more research to satisfy their algorithm than they do guiding clinical practice. There are other sources written by specialists who give better guidance advice than merely saying it is "a valid option".

One other example: Clobazam, recommended by NICE as one of several options as adjunctive therapy (i.e., a medicine to add if the first anticonvulsant is ineffective on its own). The Cochrane analysis follows the same pattern: we have some evidence of benefit, but the evidence is very low quality.

I'm sure there are many more therapies in widespread use where systematic reviews are highly critical about low quality evidence. -- Colin°^Talk 13:16, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I might not call the problem "bias", but we should expect people's different values and experiences to affect their interpretations. For a sentence like "appears to be beneficial", some of us will focus more on the "appears to be" part, and some of us will focus more on the "beneficial" part. Some people will make a value judgment that weak evidence is not materially different from no evidence; others will not. It might depend on the situation, too: if you've exhausted all treatment options, then weak evidence of benefit might sound pretty great. If you've got lots of proven options, you'd probably make a different choice. High-quality evidence rarely exists for rare diseases, fourth-line treatments, and the optimal treatment of people with multiple medical conditions. Even for something common, like heart failure combined with kidney failure, there's relatively little evidence about how to treat these patients.

There is also a bit of arbitrariness in the scientific process. We have all collectively agreed to say that a drug works with a p-value of 0.049 and doesn't work with a p-value of 0.051. An oncologist told one of my friends that he only recommends treatments that have two positive clinical trials supporting it. Are two tiny trials really better than one large and excellent one? I doubt it – but we all use this sort of heuristic as a first pass. For some of us, for some subjects, our first-line heuristic says that "weak evidence" is better than no evidence, and for some of us, our first-line heuristic says that weak evidence is not that bad.

Experienced editors can usually get past their initial reactions and provide a fuller, more nuanced description of a source (or find other sources!), but that requires time and effort, and nobody can put in that level of time and effort for every single point. It's not bad to have these heuristics. We just need to keep their limits in mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Also, @Biosthmors, I think you'll be interested in the description of this Cochrane paper. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Agree, it is more complicated than just "low quality evidence => might as well not exist" in the real world. We have to watch when we say things with a sort of rigid certainty that sounds great when we're discussing some herbal treatment for covid but falls apart when one examines actual mainstream medicine. The kids on the KD are desperate: constant seizures in infancy and childhood wreck your development. These kids aren't going to spontaneously regress to any mean (no seizures) like folk with sore knees and headaches. And no drug company decides their phase III clinical trials should be on children who have tried and failed on six medicines already, because we know already at that point the chance of another drug having a significant benefit is close to zero. It is this kind of context that the Cochrane paper lacks, leading to an unexplained conclusion. -- Colin°^Talk 18:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

RfC at the Abortion talk-page on the Guttmacher Institute as a source

Two editors objected to the use of the Guttmacher Institute as a sourse for the Abortion article, so I started an RfC on this question, see [10]. Your participation is welcome. NightHeron (talk) 11:39, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@NightHeron, it might be helpful to list the specific sentence(s) being discussed in the RFC (after the signed RFC "question", but before the responses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, Agree that would be helpful, as the discussion is hard to follow for the uninvolved.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:45, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing and Shibbolethink:, Could you clarify what would be helpful? The editors who objected to the use of the Guttmacher Institute did not give specific sentences where they thought it shouldn't be cited. Rather, they objected because the organization has a viewpoint in favor of legalized abortion and because it's extensively cited in the article. There are 5 sentences in the main body where the Guttmacher Institute is mentioned by name, and there are 13 citations to Guttmacher sources (about 5% of all the citations in the article). Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 17:51, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Could you just add some quotes of where the institute is cited (perhaps with {{tq|insert text here}})? That would be helpful to get some context on what specifically the institute is used for and to allow us to evaluate if it is truly uncontroversial info. Sometimes statistics and facts that are normally undisputed become the battleground! The fact that other RSes cite them is of course useful info, though. Thanks--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:55, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I did this for the 5 sentences in which the Guttmacher Institute is named. (There are several more places where it's cited but not named in the text.) NightHeron (talk) 18:50, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @NightHeron. I think that will help. The question is whether this is useful for the places where it's used, so to answer the question, everyone would have to go look up where it's used. Giving them a few examples will save folks some trouble, which should increase the response rate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Acceptable source?

I almost never edit medical articles, but I know that sourcing requirements for them are somewhat idiosyncratic, so I'd appreciate some guidance. Someone stuck a citation-needed tag on Myiasis in this edit, and about 30 seconds of Googling led me to this source. Does the source satisfy WP:MEDRS requirements as an acceptable one? Deor (talk) 17:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi Deor, I took a quick look at your proposed source and see that it is published in 2009. Ideally, as per WP:MEDDATE the goal is to find WP:MEDRS secondary sources that have been published in the past 5 years. Have you look on PubMed? I did a quick search for Maggot therapy and see a 2020 systematic review published in Int J Environ Res Public Health. Does this review share evidence to support the sentence that is tagged? Thanks for helping with this article! JenOttawa (talk) 18:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

In a quick perusal, it doesn't appear to me to support the sentence, as I see no reference to antibiotic resistance in bacteria as a reason for an increase in the use of maggot therapy. Deor (talk) 18:33, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I am sorry that I cannot help more right now. If there are no strong secondary sources to be found then we could consider removing the sentence from the article and post on the article talk page until a source can be found to support the statement. I also noted the use of "lately" in the sentence that could be improved if a source is found. This is just my opinion though, others may have better ideas. Thanks again for sharing this! JenOttawa (talk) 19:28, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The source mentions antibiotic resistance twice. Here's the longer bit: "By the end of the 1980s, antimicrobial resistance was increasingly common, pressure ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers were on the rise, and conventional wound care was noticeably inadequate for an increasing number of recalcitrant wounds. This was the backdrop for a series of research questions: How would maggot therapy compare to modern wound care treatments? Why was MDT now used only as a “last resort”?¹² Should MDT be used earlier in the course of treatment, especially if it compared favorably to conventional therapy?"

The statement is probably true, but could probably be improved a bit. doi:10.12968/jowc.2020.29.Sup2c.S28 indicates that the primary uses are diabetic ulcers and non-healing wounds infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and that might be a more pointful and precise thing to say. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

"Noom"

Noom is an article on an " app for tracking a person's food intake and exercise habits.". Normally, I wouldn't consider this medicine in the strict sense, but the article talks about its use in conjunction with the diabetes medicine Saxenda in cooperation with the manufacturer of that prescription medicine. Does this need MEDRS quality sources? I'd appreciate it if someone could take a look there --I'd rather not deal with it. DGG ( talk ) 06:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing has written a lot recently about this kind of topic and what is/isn't MEDRS (e.g., Wikipedia:Biomedical information). IMO most of the article doesn't need MEDRS quality sources. That includes the statement about CDC recognition, though we need to be very careful that this sort of approval statement is worded accurately and the scope and limitations explained. It also includes the free-subscription given to those on Saxenda. But the claim about weight loss, while written in a manner that is verifiable to the primary source research study, is still effectively making a weight loss medical claim to our readers. As such, I think the sourcing is inappropriate and a more encyclopaedic sentence would use secondary sources or clinical guidelines to say whether the app really was associated with weight loss, and perhaps also the persistency of weight loss (which is an issue with all diet/programs). The primary source study is very poor quality, though I do appreciate it isn't really possible to blind an app usage, there are no controls and there is quite a degree of selection of included users. -- Colin°^Talk 07:59, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

That's essentially what I thought. There's another study with the same app in Open Diabetes [11] ; at the very least this should be referred to also. (that's not even a MEDRS problem, but basic WP:V) The best review seems to be J Am Diet Assoc. 2011 Jan; 111(1): 92–102.[12]. which indicates a wide variation in assigning control groups--though most of the reported papers were with paper recording and I could not find a report comparing different apps, (nor is the existence of other apps mentioned in the WP article). I'm most concerned with the final sentence, the use in conjunction with Saxenda , which is based only on a press release. DGG ( talk ) 18:08, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Feedback requested at proposal to extend "Find sources" functionality

There is a proposal at Village Pump about extending the functionality of template {{Find sources}} to facilitate the use of {{Find medical sources}} on Talk page headers of articles, as well as in other templates. Your feedback would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to improve customization of Template:Find sources. Thank you. Mathglot (talk) 23:47, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Announcing new template Find medical sources

Hi everyone. Just a heads-up to announce the creation of new template {{Find medical sources}} (alias: {{Find medrs}}), intended for use on Talk pages. It always bothered me that we didn't have a template more geared to WP:MEDRS than the very general results generated by {{find sources}} . If you look at the built-in "find sources" links in the Talk header of Talk:Myelodysplastic syndrome for example, with the exception of the JSTOR and Scholar links there, the results are really not that helpful.

I thought we could do a lot better; hence, the new template. Here's the output for {{find medrs|myelodysplastic syndrome}}, for example:
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL I'm looking for feedback at the Talk page, such as bugs, links that don't belong, or other links that should be there, or ordering them differently, and so on. Please add your thoughts about improvements, changes, additions, etc. at Template talk:Find medical sources. (There's one known bug involving the Cochrane link; see the TP.) Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 01:55, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The follow-up plan, once the new template stabilizes, is to make a change to template {{Talk header}} that you see at the top of most Talk pages, so that instead of generating the lukewarm {{find sources}} links at the top of the Talk page on medical articles, we can opt for the new medrs links instead. Before I do that, though, I wanted to poll folks here to see if that's something you'd like to see. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 03:00, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

This is extremely useful, thank you!--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:04, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Note: if you wish to place this template on an article Talk page in a standard tmbox (those tan, standardized boxes that go at the top of Talk pages) then you can use {{medrs box}}. For example: {{medrs box|myelodysplastic syndrome}} ⟶

Note that if the Talk page already has a {{Talk header}} template at the top of the page, then you may not need to add {{medrs box}} as depending on the outcome of this discussion at the Village Pump, the Talk header template should automatically include it. Mathglot (talk) 22:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Not sure how to handle this article full of dubious claims

Valerie Austin appears to be a notable person. The article is very promotional, and full of claims of medical results from self-hypnosis.

Short of applying WP:TNT and putting far more time and research into a ground-up rewrite than I'm interested in ... how does one mark such articles for attention of the interested and knowledgeable?

I added a {{More medical citations needed}} as my first guess of what to do with one of these. More ideas welcomed - David Gerard (talk) 08:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I would agree with your first point WP:TNT--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:22, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I actually don't know if I agree that they are WP:GNG, because a lot of these references do not appear independent of the source (i.e. many appear to be promotional ads). But certainly agree WP:TNT is the only remaining option if the article is to be kept.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:47, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Stubbifying might be quicker. I've tried to remove some of the WP:PEACOCK problems twice now, and every time I look at it, it seems worse than I remembered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

second opinion needed on clozapine article

Editor ARMILLARIA.9 has been adding questionable content to the clozapine article. The editor is adding what I believe to be poorly sourced and non-neutral content about clozapine use on non-compliant patients. It seems to be turning into an edit war at this rate, can I get more pairs of eyes on this?--Megaman en m (talk) 14:27, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

You know I've actually done a ton of research into clozapine recently! Would love to come help.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:47, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Saturated Fat, shifting consensus, Cardiovascular disease (CVD), and general health

Hey All! I just searched the project medicine archives for saturated fat and saw that it's been nearly 10 years since the available evidence has been reviewed. With that in mind, taking a look at the Saturated Fat entry, there appears to be some authoritative statements based on a combination of older meta-analyses and literature reviews, like the 2017 Cochrane Collaboration review, as well as certain statements from government-issued dietary guidelines that do not reflect the newest and best research.
These data point to a shifting consensus on the extremely nuanced relationship between saturated fat, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and health more generally. These sources were aquired via Pubmed advanced search specifying saturated fat and reviews, meta analyses, or systematic reviews in the past five years:
1. "The effects of fat consumption on low-density lipoprotein particle size in healthy individuals: a narrative review"
2. "Dietary saturated fat intake and risk of stroke: Systematic review and dose–response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies"
3. "Dietary total fat, fatty acids intake, and risk of cardiovascular disease: a dose-response meta-analysis of cohort studies"
4. (MDPI) "Fat, Sugar, Whole Grains and Heart Disease: 50 Years of Confusion"
5. "Intake of saturated and trans unsaturated fatty acids and risk of all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies" - As a side note this general practitioner sums up landscape quite well in the "responses" section in my opinion. They write: - " This debate is unlikely to be concluded soon. Everyone has a strong view either way and the usual suspects are wading into the debate with the usual dogma on both sides. What is of concern is that 50 years of dietary advice is under scrutiny despite thousands of articles all published under peer review. It is to some degree surprising that fat intake seems to have been isolated from food intake in general. Please correct me if I am wrong but isn't it the case that any excess carbohydrate is converted to triglyceride then sent round the body as LDL? And isn't the content of that triglyceride saturated fat? So is it sugar or fat? What is completely clear is that the dietary guidelines we have today are not leading to healthy outcomes judged by the incidence of obesity and diabetes. We need to forget about diets for all and concentrate on personalised care. The technology is available."
6. "Saturated Fats and Health:A Reassessment and Proposal for Food-Based Recommendations" - The editors against using this source cite conflict of interest and Nina Teicholz who I was unfamiliar with before reading her Wikipedia entry, but I am of the opinion that a better cause is needed to completely disregard a recent review like this if it has not been retracted or otherwise debunked by another MEDRS source. Per our own entry the Journal of the American College of Cardiology seems controversy free and of high quality and I cannot find any issues with using it in the archives of the reliable sources board.

I do not believe that these would qualify as authoritative MEDRS sources on their own (although per MEDRS they do carry some weight), but they do seem to reinforce the idea that the consensus is changing and are NIH newsletters that cite subject matter experts and recent science.
1. "Dr. Ronald Krauss on Dietary Fat" - According to some editors Dr Ronald Krauss has a conflict of interest because of his past employment however I believe a case needs to be made against the reliability of his expertise and research rather than simply dismissing them all collectively if you believe this is the case.
2. "The Skinny on Fat, The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown". - Dr.Alice_H._Lichtenstein is quoted in the primary paragraphs and she is a dignified researcher and her section leads to a quote from Dr. Krauss elaborating that the relationship between carbohydrate, calories, and saturated fat is complicated. The entry goes on to further state that both Krauss and Lichenstein are currently actively studying the gut microbiome in relation to dietary fats. It also has a quote from Dr. Frank Sacks, "a nutrition expert at Harvard University" who appears to have been involved in research regarding the DASH diet.

At minimum, we could acknowledge that the scientific community's understanding of saturated fat is evolving. Please note that I am not advocating for a particular diet, fad, or other fringe idea. But our article posits a concrete causal relationship between saturated fat and adverse health outcomes that is not supported by the preponderance of evidence. To cite a recent example, an editor created a section on the talk page with the intention of adding a meta-analysis of relatively weak epidemiological studies linking saturated-fat intake with accelerating cognitive decline in patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases. These studies relied on self-reported intake of saturated fat, a notoriously unreliable method of data collection. I am not even against the claim per se and obviously nutritional health articles on Wikipedia are subject to mostly using epidemiological research per MEDRS, but my bigger issue with it is that the editor putting it forward is the same one ferociously challenging any and all data they do not seem to agree with while also acknowledging the article is in desperate need of a re-write with new more recent sourcing while simultaneously being willing to add information to the entry as if our understanding of Alzheimer's is not in its infancy. Even on the article for Alzheimer's on Wikipedia it says something much more reasonable and science based: "Diet is seen to be a modifiable risk factor for the development of dementia. The Mediterranean diet, and the DASH diet are both associated with less cognitive decline. A different approach has been to incorporate elements of both of these diets into one known as the MIND diet.[155] These diets are generally low in saturated fats while providing a good source of carbohydrates, mainly those that help stabilize blood sugar and insulin levels.[156] Those who eat a diet high in saturated fats and simple carbohydrates (mono- and disaccharide) have a higher risk.[157]".

MDPI per past reliable source noticeboard discussions and academic projects pages has both advocates and critics and its fair share of controversies and at this time appears to be valid on a case by case basis only so please keep that in mind. I will tag MDPI sources with text to identify them and save time. These are all meta analyses or reviews from the past 5 years. I found all of these via PubMed with an advanced search targeting meta analyses, reviews, and systematic reviews in the past 5 years per MEDRS.

Thank you! FrederickZoltair (talk) 22:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately FrederickZoltair likes to argue against the scientific consensus and make up a false balance. This user does not understand epidemiology or causality and has resorted to pasting in chunks and chunks of material from random Google and pubmed searches. I have assumed good faith for a long time and tried to explain this to him but he does not listen. You can see the lengthy copy and pasted material he has been putting over at the saturated fat talk-page - it is totally outrageous [13]. He's admitted to going onto pubmed and Google scholar and searching for fat or "saturated fat", he then copies and pastes loads and loads of irrelevant studies onto the talk-page which are not even about this subject. When he is questioned about this he says he is following MEDRS. This is not the case because what he is doing fits the very definition of spam because much of what he has cited on the talk-page is not on topic. Wikipedia talk-pages should not be used as dumping grounds. He copied and pasted about 20 studies, 16 of which were not about saturated fat. I commented on that here [14], this is totally unacceptable behavior. I don't object to the listing of studies but copying and pasting hundreds of pieces of text is over the top. The user needs to calm down and not just cite anything he can find on Google.

FrederickZoltair says that he does not accept "associations" from studies because they are not "direct evidence" and they should not be put onto the Wikipedia article or used in medicine, so when he is given a reliable meta-analysis of cohort studies that show saturated fat increases CVD or dementia risk he dismisses it as 'shaky' and 'unreliable', yet all of the studies he links to himself are meta-analyses of cohort studies (he's even linking to observational studies above) that make associations. When this is pointed out to him he does not reply. He also cites unreliable journals such as MDPI which he admits will not be used on Wikipedia but he repeatedly cites it anyway. He also cites food industry funded research like Ronald Krauss who has been personally funded by the dairy industry (National Dairy Council) and Robert Atkins foundation [15] (as pointed out by @RBut:). FrederickZoltair says that he is following MEDRS but he obviously isn't. There are more experienced editors than me with all of this so maybe @Alexbrn: or @Zefr: can weigh in because they have already commented on the saturated fat talk-page. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Psychologist Guy, I don't have much to add but I very much agree with your assessment here. Something seemed fishy, and what FrederickZoltair has said here conflicts with much of what I know from my own reading of the literature and from my medical school education on the topic. From my reading of the sources he's citing, they do not support the statements he is making about the scientific consensus. I am trying very hard to AGF, but it definitely looks more like the user is drawing conclusions, and then finding MEDRS to fit those conclusions, rather than the other way around.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:30, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (this will be my fourth denial of such an accusation), I am not the user or sock puppet that Psychologist Guy thinks I am nor has his claim been verified even though he has made it twice and still has not requested a checkuser (and furthermore based on what evidence?). I have written my opinions here and justified them with what are in my opinion reasonable arguments and did not even mention Mr. Guy other than his claims regarding Alzheimer's that do not match up with even what our own entry about it says itself and I left out his username. The idea that I regularly go against scientific consensus is laughable (which is it am I new and need to learn, or do I have a history of making disruptive anti scientific consensus edits and if the latter please link me to where?) The rest of this is not worth responding to as it will only lead to the same fighting that has plagued the entry as it stands now and this is all conjecture based on....what exactly? I am tired of pissing contests and people assuming intent about my actions and justifying it with assumptions (which is not an uncommon move for topics the fringe theory crowd seem to patrol). Some of these archives here regarding this subject go back [https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_18#Saturated_fat_dispute ten years detailing how the landscape on Wikipedia has not changed much in regards to Saturated fat. How could it be possible a terribly controversial topic like this (everywhere, not just on Wikipedia) has only somehow become stronger in favor of a single position in spite more research than ever being performed? How can evidence exists that questions this link and calls for more research that acknowledges the complexity of the various involved fields and simultaneously not exist and be fringe? I also forgot to mention that at no point was Google or Scholar used in any capacity. I provided the search I used as a link directly above to Pubmed as per the guide at MEDRS said to and also provided that same information to Mr. Guy. This is all very tiring FrederickZoltair (talk) 01:10, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

To address one point in particular: "What is of concern is that 50 years of dietary advice is under scrutiny despite thousands of articles all published under peer review. It is to some degree surprising that fat intake seems to have been isolated from food intake in general. Please correct me if I am wrong but isn't it the case that any excess carbohydrate is converted to triglyceride then sent round the body as LDL? And isn't the content of that triglyceride saturated fat? So is it sugar or fat? What is completely clear is that the dietary guidelines we have today are not leading to healthy outcomes judged by the incidence of obesity and diabetes." - a quote from a PCP in a rapid response to a BMJ article. This is very misleading and misapplied in the context of this discussion. For one, the evidence we have about saturated fat intake and health outcomes is of a robust character, based on epidemiology. You assess what people eat, then you assess their health outcomes. Controlling for basically everything else, saturated fat is bad for you. This is what the highest quality sources say.

Examples of high quality WP:MEDRSes:

Cochrane collab review in 2020. "The findings of this updated review suggest that reducing saturated fat intake for at least two years causes a potentially important reduction in combined cardiovascular events...The reduction in combined cardiovascular events resulting from reducing saturated fat did not alter by study duration, sex or baseline level of cardiovascular risk, but greater reduction in saturated fat caused greater reductions in cardiovascular events." Ann Rev Nutrition in 2015. "The effects of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk are modulated by the nutrients that replace them and their food matrices. Replacement of SFAs with polyunsaturated fatty acids has been associated with reduced CVD risk, although there is heterogeneity in both fatty acid categories. In contrast, replacement of SFAs with carbohydrates, particularly sugar, has been associated with no improvement or even a worsening of CVD risk" Ann Int Med in 2011. "This expert panel reviewed the evidence and reached the following conclusions: the evidence from epidemiologic, clinical, and mechanistic studies is consistent in finding that the risk of CHD is reduced when SFAs are replaced with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)."

Statements of professional bodies and government organizations:

American Heart Association: "The American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fats – which are found in butter, cheese, red meat and other animal-based foods. Decades of sound science has proven it can raise your “bad” cholesterol and put you at higher risk for heart disease." Presidential Review from the AHA: "Taking into consideration the totality of the scientific evidence, satisfying rigorous criteria for causality, we conclude strongly that lowering intake of saturated fat and replacing it with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats, will lower the incidence of CVD. This recommended shift from saturated to unsaturated fats should occur simultaneously in an overall healthful dietary pattern such as DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) or the Mediterranean diet as emphasized by the 2013 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology lifestyle guidelines and the 2015 to 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans." Medline Plus: Too much saturated fat in your diet can lead to heart disease and other health problems." The NHS: "Current UK government guidelines advise cutting down on all fats and replacing saturated fat with some unsaturated fat." Australian health authority: "Eating greater amounts of saturated fat is linked with an increased risk of heart disease and high blood cholesterol levels"

etc etc. It really matters What you're replacing SFAs with. Lots of studies have poor methodology in this respect. The Cochrane Collab is extremely authoritative on this. We know that saturated fatty acids are, in and of themselves, associated with cardiac risk.

The OP says: "there appears to be some authoritative statements based on a combination of older meta-analyses and literature reviews, like the 2017 Cochrane Collaboration review, as well as certain statements from government-issued dietary guidelines that do not reflect the newest and best research." We are beholden to MEDRS in this regard, which tells us to trust these highest quality sources and government evidence reviews, even if newer or shinier research contradicts. That's the consensus on MEDRS, and it's what we must follow in these medical articles. The OP appears to misunderstand this point, as they also misunderstood it in other contexts like Ivermectin re: COVID-19.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:52, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I will leave others to respond to the scientific claims since you seem to want to focus on me, but it is nice you are actually looking at some of the links even if you ignore their content in favor of going over a statement I did not make myself (and the statement I listed seemed very fair and neutral to me which I mostly in line with how I feel regarding the subject). However it is extremely disingenuous to file me under Ivermectin quacks, or vaguely associate me with Covid quackery (I have been vaccinated for several months) crowd especially given I have never participated in edits to the Ivermectin article or its talk page. The controversy you refer to was in regards to Bret Weinstein who I continuously denied to be a fan of (even though the accusations flew just as loosely as they do here) and also defended on that talk page also with many reasonable points. You also casually leave out how I made no edits to Weinstein's article other than undoing vandalism and clarifying reverts on one users talk page who tried to sneak a change in before the NPOV or Reliable source noticeboards concluded (the NPOV noticeboard I created, mind you) while simultaneously attempting to foster change via consensus on the talk page and encouraging others to participate which as of this writing appears to have stuck and the changes I thought were unduly weighted and others agreed with on the noticeboard were qualified. FrederickZoltair (talk) 02:09, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

FrederickZoltair, I did not call you a quack or say anything about you re: vaccines, conspiracy theories, etc. I am simply asserting that you are not interpreting MEDRS in line with consensus re: how it applies to weighing different forms of evidence.

I leave it up to others to read the comments you have made at Talk:Bret Weinstein, see: [[16]] (search for FrederickZoltair and also 24.23.4.56, the IP user was formerly editing under). I think you are trying extremely hard to be a good editor, and I appreciate that. I think your head is in the right place. My only quibble is that you are not following MEDRS/RS in areas that are contentious and in which these guidelines appear to conflict with a vocal minority viewpoint. The appropriate essays would be: WP:YWAB, WP:NOTTRUTH. And I find this infographic is often very helpful. We are biased towards the majority scientific viewpoint, and towards what authoritative and government sources say. Wikipedia is not meant to depict "truth" but instead a very conservative view of what is "verifiable" about the world. In these contexts, that means that some controversy is unfortunately not captured in the fullest possible light. But, in my opinion (and that of the consensus of wikipedia editors), this is better than the alternative.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:21, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

That is about as fair a shake as I can ask for so while I still disagree I appreciate your willingness to assume good faith. Thank you. As a side note, since you seem to want to offer up evidence of my comment history, here is one of the more recent comments made by Mr. Guy and I find your casual dismissal of his behavior and a focus on mine a little unfair: "Unfortunately, you are not competent to be discussing this topic this explains why above you were citing studies on PUFAS and fish oil, you probably didn't even know what PUFAS means. I have been researching these topic for 20 years and I have only scratched the surface. I have given you two links there so you can learn about causation and epidemiology as you need to learn the basics because you contradict yourself repeatedly on this topic. You have done some Google searching and spammed in some quackery, it does not make you an expert on this topic. Based on what I have seen you have no constructive edits on this website and your account is very likely to be a sock-puppet. If you continue to use this talk-page to dump off-topic or fringe material I will report your account at the admin board." Can you imagine why our exchanges have not been pleasant? FrederickZoltair (talk) 03:07, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki policies are to quote authoritative bodies for medical article, these bodies are claiming you should lower saturated fat intake and to keep it at a low level. Some authoritative bodies such as the AHA (American Heart Association) point out flaws in specific studies, which are used in systematic reviews and meta analysis as their main evidence to suggest the link is not so evident. What would be the point to then ignore the authoritative bodies and quote these misleading conclusions from some of the meta analysis that contain these flawed studies as their main evidence to suggest no association? it would simply be misleading people and suggesting a link that is evident, might not be so evident. As a personal note, I have no idea what the point is buying into this narrative. It's not going to do you any favors long term. RBut (talk) 03:23, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Surely, however where does it say that peer reviewed data that meets the other standards listed should not be included if guidelines or a position statement from a health authority exist or vice versa? In fact I would argue that you cannot have one without the other. Nowhere am I advocating for removal of information other than that which uses sources older than five years or otherwise is no longer valid. In addition the policies aim to enable representation of all non-fringe viewpoints that have reputable sourcing. Does the JACC not strike as you reputable? Where is the reliable medical source debunking it? The review it published exists, JACC has an insanely high impact factor, it is recent, and by all accounts has not been retracted. I do not believe that simply saying everything I have cited here is junk science with ties to an industry is a valid argument and furthermore It says at the top of MEDRS: "Cite reviews, don't write them." As far as what "narrative" I am buying into, I am unsure of what you mean as I follow health recommendations per the dietary guidelines for americans with tweaks that I find work best for me personally in addition to exercise and regular doctor visits and blood-work. As I stated above the ideal resolution here is merely toning down the authoritativeness of the article and acknowledging some of the newer data and quotes from experts in the field like Dr Alice Lichtenstein who is quoted in the second NIH newsletter I linked and also has been a core part of informing the dietary guidelines for americans since the early 2000's from what I can find and as recently as 2015 and since then has been working on nutrition and gut biome research as it relates CVD. FrederickZoltair (talk) 04:09, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Why should Wiki take the lead in listing such information, assuming it is accurate, when these bodies have not done so? I feel like we should assume this fringe theory is inaccurate, rather than present it as credible, it's basis relies on a single scientist and a review in JACC.

You should check the AHA review, "AHA presidential advisory on dietary fats and CVD" and scroll down to the section where they have analyzed prominent studies that other meta analysis rely on to conclude a consistency is not present. If the review in JACC relies on these studies, which I'm fairly positive it does, it would not make sense to represent it. It would be presenting something that consists of studies with flawed methodologies (according to the AHA).

I did not bring up source of funding, this is your argument with somebody else. But the fact that the AHA has sponsors from industries that sell foods with high saturated fat content (pork, beef, chicken industries) and has some of the strictect saturated fat standards I have seen from a health body (the AHA recommends no more than 5 - 6% of total calories from saturated fat), speaks volumes as to how consistent the science is (when it is designed in a way that is able to study the question). RBut (talk) 10:09, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

The JAAC review is not a reliable source and it was part of a workshop presentation hosted by Nina Teicholz's group. This review has been discussed many times on Wikipedia in multiple places. I don't think we all need to go into too much detail again but just so we all know what we are talking about, this is the JAAC review [17]. It is a heavy food industry based study. I would go as far as calling it propaganda for the beef and dairy industry. The conclusions of the paper telling people to eat more red meat, more chocolate and more whole-fat dairy are in direct contradiction to every public health or medical organization. If you go to the bottom of the paper it was funded by the European Milk Foundation, National Cattlemens's Beef Association, Dakota Beef Council, Dairy Farmers of Canada, National Dairy Council and many others. One of the authors has received royalties for books on "ketogenic diets" and funding from Atkins Nutritional. One of the authors Ronald Krauss was funded by the Dairy Management. This goes on and on, it is like reading a whos who of the dairy and beef industry. There is massive conflict of interest here. It's been shown that food industry backed research gives the results that the funders want [18]. Why would we cite this on Wikipedia? I would also note that various users have already discussed this paper many times on the saturated fat talk-page but FrederickZoltair still insists it is a reliable source. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Not insisting, I am offering up data based on what is published from reliable journals, is recent, and has not been retracted. This is an opinion, and it does not overrule policy here (Cite reviews do not write them) or peer reviewed research published by the JACC or any other reliable journal nor warrant inclusion or exclusion based on it. Furthermore the policy directly says: "Several formal systems exist for assessing the quality of available evidence on medical subjects.[12][13] Here, "assess evidence quality" essentially means editors should determine the appropriate type of source and quality of publication. Respect the levels of evidence: Do not reject a high-level type of source (e.g., a meta-analysis) in favor of a source from lower levels of evidence (e.g., any primary source) because of personal objections to the inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, or conclusions in the higher-level source. Editors should not perform detailed academic peer review." FrederickZoltair (talk) 18:03, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

My mistake, you called Dr. Krauss into question for funding not the JACC. Wikipedia in this context is not going to be breaking a story or "taking the lead" as you put it or lending credibility to fringe ideas. I find this consistent characterization that this information is on the very edge of fringe to be extremely disingenuous (Do NIH newsletters publish fringe information, do the JACC?). Fringe would be magnet therapy or some other whacka-dack-doodle crap that not only has no presence in reputable science journals, but relies on tricks to peddle products. That is not the case here at all. This may seem counter-intuitive, but reading into links between position statements and studies separated by years and inserting narrative where none exists especially when the presidential advisory was published in 2017 and the JACC review came out in 2020 is reading into their relationship, no? Presumably, any reliable journal like the JACC would be aware of the landscape as it existed at the time of publishing, and be aware of the presidential advisory and the AHA guidelines and take that into account when validating the work being submitted and the claims. Did the AHA say the JACC review is questionable? No, how could it and if it was the case why have they not responded to it directly in the past year? Did the JACC or the peer review process reject or retract the review? No. Are you going to comb through the entry as it is (and furthermore Wikipedia at large) that lists any possible study as part of larger epidemiological reviews (in a field that relies majorly on epidemiology for its evidence) that has been found to use questionable methodology or unreliable data collection like self reported surveys and remove or qualify the parent study? Probably not, and I would not expect you to because that is insane and completely out of bounds of our role here per policy as editors. The observation that the AHA receives industry funding from companies that make high fat products and persists with low fat recommendations in spite of it is not evidence of a lack of influence or scientific purity, it is an assumption and also fails to account for the fact that many industry companies peddle a large number of "low fat" foods loaded with corn syrup as a replacement and do so happily because the United States as an example subsidizes meat and corn production heavily so its a win-win for them regardless of what the AHA or really anyone says. Furthermore they get to claim that "we support the AHA" or advertise how low fat their "low fat candy (see the top left of package)" or how Vitamin Water is essentially soda but deceptively advertised as healthy (as is gatorade), or how Nutella got sued and lost for not acknowledging both the high calorie, fat, and sugar content in their advertising. Why are Dr. Krauss's statements, research, and credibility called into question for the same reason, but the entirety of the AHA which is beholden to the public and has to manage the same public perceptions as the WHO and CDC who are currently embroiled in COVID recommendation controversy, not? Simple logic dictates they would be more vulnerable as a larger organization staffed by thousands to external influence (monetary and social), not less. Note this is not a call or evidence of any type of ridiculous conspiracy or association with one, merely an unfortunate side effect of polarizing health research and guidelines over time in a capitalist world in my opinion. Big ships turn slowly and in this case with obesity at an all time high in developed countries does it not surprise you there is contrary research and opinions calling for more rapid shifting of perceptions? Saying many health authorities guidelines recommend a diet low in saturated fat, AND saying that the relationship is more complicated than was previously understood (the entry now says the relationship is causal) is not paradoxical or fringe or undue FrederickZoltair (talk) 17:42, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Journals have no reason to retract food industry funded research, they would only retract it if the authors failed to disclose their conflict of interests and funders. I have not seen any detailed response to the JAAC review. I dont think any user would object to citing papers co-authored by Dr. Krauss but only if they are not being funded by Atkins or the beef or dairy industry. Krauss was co-author of the 2020 [19] European Atherosclerosis Society Consensus Panel which undoubtedly showed that Low-density lipoproteins cause atherosclerosis. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Are you saying his opinions (as quoted by the NIH for example) are overridden by the results of scientific research he contributes to that happen to conclude the opposite? Would that not in fact prove he maintains an evidence based outlook rather than the opposite if he contributes work to studies with completely contrary conclusions as a reputable scientist would? It would also be ideal to let people represent their own opinions and not dictate them based on association or assumption. FrederickZoltair (talk) 21:31, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

FrederickZoltair, The relevant policy would be: WP:MEDRS#Sponsored_supplements: "Symposia and supplements to academic journals are often (but far from always) unacceptable sources. They are commonly sponsored by industry groups with a financial interest in the outcome of the research reported...Such shill articles do not share the reliability of their parent journal,[15] being essentially paid ads disguised as academic articles."

From the paper: "The evidence discussed in this paper has been presented by the authors during the Expert Workshop “Saturated Fat and Health: A Nutrient or Food Approach?” held in February 2020 in Washington, DC." and goes on to describe a funding COI list longer than any I have ever seen, filled with more questionable funding sources than any list I have ever seen. A list of companies and non-profits who want the ideas in this paper to be official guidance.

Interpreting this funding statement in line with that MEDRS guideline is why we disregard it as not useful. And yes, absolutely it is important for Wikipedia editors to do this kind of analysis to help determine if a source is reliable. That's why it's an official policy.

And per the hierarchy of evidence, this paper does not rank very high. It is not a systematic review of meta-analyses. It is not a meta-analysis of RCTs. It is not a treatment guideline from a professional or government regulatory body. It does not in any way overrule the high level of evidence we have in favor of the scientific consensus.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:22, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Why are you or anyone that does not belong to the journal or peer review process "interpreting this funding statement?" and then using your interpretation to make claims the JACC have not regarding the validity of the claims, and based on what evidence? Where is the basis for that claim and what is your desire to interpret disclosures rooted in besides opinion? If studies are subject to this level of scrutiny by editors, why does the policy indicate that we take published works from reliable journals at face value, and why is that consistent with past consensus discussions on the reliable sources noticeboard? This quote appears to be the consensus: "We cannot question the conclusions of a study based on our analysis of the data, per Wikipedia:No original research. If the conclusions are wrong, then we expect either a correction from the authors and publisher or cricicism of the report in the literature." So, unless there is reason not to take this study at face value (actual factual reasons the policy goes on to list like shilling, subverting peer review, or deceptive practices etc) then why aren't we? Secondly, the funding/supplement claim is a bit of reach anyway. The declaration is serving its function as intended in disclosing its funding relationships for the involved authors, so we should ignore it because of those same funding relationships its disclosing based on personal opinions of them (or their length which is wholly irrelevant)? Does that not seem circular and in direct violation of the policy I quoted above and past consensus on the noticeboard? How do you even qualify a claim like that to not sound ridiculous when there are dozens of organizations involved (one of the disclosure lines says "70 other sources (government and pharmaceutical).") tracking relationships that potentially go back years involving locations all over the world? For example the disclosures mention the European Milk Foundation and Dairy Farmers of Canada and the National Dairy Council with regards to two separate authors. Are they colluding somehow? Do you see how that quickly becomes unreasonable? Why is this industry funding inherently bad with regards to the JACC study, but industry funding the AHA for example receives is inherently good and unworthy of the same skepticism? The disclosure also says: The sponsors had no role in preparing or reviewing the manuscript before submission. and All other authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose. I should also note that the policy you linked me to says and I quote: "One 2017 Open Payments study of influential US medical journals found half of the editors received payments from industry;[37] another study that used a different sample of editors reported two-thirds.[38]". Industry funding is part of peer review and academia which is why disclosing relationships is important, but it is not a guarantee of anything. Finally, MEDRS lists all three types of research as valid types of evidence, and because its not one of the other two types it is invalid? The paper itself refers to itself as a review and I see no declaration of it being a supplement indicating it is one nor is historically the JACC associated with shillery or anything but the highest quality of evidence. If even half of the skepticism being employed here against this one study (of the several I linked) was applied to the entry as it is now, it would be of significantly higher quality than it is now. FrederickZoltair (talk) 21:31, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

FrederickZoltair, The reason the COIs matter in the case of this paper, but not the AHA, is that this paper is saying things that are directly counter to the prevailing scientific opinion on this topic, in a way that furthers the interests of the funders. With the AHA, who is benefitting from their recommendation? Big Vegan? Big Tofu? Because the Texas Beef Council certainly isn't. It's absurd to think that a COI is an issue when the recommendation doesn't even benefit the funder. It only matters when incentives are aligned. (to be clear, I was being facetious, even if there is such a thing as "Big Vegan", they do not sponsor the AHA [20]).--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:41, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I did not say COI does not exist or that it does not sometimes affect research or have sinister motivations (Operation Berkshire for example), I said just because industry money is involved is not conclusive proof of anything and alleging that there is ill intent because of "how obvious" it seems to you or any other motivations you posit onto the study or its authors about alleged benefits or profits is conjecture and has no place here. I also note you completely ignored the prior consensus via noticeboard, my policy quotes that indicate tearing down the study to this degree is unwarranted, and the supplement study that indicates half or two thirds of research in reliable journals receives industry funding.FrederickZoltair (talk) 22:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

FrederickZoltair, at this point, we are approaching WP:CPUSH territory, just as it appears you have approached it in the past. Consensus is against you here, as it was in the talk page of the article. I am sorry that others do not agree with your position. We are under no obligation to satisfy your requests for further engagement/explanation. Good luck, I hope you find what you're looking for on Wikipedia, but I also hope it's in line with how the project is supposed to function. If I can give you one last piece of advice, it would be to read WP:1AM and WP:WALLOFTEXT and then consider why it is that your arguments have been unsuccessful in a few different places on wiki. I will no longer be responding. Have a nice day.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Seriously? It is not your role to make comments like this or wind down a noticeboard post that has been open less than 24hrs because you feel like it. I am not on trial here and the majority of the comments by you and Mr. Guy have been character assassinations. I have responded courteously to all participants and backed up my arguments with policy and links to prior consensus that you have neglected to acknowledge or reply to and continue to offer up opinions and assumptions and overly broad reads on selective policies. I am the one that created the noticeboard and Mr. Guy and I were the only ones active at Saturated Fat so it tracks that I would be responding to many of the comments directly. FrederickZoltair (talk) 22:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello, new folks. To clarify something that's not obvious, this page isn't a noticeboard. It's a page where discussions happen among a particular group of editors. The group's purpose is to work together to improve Wikipedia. If we (the group, not one individual) decide that a conversation is substantially interfering with the group's purpose, then, yes, we can invite you to carry on your arguments elsewhere. I really hope that we don't reach that point; I think it's only happened a handful of times in the last 15 years, and it'd be a shame to do it over this. I'd much rather than you'd all stay here and help out.

In terms of the content dispute, it might be helpful to think about what you would expect the article to say if it were written by an average, run-of-the-mill healthcare provider, vs what you would expect the article to say if it were written by the most up-to-date, well-informed, evidence-based expert. You wouldn't really expect those to be the same, right? And now for the illusion-shattering truth: Of those two options, Wikipedia wants the first one, not the good one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest FrederickZoltair to either accept the consensus or to open a dispute resolution request. Because his arguments are not convincing to other editors, mainly because they go against the recommendations of health bodies. They are not making the claims he wants Wiki to. My opinion is that it is simply wasting time to further argue for all parties involved. If you do open a thread on the dispute resoltuion board, keep it as short as possible, like a short paragraph. Straight to the point. RBut (talk) 08:49, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

You know I am here right? You can address me directly or on my talk page without these transparent attempts at swaying other readers like this is a popularity contest. I have made a case any reasonable person would be proud to stand by without resulting to personal attacks or launching baseless accusations against other editors as well as using evidence that per MEDRS is recent and conditionally valid. I also note that my entire point has been caricatured several times over as evidence by your comments here regarding "claims I do not want wiki to make" like this is a childhood game of telephone. I also note that every other reply was from someone else responding to a different part of a nuanced conversation, and not a single one of the responding editors has acknowledged prior consensus I linked to above (or policy for that matter directly bolded and quoted also without relying on non-consensus essays that have been thrown around), and still as of this writing see that this discussion has been open for less than two full days. Some of these arguments are ridiculous like saying Dr. Krauss is only conditionally a shill based on who is funding whatever research he happens to be working on as if to imply someone switches between shillery and valid scientific research as casually as the seasons change while ignoring the same potential in their own chosen camp. The dissonance required to agree with an argument like that is troubling at best. Not to mention the two-faced nature of telling someone on a talk page to come here to seek third opinions only for them to immediately respond and ping their friends and dog-pile that same person with personal attacks and claims of sock-puppetry or other ill intent. Anyway, this entire ordeal has left me feeling like exchanges like these are evidence of Wikipedia failing individual editors and not the other way around as is sinisterly implied by the alleged chorus. The irony of citing scientific evidence that is hundreds of pages long and simultaneously chastising someone for writing "walls of text" is not lost on me either. Definitely plan on sticking around, but this entire experience has been disheartening. FrederickZoltair (talk) 19:10, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

In a nutshell the case you were trying to make is that the scientific consensus and medical community have shifted their position on saturated fat and no longer believe it is harmful in large amounts but beneficial for disease prevention. You have failed to demonstrate this with reliable sources. We have 50 years of clinical research on this topic. There is not any evidence saturated fat decreases CVD risk but a lot of evidence it increases the risk. Whilst you have been able to cite a minority of papers to support your world-view either funded by the beef or dairy industry or from unreliable journals like MDPI or from the low-carb community this does not mean the scientific consensus has shifted. All of the health bodies and organizations that have looked at all the recent evidence to date are telling people to cut down on saturated fat, not increase it. This idea that there is a massive "shift" is all in your head. Cherry-picking a few studies that support your view whilst ignoring hundreds that go against it is not proving anything. I believe you have failed to make a valid case and yes this discussion looks like it is coming to an end. My advice is to move on and edit other articles. Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:23, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

1. In a nutshell: We got into a fight because you are incapable of discussion without insults and you got upset about it while pointing out your twenty years of experience and original research so when I took your advice and posted here, you followed me to keep on taking shots.
2. Do not gaslight me. As evidenced by the comment made by what am I doing (who I now know is a contractor for the wikimedia foundation and the only one besides Rbut not levy a claim against me), Wikipedia typically bends toward the mainstream and is slow to acknowledge the latest and greatest research. It is curious then that the fringe/vegan crowd are quick to cite the latest and greatest research and launch claims of funding and COI, but the minute the Game-Changers documentary is released I guess those issues just resolve themselves huh? In this discussion you and Rbut seem to agree we have no reason not to take the people that created the vegan documentary at their word and later on another editor creates a section alleging Rbut is a single purpose account with a COI and receives support from others regarding the claim. I wonder where a vegan documentary got its funding from? (tldr its the avocado and organic food industries).
3. To imply that you or anyone is so omniscient when it comes to controversial scientific or medical topics that there is no way you could be incorrect or incapable of seeing a slow shift is a commitment to being so arrogant it makes me bristle.
4. The JACC is valid as much as you cry about funding and you even acknowledged above that you can find no critical tear-down or evidence of retraction. Policy exists to handle these scenarios and they are clearly not being adhered to here in favor of "rules for thee, not for me" fashion. FrederickZoltair (talk) 23:41, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I welcome change based on good evidence and would accept if the scientific consensus was shifting on saturated fat but it isn't. The scientific consensus in the last 5-10 years has slowly shifted on dietary cholesterol and it is no longer considered a risk factor for CVD for the general population (excluding those with diabetes or pre-existing heart problems). I may even create an article on dietary cholesterol at some point. Many medical organizations are now recognizing this and some are starting to lift limits on dietary cholesterol so yes a shift can occur. I accept science progresses and viewpoints can change significantly from new research but you have not given any reliable evidence that this shift is happening in relation to saturated fat and disease. All health bodies and organizations are telling people to reduce saturated fat consumption not increase it. The evidence is stronger than ever that saturated fat increases CVD risk and other diseases. You are arguing against consensus and your position is a minority viewpoint at best so we are not going to create a false balance on the article and give equal weight to a minority view as this is a mainstream encyclopedia as you have noted. The JACC review is not valid for Wikipedia it breaks several policies. The review was funded by the beef and dairy industry, it has been explained to you why we do not cite food industry funded studies like that per WP:SPONSORED. You are citing highly biased studies and if we put papers like that on Wikipedia every diet related article would be destroyed. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:52, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

You should inform the JACC they are sponsoring shill content then as it does not appear they know. Maybe they are hiring, and since you seem to judge yourself fit to both critically review both the science and funding of studies it will probably be a good relationship for them. FrederickZoltair (talk) 01:04, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Every year some of the top nutrition journals publish food industry funded studies [21] and they have no problem with this if conflict of interest is disclosed, but it has been explained to you why they are not suitable for Wikipedia. You are arguing against Wikipedia policy here and this is not the first time. I think this will head to Wikipedia:ANI at some point. Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:30, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

You are free to open one. On a side-note, this is the first time you are making the argument that any industry funded study is not usable on Wikipedia. I do not believe that is consistent across Wikipedia, do you allege that it is? Also, can you show me where MDPI has been by consensus deemed to be an unreliable source? And finally, will you please post your analyses of every other study I linked because as of now you have addressed two of them? Thank you. FrederickZoltair (talk) 02:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

@Psychologist Guy, SPONSORED is not about research funded by an entity. It's about publications that were "paid for by advertisers and bypasses the publication's editorial process". A sponsored supplement to a journal is highly suspicious. A research article that went through the normal peer-review process and happens to have a footnote saying "Research funded by Mega Corp" or "Research funded by Government Agency" is not a problem as far as SPONSORED is concerned.

@FrederickZoltair, MDPI had a publishing scandal a few years back, and we're not enthusiastic about the publisher. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable1. That said, not all MDPI journals are bad. It can be helpful to look up the individual journals in https://www.scopus.com/sources or similar tools.

For both of you: Have you heard about two-a-days? ('Tis the season, if you're a fan of American football.) I would like you both to consider a silent personal commitment to "one a days" for a while. Responding as quick as you can to the other person's comments is not helping anything, especially since so many folks are busy with Wikimania: this weekend. I'm quite sure that if you think about it, you'll discover that you have more important things to do than to argue with somebody on the internet multiple times a day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with WAID: there is a mountain of text here and at Saturated fat talk page. Please note, there are other forums where it is considered appropriate to complain about editors and make insults. Can we try to keep WT:MED a place where editors can discuss editing medical articles, rather than face personal attacks. -- Colin°^Talk 08:41, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

I see accusations that editors are trying to dismiss a reliable source and endless argumentation that is not very useful. We have WP:MEDRS and the proposed source does not satisfy its criteria so cannot be used to support the claim that the scientific consensus is changing. I don't think it's necessary to repeat why it fails MEDRS as it was already explained above. —PaleoNeonate – 20:47, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

FrederickZoltair, the best advice I have ever received on this site is that it does not help to continue to reply using the same arguments if they were not convincing the first time. I have been guilty of this myself in the past 7 years, many of us have. It just feels really good to be on the “right” side. But the best and most convincing editors don’t continue to post reply after reply. They articulate their position in a concise way, and where possible, try to find common ground. They go to noticeboards and use RFCs to solicit wider input. But they are also willing to accept that they are wrong, when that input doesn’t go the way they expected. I never “closed” this discussion, I never told you it was “over.” Or anything like that. I did what I am suggesting you do: disengage. Wait for others to comment. If you are very sure that you are right, then it is likely that others will agree, and will reply in your stead. Many users patrol this page. If you find that it is going stale, and still believe you are right and everyone else replying is wrong, then you can go to dispute resolution or the reliable sources noticeboard. Or start an RFC. But continuing to argue here with the same points is probably not going to help you. You are free to do it, no one is stopping you. My citing WALLOFTEXT was to try and help you, not to attack you in any way. It says that posting such long comments makes it less likely anyone will read them carefully (or at all). As someone who also has a problem with verbosity, I have experienced this as well. Making your comments more concise makes it more likely others will better understand your position and be on your side in discussions. That is all I’m saying. It is not a comment on your conduct. It is advice. —Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Were I an outsider, I would not want to get involved in a mud-fight regardless of the topic, and that would be before even reading any of the comments or the tone with which you and Mr. Guy responded. I find it sad that you leverage your medical schooling as evidence of why my claims are invalid without actually addressing any of the claims directly (and if that is not original research then I actually do lack reading comprehension). What you have done here is more akin to the behavior of a certain politician than any doctor I have ever interacted with. I will leave it at that as I find your flip-flopping from supporting that I started with a presupposition and am trying to justify it, to claims that I am just a new editor trying to do the right thing both insincere and distracting. Instead of giving advice for a change why not take your own and stop replying to me as you indicated you would do yesterday? FrederickZoltair (talk) 23:41, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Collapse off-topic discussion re:canvassing.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:51, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

FYI, FrederickZoltair has just posted several notices on talk pages frequently edited by editors who may be more likely to agree with his position. (Diffs: [22] [23] [24]) FZ, it is more appropriate to use neutral methods of advertisement, such as posting on a noticeboard, creating an RfC, or pinging all editors who have edited Saturated fat in the last 7 days. What you have done could be construed as canvassing. --Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:04, 15 August 2021 (UTC) This to me just seems like you are trying to recruit people interested in the low-carb/keto or carnivore diet community to come here and back you up [25], [26]. This would be considered inappropriate canvassing targeting a specific audience (see WP:CANVASS). Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:09, 15 August 2021 (UTC) How inconvenient that Psychologist Guy has done the exact same, and yet where is his userbox warning. Please stay away from me and my talk page. Thank you! FrederickZoltair (talk) 01:12, 15 August 2021 (UTC) FrederickZoltair, WikiProjects are an appropriate method of obtaining outside opinions, exactly as you have done here by creating this thread.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:14, 15 August 2021 (UTC) Just stop digging you were watching me for tom foolery and over-reacted (you literally did this less than 10 minutes after I made these sections). I do not mind that Mr Guy pinged all active vegans on Wikipedia and that 2/4 editors that have responded are vegan advocates, its part of the process. At least I can accept it without trying to be ridiculous and claim he is being unfair somehow to notify people who are interested in the discussion. You will note I did indeed post a link to the discussion on the saturated fat talk page as well which is likely how Mr. Guy knew this discussion was going to take place. You wonder why people get frustrated and take off and do not look back. And for the umpteenth time please leave me be. FrederickZoltair (talk) 01:23, 15 August 2021 (UTC) FrederickZoltair, FYI, if by "2/4" you are also referring to me as a vegan advocate, you would be sorely mistaken. I have never subscribed to that wikiproject, and I am a proud meat eater. I love bacon. I just also happen to know the risks of saturated fat, and watch this talk page. Please do not refer to me as a vegan advocate. Thanks.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:39, 15 August 2021 (UTC) Even more evidence you do not actually read my comments. 1. Psychologist guy who proudly advertises his association with veganism and his edit history. 2. Rbut who has been accused on the game changers talk page of being a single purpose vegan account which reached a consensus against them. They were also blocked temporarily for disruptive edits there. FrederickZoltair (talk) 01:45, 15 August 2021 (UTC) FrederickZoltair, linking back to where a discussion originated is appropriate. I am sorry you find my comments frustrating. I will abide by your wishes and not post on your talk page, except where I am forced to by policy (e.g. if I were to go post about you on ANI, which I do not plan to do, I would be required to tell you about it on your talk page). But you cannot control who responds to you in other places like this discussion. I am sorry. I am trying quite hard to only describe your contributions in a fact-based manner. But advertising on those talk pages is indeed something that you should have mentioned in a notification on this page. Which is why I'm glad you advertised this post at the talk page the discussion came from. See the advice at WP:CANVAS for the specifics of what I mean.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 01:33, 15 August 2021 (UTC) Please, enough with the two face routine. Your only contributions to this discussion has been in support of editors known to be vegan advocates as well as pointed attempts to both discredit me personally and misapply policy while highlighting your original research as a med student. Thank god I chose to educate myself on the multitude of perspectives at the archives here, at the reliable source noticeboard archives, low carb and keto talk page archives, and on project vegan or your very public and very transparent attempt at associating my intentions with those of bad actors may have resulted in readers unfamiliar with the discussion unfairly weighing in against me. We would not want that though, would we? I tire of this back and forth and continual peddling away from the original reason for this post. FrederickZoltair (talk) 01:43, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

XKCD today

Here's a reminder about writing for normal people: https://xkcd.com/2501/ WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Ha ha, great! (As usual for him...) Mathglot (talk) 06:56, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Great, indeed! I must admit it perfectly fits my field, too (even though it's neither geochemistry nor medicine) --CiaPan (talk) 08:58, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. And also good to see I'm not the only XKCD fan here. Dr. Vogel (talk) 19:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Incidentally, I was thinking of https://xkcd.com/386/ when looking at the above discussion... —PaleoNeonate – 20:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

My version of that one is "Someone used the wrong punctuation on the internet!" Wikipedia lets me fix it. On the rest of the internet, I have to endure it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Lmao, this is one of the most accurate comics I have ever seen. I assume everybody understands how antibodies work way more than they actually do...One of my old labmates once gave me this golden chicken nugget: "When you say protein, most people think chicken. We think about molecules. That is the difference between how we think and how our audience does when we talk to the general public. Never forget that." --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:35, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I quite like that quote. Thank you for sharing it with us. TompaDompa (talk) 02:48, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Added X-rays of myself to osteogenesis imperfecta

I invite editors to review the caption I added to the X-rays I put on osteogenesis imperfecta. Most medical imagery is uploaded by doctors, nurses, or radiologists; I had these X-rays on disk and converted them from DICOM format. For the most part, the caption is based on the genetic diagnosis report from the University of Washington and radiology report for the X-rays. However, it'd be good if it's double checked. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 10:50, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

this is a very useful image, however per MEDMOS its better suited for 'diagnosis' section[27] (should any editor disagree please revert), thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:13, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ozzie10aaaa: What section of MEDMOS are you relying on for this change? Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 20:16, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Diagnosis: Includes characteristic biopsy findings and differential diagnosis Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles (section also includes x-rays, imaging too)...however, should you feel the image should go at the intro/lede of the article thats ok, WP:Be Bold--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ozzie10aaaa: OK. I've been making a lot of edits to the article so maybe you missed it, but I explained the move back in this edit summary: I understand why X-rays might be considered diagnostic, but because OI primarily affects the bones, I believe that images of characteristically bowed bones easily fit for introductory. Blue sclerae are merely diagnostic, if anything they belong in diagnostic section as they have no effect on vision and aren't even in all types of OI. Also, I don't think these count as shock images, but I may be biased there. I still have a lot of work to do, especially on § Classification, but I am probably going to submit this article for a WP:GA review when I'm done…XTools says I've already contributed more text than any other editor. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 12:19, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree w/ you...what's more I believe it would make a fine GA article, let me know if you need any extra edits, Id be more than happy to assist on this article, Ozzie--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Eyes needed at Talk:Spanish flu

Specifically WP:MEDRS issues at

• Talk:Spanish_flu#Citation problems
• Talk:Spanish_flu#2020_study

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:28, 17 August 2021 (UTC)