Talk:Sham peer review

reform of whistleblower laws to protect against sham peer reviews

The Waxman-Platts bill, HR 985, currently pending in the US House, would make a sham peer review actionable as an unlawful adverse action against federal civil service employees. Also called The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007, the bill has passed a House committee vote 28-0 on 2007-02-14. r3 16:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Waxman bill

The problem is that Peer Review and medical staff issues are State issues, and this is a Federal bill.

H.R. 985 only gives protection to Federal workers who are "whistleblowers," not to any whistleblower.

Even if passed, it will have no effect in medical staff peer review issues, whether related to whistleblower issues or not. Physadvoc 01:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

Medical peer review is a very un-neutral topic in healthcare. The description of all medical peer review as being sham peer review is obviously not neutral.

However, the description of components of sham peer review have not yet been disputed.

This article describes sham peer review, not medical peer review.

Any arguments about the neutrality of the topic should be undertaken in this discussion forum. Physadvoc 01:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:SYN

This article appears to be in violation of WP:SYN and promotes the viewpoints of fringe groups such as Semmelweis and AAPS. Sources that do not address "sham peer review" are used to support blatantly POV statements about peer review. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 00:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yup. It's been on my list for awhile, but low priority. I'm glad to see someone taking an interest. MastCell ^Talk 01:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

There are two main law firms, Davis, Wright and Tremaine and Horty, Springer, and Mattern, that have aggressively written articles promoting abuse of peer review and seminars for hospital administrators to take advantage of the protections provided by the HCQIA of 1986. This article, as extensively and repeatedly edited by Keepcalmandcarryon mirror these seminars almost exactly. The aggressive misinformation and misquoting of references by Keepcalmandcarryon makes this page unbalanced and is more likely an effort by legal advocates to bias the topic than a balanced overview. I note that Keepcalmandcarryon even removes the POV objections. Moreleave999 (talk) 23:14, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I would like to emphasise that I have no connection to any law firm and am attempting only to follow our sources, especially the AMA source, accurately. Incidentally, the reported death of a patient is not "alleged", as your edits state. Please consider whether your own relationship with this topic may bias your writing, as per WP:COI. Thank you. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

OIC, but the sentence says many incidents including a death. You are pretty liberal in concluding that there were many incidents including a death when now you only assert there was a death. I also note that you use the work allege in every sentence you added to this article previously. I also see that you conveniently ignored major thrusts of the AMA reference. Moreleave999 (talk) 23:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

There were alleged incidents, plural, according to the sources. There was also a death, which was reported, not alleged. The word "allege", although not used in every sentence, is meant to reflect the verifiable fact that cases of "sham peer review" are often so-labelled by interested parties. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Major restructuring

I have made some major edits to the article. Much of it was unsourced POV, a breathtaking combination of OR and SYN, or simply based on POV-pushing primary and/or self-published sources. There are still many problems, not least the lack of reliable sources for many claims. The further reading section also needs some serious pruning, as well as introduction of more neutral sources. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Then why did you remove all the credible resources, such as the USF Law Review? In fact, I note that you removed many credible and peer reviewed references. Moreleave999 (talk) 23:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Correction to bad edit summary

I hastily stated in a recent edit summary that "Chalifoux is hardly a reliable source". This isn't quite right, since the Medscape Gen Med source is reliable. We do need to keep in mind that Chalifoux has a strong POV on this issue based on negative personal history with peer review. In any case there is no need to mention Chalifoux in the lead of the article. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 17:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see, and your intent is to silence and edit the cases of sham peer review that do exist? What, do you work for Horty Springer or Davis, Wright, and Tremaine?

Reliable sources

Edits adding the personal views of two individuals were removed. Let's keep in mind that this is a general encyclopaedia, and that we need to use reliable sources. The American Medical Association is a reliable source, as are major newspaper articles. The journals of fringe organisations and the websites of individuals are unreliable and insufficiently notable to merit inclusion. If the two individuals in question have achieved notability as recognised figures connected with this topic, for example as evidenced by interviews in major media outlets or extensive publication on the topic in the respected medical literature, then we could certainly mention their views. JPandS doesn't provide this sort of notability, though, and without more reliable sources, adding these opinions is more like advocacy than encyclopaedia writing. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 19:23, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I have found 16 other cited links in Wikipedia to JPandS so you are not entitled to make a unilateral objection. Also the last para of the text you deleted had a citation which was nothing to do with JPandS. The two people cited are both respected academics and they both broadly agree with each other.--Penbat (talk) 21:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I addressed both sources and outlined the way to show that these individuals are "both respected academics" whose views merit inclusion here. As for JPandS, use of this unreliable source in other articles in no way precludes its removal here. Rather, we should attempt to find different sources at the other articles. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The second source is Kenneth Westhues who must be the worlds leading expert on mobbing and bullying in academia etc. Unless you can get a ruling from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to bar any citations to JPandS for the whole of Wikipedia, my text will remain here. --Penbat (talk) 21:19, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

There's no need to bar all citations from JPandS. In the case of biographies, it is sometimes appropriate to note that an individual has published in this unindexed journal. In the case of fringe topics, JPandS may sometimes be an appropriate source to sum up a controversial position, such as the breast cancer-abortion hypothesis or AIDS denialism. As an authority on a non-fringe subject, such as breast cancer or AIDS, JPandS is not a reliable source, and this has been discussed numerous times on Wikipedia with the same outcome: it's not.

About Westhues, he is an academic sociologist who, according to reliable sources, studies workplace conflicts. If he has written specifically on sham peer review in peer reviewed publications, he could certainly be noted here. However, we need a reliable source, not his personal website. Alternatively, we would need citations to establish his expertise on the topic. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 01:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

JPandS articles are included in Google scholar for example. It is entirely reasonable to include a link to the Wiki JPandS article as part of the citation so people can draw their own conclusions about JPandS. The fact that Westhues and Huntoon broadly agree with each other reinforces the credibility of their views. Westhues has written a fair number of books and academic papers in the field of academia/mobbing/bullying. I have no doubt that he includes sham peer reviews in at least one of them but which one(s) i dont know at present. Westhues's website is a truncated version of his published works.--Penbat (talk) 08:50, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

And as such is not a reliable source. It's nice that you're open-minded about JPandS, but Wikipedia's policies are not. We don't provide links to all manner of unreliable sources just to let readers "draw their own conclusions". That's what the Internet is for, not an encyclopaedia. JPandS is an unreliable fringe publication. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 14:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

On what basis do you call JPandS an unreliable fringe publication? --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not like Keepcalm is the first to call it an unreliable publication - read Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons. Rather than getting bogged down in JPandS, look at other sources - for example you could look at Bond 2005 and Chalifoux 2005. II | (t - c) 23:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, JPandS is the mouthpiece of a right-wing special interest group and, more importantly, is not indexed on PubMed. On medicine-related topics, we should not rely on this publication. That said, as I stated above, if Huntoon is a recognised authority on "sham peer review", and we have reliable evidence for this, the publication could potentially be cited as evidence of his views.

The difficulty here is that the entire concept of "sham peer review" is advanced mostly by individuals, like Chalifoux cited by II above, who have made (or allegedly made) medical mistakes and have suffered career setbacks as a result of it. As the AMA study suggested, unfair peer review does not seem to be a major problem, so it's not even clear to me that this topic is of sufficient notability to merit its own article. Although I wouldn't go so far as to nominate the article for deletion, I don't think we should be loading it up with lengthy quotes from everyone who has ever used the term, regardless of the quality of the source. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Your arguments dont stack up and you are repeating yourself. JPandS is not on the Wikipedia blacklist - there are 16 other Wiki refs used to JPandS. I suggested to you that you argued to have JPandS on the Wikipedia blacklist at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard but you voluntarily declined. Until this happens the material stays. --Penbat (talk) 08:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to add that the text used starts with "In medicine, sham peer reviews have been recognised BY SOME as a manifestation of mobbing." It does not claim to be a universal view but at least some respected academics such as Westhues and Huntoon support that idea. --Penbat (talk) 08:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

As stated above, JPandS might be usable as a source for non-medical material, but it's a quack publication with no acceptance in the mainstream medical profession. As the WP article on AAPS states: "The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is not listed in major academic literature databases such as MEDLINE/PubMed nor the Web of Science. The National Library of Medicine declined repeated requests from AAPS to index the journal, citing unspecified concerns. Articles and commentaries published in the journal have argued a number of non-mainstream or scientifically discredited claims" rpeh •T•C•E• 10:53, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

True. Also, it's not as if a particular source is always either admissible or not. There are instances in which a JPandS article could be cited as an expression of some notable fringe theory. As far as I can tell, the ideas of sham peer review and maybe even workplace mobbing are hardly if at all notable on their own. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:50, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

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