Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 135

Latest comment: 4 years ago by WhatamIdoing in topic Habit cough
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AfD for Occupational hazards of fire debris cleanup

There's a deletion discussion going on for Occupational hazards of fire debris cleanup. More input would be appreciated. Thanks. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 04:28, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:14, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing of ASTM specifications for COVID-19 relevant materials

During the COVID-19 emergency, the ASTM has temporarily made relevant material and testing specifications freely available here. Let’s learn and disseminate, folks! LeadSongDog come howl! 15:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

very useful, thank you LeadSongDog--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:18, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Gita Ramjee expansion

Hi Wikipedians. Was hoping there might be an editor/contributor who’d be able to help me expand the article on Ugandan-South African HIV researcher Gita Ramjee who recently died due to covid-19. The article has been nominated to be included on the home page as a recent death, but needs some TLC. Is there anyone here who’d be able to include a bit more detail on her research? Might be possible to include some JSTOR sources at the moment too. Thank you! --Elinor.Dashwood (talk) 09:19, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Reader engagement with medical content on Wikipedia

This is from a month ago but I just saw it from an update to the meta page.

  • Maggio, Lauren A; Steinberg, Ryan M; Piccardi, Tiziano; Willinsky, John M (6 March 2020). "Reader engagement with medical content on Wikipedia". eLife. 9. doi:10.7554/eLife.52426. PMC 7089765. PMID 32142406.

proposed at

Willinsky, Lauren maggio, and Daniel Mietchen are among the organizers named on the meta page, but only the first two are named as authors of the paper.

The paper analyzed what it calls "WikiProject Medicine Pages", or "WPM pages".

  • "WPM pages were viewed more than four times as frequently as the rest of Wikipedia"
  • "readers spent more time on a page before first clicking an external link after loading a WPM page."
  • "WPM readers were more likely to hover over a footnote or other link, especially on their desktop devices, and more likely to click on footnote links, compared to W readers (Table 4). On the other hand, W readers were more likely to click on external links than WPM readers, favoring their mobile devices in that regard. The WPM readers are interested, it appears, in seeing what evidence is being drawn upon in making the statements set out on a WPM page rather than trying to view the source compared to readers of the rest of Wikipedia."
  • "...WPM readers are more engaged in assessing the citation of the external link, which assists in validating and building trust in the content that makes up the WPM pages, than by the opportunity to visit the sources as a gateway for further learning. "

Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:38, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Also particularly interesting is the main conclusion that they draw: "Our findings suggest that WPM readers appear to use links to external sources to verify and authorize Wikipedia content, rather than to examine the sources themselves". A separation of the the multiple roles that citations fulfil. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:41, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
About "more likely to hover over a footnote or other link": How do they know that they're hovering over a ref tag to look at the citation, and not hovering over a link to an unfamiliar word to find out what it means? WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:21, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Our most popular pages have changed in recent weeks, mostly in predictable ways. You can see articles listed by page views at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Popular pages (which is due for its automatic monthly update in the next couple of days). Almost all of the top 20 pages are related to the current pandemic.

There are also pages, such as Cytokine release syndrome, that aren't as popular but whose popularity has significantly increased (#181 for February, and wasn't on the list last February; current page views are up about 500% compared to this February). If you see articles that are getting more traffic than before, please feel free to share them here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

great numbers, thanks WAID--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:02, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Assistance needed to assess the reliability of a source for epidemiology claims

Hi! I would like to request the assistance of editors experienced in the field to assess the reliability of a source for some epidemiology claims: Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in mainland China § Barron's analysis. Thank you. --MarioGom (talk) 17:37, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Ozzie10aaaa: Thanks for noting. That one you linked contains quite extraordinary claims based on social media rumors that some reliable sources report about. Although they do not enter in the realm of fringe theories with bogus epidemiological claims. At least not so explicitly. --MarioGom (talk) 21:04, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Monoclonal protein

Hi all, I've just asked question in the talkpage for myeloma protein, and I am posting here to get more eyes on the matter. In the more recent literature, myeloma protein seems to be called monoclonal protein, but there is no page for monoclonal protein on wikipedia. Is it worth creating a redirect for monoclonal protein to myeloma protein? Red Fiona (talk) 11:28, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Commented over there, point to monoclonal antibody. Klbrain (talk) 19:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Viral load

In the context of the coronavirus, I've seen someone talking about the Viral load in the environment – think "I wouldn't go for a walk outside in that city, because the viral load is so high there". I'm not sure that's a technically correct use of the term, but (a) that article needs some attention anyway, and (b) if there is a better term, maybe it should be mentioned there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

"Viral load" has a precise meaning. As you know, the expression first came into to use in the context of HIV treatment. To talk of a viral load outside this context wrong. In the environment we have "levels" such as bacteriophages and enteroviruses in water. Graham Beards (talk) 10:37, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree, viral load is a liquid measure used for blood viruses. For viral aerosols, researchers often call it viral concentration and might use copies per cubic meter as units. But measuring such concentrations is difficult and as far as I know there is no single standard assay. Here is an old review paper on the subject.[1] --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 11:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: I think they mean environmental contamination? The similar distribution and survival profiles on surfaces for both viruses, supports the view that COVID-19 behaves like SARS-CoV and environmental contamination by respiratory droplets is an important factor in transmission. ...A study from Singpore (Ong et al 2020) sampled air and surfaces in the rooms of 3 patients with COVID-19. They found extensive environmental contamination in the room of a patient with mild respiratory involvement. [2].., and WHO[3]. OR..they could mean where the number of cases are higher. I recall that earlier in the testing in China and when mapping out where the cases of deaths were...the surrounding area had a higher number of cases detected. Whispyhistory (talk) 13:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Good point. I think the very first sentence is already problematic, because it defines it as the quantity in a given volume, but it doesn't say a volume of what. That invites the intepretation that you could be talking about the quantity of virus per volume "of air in that city" as in the example you gave. Dr. Vogel (talk) 14:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Media on COVID-19 mentions WikiProject Medicine

 
Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

This out in the last day mentions WikiProject Medicine.

The March issue of The Signpost has other COVID-19 media coverage in the "in the media" section.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Disorders of sex development move discussion

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Disorders of sex development#Requested move 8 April 2020. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:05, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:46, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

ICD-11

Hello everyone! I've made a start on writing the article ICD-11. I'm also planning to create ICD-11 MMS chapter pages, similar to those of the ICD-10 (here) and the ICD-9 (here). I've already created Chapter 1: Certain infectious or parasitic diseases and {{ICD-11 MMS}}.

Full disclosure: I'm a total noob. I have no degrees in medicine, no background in health care, nothing. I could only write stuff about the general structure of the ICD-11, and about mental disorders. As a psychiatric patient myself, I know a bit about that. But I know nothing about the other stuff.

I would like to draw special attention to this e-mail I have prepared, addressed to the World Health Organization. I have not send it yet, because I can imagine that the WHO and many other people have different things on their minds right now. But the e-mail lists a number of questions which I think are important to have answered. It is possible that these questions stem from my own ignorance and/or stupidity, so if someone can enlighten me about it, feel free to do so! :-) Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 18:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Once upon a time, an editor here was working with the ICD system, maybe when ICD-10 was new? But I can't quite remember the editor's name. Does anyone else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi Manifestation - I can answer many of your ICD-11 questions, a bit at a time, and I'm happy to help with the article as I am able. I'll post more detailed responses on the ICD-11 Talk page. All the Best - Mark   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 11:17, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes we were working with WHO around the ICD11. And yes we had a WiR. It is up to them regarding if they want to speak on this though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:27, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
My answers/responses are here - Answers to some questions   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 17:55, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
@Doc James: What's a "WiR"? And did the Wikipedia community really work on the ICD-11? Was there a thread or a central page about it? Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 18:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:GLAM/Wikipedian in Residence Wikipedia is mentioned here.[4] Not sure if this came to much in the end.
Our primary collaborating on the WHO side within ICD11 has retired. I have not followed up with whoever took their position. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:11, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
On a related note, the WHO staff have always responded when I have suggested edits via the ICD-11 Maintenance Platform. It sometimes takes them a while to respond, although that's understandable since most of them are volunteers. I applaud WHO's transparency and openness, e.g., the Maintenance Platform enables anyone to submit suggestion additions, deletions, or modifications.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 18:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes many within WHO like our work and there is definitely the possibility for further collaboration. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:18, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

WikiJournal article on Epidemiology of Hep D

Hi all. A new WikiJMed article has just been published on the Epidemiology of Hep D (doi:10.15347/wjm/2020.001). Since the Wikipedia page on Hep D lacked an epidemiology section, I've added the abstract from the wikijournal article However it might be logical to move over some more of the info. Since the full detail on epidemiology would overwhelm the Hep D page, would it make sense to create an Epidemiology of Hepatitis D page, seeded from the WikiJMed article's content (analogous to the Epidemiology_of_HIV/AIDS page)? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 23:21, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

great article[5] and Epidemiology of Hepatitis D could be a good idea..IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:22, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
That is a great article! I never knew about Hepatitis D as in Delta.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 13:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
In that case, I've created the page for now and linked to from the main Hep D article. Obviously, any edits and cleanup welcomed! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 08:57, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:57, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Anyone looked at Epidemiology recently? 71.115.84.155 (talk) 03:54, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Requesting full text for human melioidosis journal article

I am currently writing on a wiki article about melioidosis. I come across this website which has the latest review article on melioidosis published in March 2020. However, I am unable to access it. Any help is very much appreciated. Thank you. https://cmr.asm.org/content/33/2/e00006-19.full — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerevisae (talkcontribs)

Hi Cerevisae, you may want to cross-post at the resource exchange as well, the editors who haunt that page are fantastic at getting access to all kinds of things. (Side note: usual convention is to put new sections at the bottom of talk pages rather than the top, and to sign posts by adding ~~~~ at the end of your post, which the markup will turn into a signature). ♠PMC(talk) 22:32, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Cerevisae, I sent you an email. :) SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 22:39, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
So did I... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks you very much Doc James and SpicyMilkBoy. Cerevisae (talk) 08:56, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Mimi's node

Should this draft be accepted? Does it meet medically reliable source guidelines? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:37, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Robert McClenon a notable subject. I guess the question is should it go at hepatic artery lymph node or simple be a section within Whipple procedure? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
I'd say go with the anatomy, with the ulterior motive of creating at least something for lymph nodes in the abdomen. I note that List of lymph nodes of the human body has no section for the abdomen ... rather an omissions, but perhaps reflecting the lack of suitable pages. Klbrain (talk) 18:52, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
User:Doc James, User:Klbrain - I will give it the anatomic name. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:31, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
I am aware that there are lymph nodes in the abdomen, and that presence or absence of cancer in the lymph nodes is important in the staging of certain cancers including colon cancer. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:31, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
By the way, I can't find a WP:MEDRS source that even mentions the term; is this a neologism? Full text of the 2 articles cited doesn't seem to include it; pubmed search doesn't show it. I've tagged the article Hepatic artery lymph node with as disputed for that alternative name. There is, I now find, a page for Hepatic lymph nodes. This is the same group ... so; time for a merge. Klbrain (talk) 22:56, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Ive reviewed it, however due to finding nothing to support the etymology section, I have had to blank, where was that text originally lifted from?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:30, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Looks like a single-purpose account, TMurtha added it and the references don't support the text. (PS: I've added an abdomen section to the list of the lymphatics so other's don't miss that large set of extant lymph node pages covering the abdomen). Klbrain (talk) 23:38, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Nephron

Hi guys. This article, which I think is of extreme importance, had 15 instances of the "citation needed" template. I've sat down with 3 basic books and provided citations for all of them, correcting the claims when they disagreed with the sources. How else do you reckon we can improve this key article? Dr. Vogel (talk) 15:54, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I would recommend keeping nephron relatively simple to avoid repetition with other pages. I think that the lede should be shorter, summarizing its contents without having unique new material. There is no need to expand sections which are already in WP:SUMMARY form, nor to expand existing functional sections, which overlap with Kidney#Function and Renal physiology. Klbrain (talk) 18:30, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Dr. Vogel, I like the abundance of images in that article. I noticed that several sub-sections had no citations, and it sounds like you could improve that easily. Also, ideally, the beginning of each section should be in very simple language. I've made one such edit here to give you an idea of what I mean. It's okay for the article to be technical overall, but there should be something at the start of each bit that gives non-technical readers an idea of whether this is the bit that they want to study in detail. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Saltatory pattern of fetal heart rate

Hello WikiProject Medicine. Do you folks think that Draft:Saltatory pattern of fetal heart rate warrants a standalone article, or would it be better to incorporate it within another article (eg Heart_development#Heart_rates)? Any other comments on the notability or accuracy of this article would also be greatly appreciated. Cheers, 1292simon (talk)

I think that it would work well as a section on Cardiotocography#Interpretation; an alternative would be fetal distress. The content is certainly worth including somewhere. The phenomenon described isn't primarily one of heart development, but a sign of autonomic (via CNS) stimulation in response to acute hypoxia leading to fetal distress. The article links to fetal hypoxia, but that redirects to Intrauterine hypoxia which focusses more on chronic (rather than peripartum) effects of hypoxia. Note that Fetal distress#Signs and symptoms already mentions "Non-reassuring patterns seen on cardiotocography: -increased or decreased fetal heart rate (tachycardia and bradycardia)". However, the topic of the draft is quite technical and hence would be better on Cardiotocography#Interpretation, a section which is in need of updating. Klbrain (talk) 07:54, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Klbrain. Many thanks for your help with this. I won't pretend to understand all those fancy latin-based words, but I think I got the gist that the best spot is Cardiotocography#Interpretation! Cheers, 1292simon (talk)
@SandyGeorgia: To clarify: my question is about whether linking to a price comparison website in the infobox is supported (or at least just not contested) by the community; I never intended to list GoodRx's prices for reasons I stated on the drugbox talk page. Seppi333 (Insert ) 00:20, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
The previous discussions have mostly been about putting a link in the ==External links== section. The main problem with a site like GoodRx is that it's limited to a single country, which WP:ELNO dislikes. Editors have discussed adding the International Medical Products Price Guide website as an external link (if it weren't basically a big "Under Construction" sign right now). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
The idea was to implement it with the functionality to add links to external sites for other countries if any are available, analogous to how the pregnancy and legal status categories are implemented (i.e., by listing the RHS with a prepended country code). That field is not intended to be exclusive to the United States; there merely happens to be a use case for linking GoodRx in the US (namely, drug coupons for high cost drugs) beyond the provision of pricing information, hence why I proposed that first. If other countries for which the drugbox provides pregnancy-cat/legal-status parameter support have accurate and up-to-date price trackers, a parameter can/may just as well be created for them IMO. The drugbox already contains parametrized ELs to websites that provide country-specific information (i.e., all of the licensing info parameters), so I don't really see how the creation of this field can be construed as being problematic on the basis of the US being the first country to be parameterized or that the parameter would link to country-specific information. That's just my 2 cents anyway. I'm going back on my wikibreak. Seppi333 (Insert ) 07:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think GoodRX is comparable to details such as pregnancy and legal status which are stable and encyclopaedic. A site offering the current price, after coupon discount, in your local area of the US only, from partner retailers, is not encyclopaedic, and fails WP:EL. If folk think linking to price comparison websites (of which drugs is one but many - mortgages, insurance, consumer goods, savings accounts, pension plans, etc, etc) then you should really go for a site-wide RFC on it, and not raise your hopes. -- Colin°Talk 08:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Fair enough. That was my plan anyway; I just don't have time to do it right now. Don't really have any expectations at this point. Seppi333 (Insert ) 09:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Seppi, I think WhatamIdoing has well summarized the issues and concerns but I wanted to recognize your work that went before at any rate. I mentioned at one point that I would not be opposed to including GoodRx in an external link template, but I think we would have to have similar apps from many countries before considering implementing such a proposal. While such an app is only available in the US, it seems US-centric to add it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

@Colin and SandyGeorgia: So, the field in question - at present - is meant to provide links to country-specific consumer/retail drug price information. I'm open to adding other websites/DBs to my proposal if either of you know of suitable retail drug price databases for other countries. I can't imagine the United States is the only country for which data on that exists given that consumer drug cost minimization is a rather important avenue of pharmacoeconomics research, and you can't really study that without consumer drug price information. So, I will probably end up looking for other databases later if no one knows of any off-hand.

I was thinking of posing an RFC question along the lines of "Is it acceptable to include external links to various country-specific databases that provide consumer/retail drug pricing information in an external links template in drug articles?" Does that cover the main issue at hand in your opinion, or would you phrase this differently?

@Colin: this is really minor and doesn't really have any bearing on this discussion, but I figured I'd clarify one point. Regarding the underlined part - A site offering the current price, after coupon discount, in your local area of the US only, from partner retailers - GoodRx's drug coupon prices with retailers don't vary by region; they're the same all across the US because GoodRx negotiates with the pharmacy benefit manager of the corresponding pharmacy chain (e.g., Caremark for CVS pharmacy) to establish the coupon price for the corresponding retailer. It doesn't work with individual pharmacies to set those. Not all US pharmacy chains are present in every US state, which is primarily why they localize the drug coupon listings. Addendum: regarding the out-of-pocket (non-coupon) retail price which is displayed along with the coupon price, from my understanding PBMs set those as well, so those shouldn't vary geographically within pharmacy chains either. Seppi333 (Insert ) 05:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know of any others, Seppi, but I suggest it might be better to hold off on any new RFCs until we get our RFC mechanism act together via the arb case. On the different pharmacies in different states, I agree with you (that that is the issue), but I think in effect, that makes for the same conclusion Colin was drawing. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding; I've been known to do that :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not in any rush to do this, so I suppose I can wait. How long do you think that'll take? Seppi333 (Insert ) 05:40, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Seppi333 I don't really know the US at all well. The "local area" comment wasn't so much that perhaps GoodRX would locate the nearest/cheapest price but that a particular chain of pharmacy is available locally. For example, for me, it is all well and good if some site says that ASDA have the cheapest ibuprofen gel if there isn't an ASDA near me. I agree with Sandy that there is no rush for this. I also think you should consider what WP would be like if links to local price comparison databases were added for other article types too, and how the community would decide which sites to include, and the fact that these sites are themselves commercial and may compete. From Googling, I can see GoodRX is not the only one in the US. There are in the UK many insurance comparison sites, each with their own set of partners, each with their own special offers, and they only link to partners who either pay up front for the privilege or who give the site commission on sales. So I think it is going to be really hard to explain why Wikipedia should form a promotional link with one company, such as GoodRX, and for that matter, why Wikipedia would get nothing in return. You should consider that this is a question for the whole WP community, starting perhaps with a policy talk-page question about external links, rather than one where WP:MED have any special wisdom or authority. -- Colin°Talk 10:24, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Hmm, I imagine that if WP allows external links to price databases, the best approach would be to require a community-wide RFC to determine appropriateness. I don't think a blanket ban with no exceptions on them is the best approach because in some cases, they can serve a purpose other than simply listing prices (e.g., public service, historical record, etc.). That said, I agree that the vast majority of websites like this are not encyclopedic; however, beyond the additional functions that such websites might provide (e.g., GoodRx providing drug coupons), I think there is a distinction in terms of whether or not pricing information for unregulated products vs regulated products as well as pricing information for products where the price deviates from a competitive or related form of economic equilibrium due to oligopolistic (e.g., economic cartels like OPEC influencing the price of oil) and monopolistic market players (e.g., shitbags like Martin Shkreli who increased the price of Daraprim in the US by more than 50-fold) is encyclopedic. Milk is a good example of the former and Milk#Price is covered in that article for that reason. Oil is a good example of the latter and it doesn't really surprise me that we have an article about its price for that reason. Drugs, which are a class of heterogeneous products, are examples of the former or both, depending upon the country and number of suppliers for a particular drug within that country.
For those reasons, I think the price of drugs is encyclopedic; however, the current price of drugs is not something that can feasibly be maintained in article prose. By linking to external drug price databases, we avoid problems with providing outdated pricing information in articles and bloating articles with details for different countries and the varied systems for setting consumer/retail drug prices that they use.
As a general rule, I completely agree with you about linking to commercial price comparison websites being a cause of concern, primarily due to the likelihood of principal-agent problems (e.g., the company running a website might change its business model and promote certain suppliers and/or omit others - that's probably the most concerning situation) and, to a lesser extent, the fact that we'd be providing an economic benefit to the company that runs the website which we link to. In the case of GoodRx, favoring some retailers and omitting others would actually negatively impact their revenue based upon their current business model. Even in the single instance where they have a conflict of interest (i.e., they operate a telemedicine service price comparison platform and operate a telemedical service provider), they still list other providers in instances where that provider's price for a service is lower than GoodRx's price (i.e., they are providing unbiased service pricing information at their own expense). There aren't any COIs like that with their drug price comparison service because they don't operate pharmacies. If, in the future, GoodRx were to change its business model in a manner that undermines our intended purpose for linking to it (i.e., providing unbiased drug pricing information), literally all we'd need to do to address that is remove the parameters from the template; I don't think that's really in the realm of possibility though since doing so would run counter to their mission/corporate culture. If there is consensus to do this, I would have to contact GoodRx directly to request access to their database in order to create the bot script to add the relevant links to their drug price comparison webpages; so, I could also just stipulate that as a requirement for us to link to their database when I make the request.
As for us providing an economic benefit to GoodRx by linking to them (NB: simultaneously, GoodRx would be providing an economic benefit to the people who follow our links to them in the form of drug coupons), that's a valid concern; however, there's no alternative sources of consumer drug price data that provide the same level of completeness as the GoodRx database. It also happens to be the most widely used drug price comparison website and drug coupon provider in the United States at the moment. To requote the source I cited in Template talk:Drugbox#GoodRx: Finally, we used a single website to represent discounts available online. Nonetheless, GoodRx is the largest price aggregator and coupon tool used by thousands of doctors and millions of patients every month. Further, 100% of GoodRx coupons were honored when physically presented at the pharmacy during this study. That's not particularly surprising given that they were the first company to provide those services in the US. That being said, if a better alternative presents itself in the future, the external links could always be changed.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about the cost/benefit of doing this in relation to our readers; based upon the stupidly high cost of drugs in the US, the prevalence of people who lack health insurance or have high deductible plans, and utility of GoodRx's drug coupons (which I illustrated in Template talk:Drugbox#GoodRx), I think the benefit that they can provide to people in the US who navigate to their website from Wikipedia outweighs the "cost" we incur in the form of a risk (which I believe to be low) of principal-agent problems in the future. Sorry about the wall of text. Seppi333 (Insert ) 19:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Chagas disease

See Wikipedia:Featured article review/Chagas disease/archive1 (hooray)! Progress enough that it might be a good time for others to look in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Guam COVID-19 medical chart

Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/United States/Guam medical cases chart Last night, I wanted to try to fill in the red link for Guam. Another editor created it but with only half the information. The basic Department of Health presents its data here complete with history. But the major factor is the US Navy, and in particular the noteworthy arrival of the USS Teddy Roosevelt with its crew infected. The Navy is not apparently presenting clear data, USA Today has tracked it here as best they can. Because of the Roosevelt and the subsequent firing of the captain and his potential reinstatement, this is a front line story to track. How do we present this, particularly with the scattered information? Trackinfo (talk) 20:12, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

while the article falls under this project, the side issue of the Navy's inner employment/termination mechanism is tangential to this project(though you should always use RS and consensus on any subject)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:26, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
I was not asking about the employment/termination issue here, merely the inclusion of statistics of the sudden arrival of a ship with some 1,000 sailors who were ultimately quarantined. Those would be medical statistics. Trackinfo (talk) 18:34, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
yes your right, that is important(apologies)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:54, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
As the editor who created said template “with only half the information” (?) and stated on my talkpage post created by the OP, see 2020 coronavirus pandemic on USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). I doubt a docked ship, aircraft carrier or otherwise, counts in a government territory’s totals. Wyliepedia @ 02:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Good article review needed for Veterans benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States

I nominated Veterans benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States for a Good Article Review. WP:MED is an interested WikiProject for the article. If you (anyone reading this) could conduct the GA review, that would be awesome! :0) I nominated it under the Culture, sociology and psychology subtopic. If you have not conducted a good article review before, take a look at the good article reviewer instructions to see what is involved. If you decide to conduct the review (thank you!), please be sure to read Markworthen/Veterans-benefits-GA-nom where I provide some important history/background info about the article, e.g., 2015 SME (subject matter experts) review; 2015 GA nomination feedback; 2019 Peer Review; 2020 Guild of Copy Editors review, etc. Much appreciated   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 16:27, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Mark, thank you for posting (a very important article to take to GA)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Memantine requires review

This edit

Could anyone here help review such edit and add other more reliable sources as necessary?

I will help when I have time. Thank you. --Reciprocater (Talk) 03:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

it may be better to revert that edit due to the reason you've stated...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I have adjusted it / trimmed the primary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:55, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

GISSI

Hi...request for opinion. GISSI doesn't seem right. Should the article be called the GISSI trials? Or should I leave it? Most articles are named by their full name...however this is by abbreviation. I moved most of the references to selected publications as they were all their own papers. I'm not intending to expand but maybe make a more suitable stub. Whispyhistory (talk) 18:47, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I would go with GISSI trials--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:29, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Identification help please

Hi, I came across these two images from the Wellcome Institute collection of the same person on Commons. The fact that they are from the Wellcome Collection means that they are related to the medical field:

Whoever named those files may have been copying it from handwritten notes, as the name is obviously not the same. I googled to find out who this is. I found an obstetrics pioneer in Mexico named José Ignacio Torres Padilla, but I cannot find any images that would back-up my suspicion that this the person in the photograph. Would anyone have tips for identification? If this is not the right forum, let me know. Thanks in advance. Deadstar (talk) 08:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

you might want to try User:Fae as this indicates[6]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:23, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion, but only facilitated the upload of 100,000 images from Wellcome Library, and wouldn't know. Deadstar (talk) 09:27, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Twelve-step program effectiveness

An editor recently changed the lead section of denial from this:

The concept of denial is important in twelve-step programs (which have been criticized as ineffective) where the abandonment or reversal of denial that substance dependence is problematic forms the basis of the first, fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth steps.

To this:

The concept of denial is important in twelve-step programs (which have been criticized as ineffective, however, according to the New York Times, "An updated review shows it performs better than some other common treatments and is less expensive"[7]) where the abandonment or reversal of denial that substance dependence is problematic forms the basis of the first, fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth steps.

I reverted, but I was wondering if someone here could review the link to see if I should restore the newer revision. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 19:51, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Viriditas the review is this one [8]
Which says "There is high quality evidence that manualized AA/TSF interventions are more effective than other established treatments, such as CBT, for increasing abstinence."
Maybe remove the "critized as ineffective" as that appears old now. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Done. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 20:03, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Good call. To call them "ineffective" is inaccurate; to call them "effective" requires some provisos and clarifications. So best to leave it out, as y'all have already done. :0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 15:36, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Move of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems article

As seen at Talk:International Classification of Diseases#Requested move 6 April 2020 (a permalink for it here), the article was recently moved. Additional comments can go in the Talk:International Classification of Diseases#Comment after the close section. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 07:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal: Merge Neutralisation into Neutralizing Antibody

A couple of weeks ago I proposed the merge of Neutralisation (immunology) into Neutralizing antibody as both articles discuss the same topic, namely neutralising antibodies. The Neutralizing antibody article contains more information than the Neutralisation article, but it would nevertheless benefit from some of the sections in the other article. As neutralising antibodies are currently heavily discussed in the media coverage of COVID-19, I think this merge is very important. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with this merge. Thanks --Huhny (talk) 11:17, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

question: could somebody with a background in immunology please confirm that neutralising antibodies are the only mechanism of neutralisation? Thanks! Dr. Vogel (talk) 11:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Not an immunologist, but this paper discusses neutralizing antibodies that actually facilitate infection, so a bit of caution may be necessary. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, Antibody-dependent enhancement is a strategy of Dengue virus and Zika virus to infect their host cells - this should be mentioned in the article Neutralising Antibody. But for me this is another argument why the article Neutralisation, which currently only talks about neutralising antibodies against viruses should be merged with the Neutralising Antibody article.--Huhny (talk) 12:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
As far as I know the term Neutralisation in an immunological sense only refers to the action of antibodies neutralising infectious particles.--Huhny (talk) 12:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 & Talk:Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 require review

 

Thanks, folk. I don't have too much time to do so and it's somewhat beyond my knowledge. --Reciprocater (talk) 13:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I've pinged Graham Beards to the question about whether ACE2 and ACE2 receptor are the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you!! --Reciprocater (talk) 16:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Continued II

the encoded protein (ACE2) is a functional receptor for the spike glycoprotein of the human coronavirus HCoV-NL63 and the human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 virus). -NCBI.[1]

Human coronavirus NL63

Human coronavirus NL63 or HCoV-NL63 is a species of coronavirus that was identified in late 2004 in a seven-month-old child with bronchiolitis in the Netherlands.[2] The infecting virus is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus which enters its host cell by the ACE2 receptor.[1][3]


I saw ACE2 receptor had been redirected to Angiotensin_II_receptor. Is it a correct redirection? Regards,

References

  1. ^ a b "ACE2 angiotensin I converting enzyme 2 - Gene". NCBI. 2020-02-28. Retrieved 2020-03-21. The protein encoded by this gene belongs to the angiotensin-converting enzyme family of dipeptidyl carboxydipeptidases and has considerable homology to human angiotensin 1 converting enzyme. This secreted protein catalyzes the cleavage of angiotensin I into angiotensin 1-9, and angiotensin II into the vasodilator angiotensin 1-7. The organ- and cell-specific expression of this gene suggests that it may play a role in the regulation of cardiovascular and renal function, as well as fertility. In addition, the encoded protein is a functional receptor for the spike glycoprotein of the human coronavirus HCoV-NL63 and the human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 virus).
  2. ^ Abdul-Rasool S, Fielding BC (May 2010). "Understanding Human Coronavirus HCoV-NL63". The Open Virology Journal. 4: 76–84. doi:10.2174/1874357901004010076. PMC 2918871. PMID 20700397.
  3. ^ Fehr AR, Perlman S (2015). Maier HJ, Bickerton E, Britton P (eds.). Coronaviruses: an overview of their replication and pathogenesis. Methods in Molecular Biology. Vol. 1282. Springer. pp. 1–23. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2438-7_1. ISBN 978-1-4939-2438-7. PMC 4369385. PMID 25720466.

--Reciprocater (talk) 14:21, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

@Reciprocater: btw, Bentham Open journals are dodgy. Best to avoid, unless something like a discovery source who was confirmed/endorsed by others. Which may well be the case here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:55, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
@Headbomb: Thank you for the reminder! --Reciprocater (Talk) 04:38, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
ACE2 is not the same thing as angiotensin II. They are related, but I disagree with that redirect. I agree with James above that it should go to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. ACE2 actually catalyzes the reaction that degrades angiotensin II to angiotensin-(1-7) and also angiotensin I to angiotensin-(1-9). This article [9] covers the topic nicely. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 18:39, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your fully comprehensive review! Reciprocater (Talk) 07:30, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hepacivirus

I see that someone moved hepatitis C virus to Hepacivirus C last year, but I don't see that these are synonymous.[10] Anyone have a more confident yes or no? Natureium (talk) 01:25, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Pinging User:Graham Beards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I believe they are now synonyms per an ICTV decision in 2016 (basically HCV used to be the only virus in Hepacivirus; then a bunch of similar viruses were discovered, so the genus got expanded with new species named Hepacivirus A-N, except for Hepatitis C which got renamed Hepacivirus C). But since Hepatitis C virus = Hepacivirus C, and the former is still immensely more common, I'd suport a return to the equally precise and more common name. If you Google "Hepacivirus C" you'll see the new name has not caught on outside of our page. Ajpolino (talk) 01:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
The page was moved by a taxonomy aficionado who has in the past has been confused when the common name is the same as the taxonomic name (genus, species). I agree that it should be moved back to hepatitis C virus. Graham Beards (talk) 10:30, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Support moving back to hepatitis C virus Dr. Vogel (talk) 19:25, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I tried to move it back but the move tool doesn't let me. Any idea why? Should I file a request at Wikipedia:Requested_moves instead? Ajpolino (talk) 23:00, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
It's probably because there are two edits in the page history. Yes, you'll have to get an admin involved. You should probably assume that it's a "contested" move rather than a non-controversial technical move, and therefore start a proper discussion on the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Do we need to have this same discussion again on the article talk page? It's a matter of correct/incorrect rather than what's better. Natureium (talk) 18:47, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't see that "hepacivirus C" is any less correct than "hepacivirus A" – these are just alternative scientific names for "hepatitis C virus" and "canine hepacivirus". However, it's obvious that "hepatitis C virus" is by far the most commonly used alternative name. As the move was undiscussed, I've restored the article to its original title, but if it gets contested, you are going to have to have a formal move discussion at the talk page. Please check through the article and see if I've missed anything in the restoration. --RexxS (talk) 21:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I would support going with the common name "hepatitis C virus". Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Plantago major

I'm not really a botany or really a medicine guy, but am I wrong in suspecting that this article is being a bit generous in the health benefits department? GMGtalk 13:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I think I get what you're thinking, but maybe not really? It doesn't give any real biomedical information. It provides mostly historical information – it's been used for centuries, it's still being used, it's been studied – and a couple of physical facts (i.e., contains some chemicals). There are editors who would want to remove it entirely, and others who would want to wrap every sentence in disclaimers like "even though it hasn't been proven scientifically to actually work," but these individual sentences are probably correct.
That said, Close reading is apparently a dying art, and I've seen people read "Don't do that!" and think it means "You can do that, if you really want to". So if you can find a source that says there's no evidence that it actually works better than doing nothing for any purpose, then you might want to add one of those 'disclaimer' sentences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I support WhatamIdoing on this one; there aren't significant medical claims be made at Plantago major, and it is true that it has been investigated. I'd keep the powder dry for more egregious cases. Klbrain (talk) 21:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
@Klbrain: What you've both missed is that Alexbrn had already removed most of the unsupported claims. You may not think that

"one of the most abundant and widely distributed medicinal crops in the world ... A poultice of the leaves can be applied ... to facilitate healing and prevent infection ... The active chemical constituents are aucubin (an anti-microbial agent), allantoin (which stimulates cellular growth and tissue regeneration), and mucilage (which reduces pain and discomfort). Plantain has astringent properties, and a tea made from the leaves can be ingested to treat diarrhea and soothe raw internal membranes."

requires good sources, but I certainly do. If you have reliable sources for those claims, please feel free to restore the content and source it. --RexxS (talk) 22:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
That explains why it looks so good, then. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Looking for images of Benznidazole or Nifurtimox

 
Reaction to benznidazole[1]
 
NECT treatment

Hi all, does anyone have an image (or the ability to take a picture) of Benznidazole or Nifurtimox? I'm looking for a picture to help fill out the article on Chagas disease. Something similar to the image of Abarax on the right-side of this page would be great. Thanks! Ajpolino (talk) 01:11, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

  • free image search tool--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Packaging often has copyright complications, and it varies by place and manufacturer. What's your goal for the article? Knowing that might help us figure out what could work (like maybe picture of the drugs themselves?). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
    • Thanks, I'd like an image to illustrate the management section of the Chagas disease article. The mainstay of management for half a century has been treatment with one of the two drugs I mentioned above. They're somewhat infamous for their poor side effect profile, and are often used as poster children for the need for new drugs for neglected tropical diseases. Given their unfortunate fame, I thought it would be nice to have a picture of the drugs themselves (or at least one of them). In this particular case, packaging variation should be limited (I think?) since Bayer is the sole producer of nifurtimox (under the name "Lampit") and just two companies produce benznidazole (under "Abarax" and "Radanil"/"Rochagan"). I'm not sure how much they vary the packaging in their different markets, but the disease is mostly prevalent in Latin America, so packaging from anywhere that the disease is endemic would be best (but I'll settle for whatever I can get!). Shamefully, I don't know much about the copyright complications around packaging. A picture of just the pills would be fine. Also thanks to Ozzie for the image search tool; no luck this time, but I'll bookmark it for the future. Ajpolino (talk) 15:50, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay found one. Reached out to the author. Got release under an open license and took care of OTRS. Many thanks to Neil Brandvold of DNDi for agreeing to drop the NC. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:33, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Fantastic! Added to the article. Thnaks both. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 21:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
My hero!! Thanks a million! Ajpolino (talk) 00:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Coronel, María Verónica Pacheco; Frutos, Laura Oriente; Muñoz, Eva Calabuig; Valle, Diana Kury; Rojas, Dolores Hernández Fernández de (February 2017). "Adverse systemic reaction to benznidazole". Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical. 50 (1): 145–147. doi:10.1590/0037-8682-0071-2016. PMID 28327820.

Vasa recta

The article about the vasa recta in the kidney is currently under the title Straight arterioles of kidney. I feel that that name is not the best it could be for several reasons, so I'm proposing a move here. Please give your opinion if you're interested in these things. Thanks! Dr. Vogel (talk) 09:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:32, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Merge proposal at the XX male syndrome article

Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:XX male syndrome#Merge proposal. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:19, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
+1 Dr. Vogel (talk) 13:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
+1 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:44, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Naming guidelines for articles on vaccines and drugs that do not yet exist

 
SARS-CoV-2

I started a requested move at COVID-19 vaccine proposing that it be renamed to COVID-19 vaccine development to reflect that such a vaccine does not yet exist and to be consistent with COVID-19 drug development. Some in the discussion opposed to the move pointed to HIV vaccine, which appears to have never had a requested move discussion. Given the discrepancy, I think a broader conversation is warranted. Should articles about vaccines or drugs that do not yet exist include "development" in the title? {{u|Sdkb}}talk 19:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

HIV is only one example. There are numerous articles for vaccines that are either in development or in clinical trials, including new versions of existing vaccines (for example, work is being done to develop a new mumps vaccine, and a new flu vaccine must be developed every year, which will probably also be the case with COVID-19). This is a critical distinction for vaccines, and perhaps some antibiotics or antivirals. Other drugs like headache medicines or statins may be improved from time to time, but with vaccines, many require constant improvement or they cease to work at all. BD2412 T 20:06, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
COVID-19 vaccine development would be much better..IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I feel that the title "COVID-19 vaccine" does not imply that the vaccine exists. It only implies that it's a topic worth writing about. Just like the thousands of other articles about things that do not necessarily exist, but are covered by sources. Dr. Vogel (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Auto-linking titles with free DOIs

Please see the discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Auto-linking titles with free DOIs. Nemo 13:39, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Medicine has over the years been a prominent voice in discussions about citation formats and determining which elements are appropriate for readers versus machines to manage. Please others check this out. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:41, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The correct place to respond to this RFC is at:

Public efforts to review COVID-19 preprints?

Is anyone aware of ~real-time annotations of COVID-19 preprints that have not had time to go through peer review? Most of them are published on sites that do not have a canonical way to leave or see such annotations. – SJ + 19:40, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Not sure. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Sure, the preprint servers medrxiv and biorxiv allow one to add comments about preprints. Go to an article, e.g., [11], and at the bottom of the page are comments and a textbox. But as far as I know, there is no crowd-sourced effort to evaluate these articles. My guess is that Wikipedia might be the best, most organized effort to evaluate such sources. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 21:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't think this is an appropriate task for wikipedia. Natureium (talk) 22:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I must agree with Natureium, this is not an appropriate use of Wikipedia. This is a recipe for the criminally deranged who support fanciful suggestions like overdosing people on hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment to spam that viewpoint on the inevitable mix of the infrequently good and frequently shit science you'll find on MedRxiv and BioRxiv right now. If you're qualified to be reviewing articles, you'll already be logging in to the article submission system(s) you're signed up to and reviewing articles in the correct, traditional way. Nick (talk) 22:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that Wikipedia organize this, definitely not; rather that WP editors have already made a great effort at teasing out high quality sources, both in the COVID articles and the COVID sources page. The WP refs are a small slice of the COVID literature, but one of the higher quality collections of sources.--{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 00:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
There is PubPeer, which was used to some effect in the Didier Raoult hydroxychloroquine affair: [12] [13].
It has active discussions of several other COVID-19 preprints right now.
Besides posting original comments, it seems that people also use PubPeer to gather links to reactions that a paper has received elsewhere. E.g. the entry for the recent Santa Clara antibody study by Stanford researchers lists Andrew Gelman's takedown.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Childhood interstitial lung disease

Hi! Is Childhood interstitial lung disease a topic on which Wikipedia should have an article? It's been listed at WP:CP for a while. Any chance someone would care to work on a rewrite? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems like, yes. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I think we should have an article on it. I'm happy to write an article from scratch if it helps to resolve the issue. Let me know. Dr. Vogel (talk) 21:59, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
DrVogel, while I don't think every word of the existing page is necessarily copied, a clean rewrite from scratch is probably the ideal solution. Would you be kind enough to follow this link to reach the rewrite page; as soon as you've made a start on the page please let me know (on my talk or at Talk:Childhood interstitial lung disease) and I will move it into place over the existing – there's no need for the rewrite to be complete in every respect for me to do that. Oh, and thank you – this is just the response I had hoped for! Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I've created a stub at Talk:Childhood interstitial lung disease/Temp with a ==Classification== section and just one source. Please help expand it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
  Done I've written something up from scratch. You can move my draft over the existing article. Hope this helps. Dr. Vogel (talk) 00:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh dear, I didn't realise WhatamIdoing was doing what I'd already volunteered to do :) You'll never find keener people than here :) Do you want to add the section you've written to my draft? Dr. Vogel (talk) 00:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's perfect. I'll do it now. Justlettersandnumbers, if you give me three minutes, then the /Temp page can be deleted and the /sandbox page is the real one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
  Done The two were complementary, with no overlapping content. The /Temp page is ready for deletion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
All done, many thanks to both of you. Wikipedia showing its best side here, I'm very impressed. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Antibody testing/Antibody titer

Serious work needs to be done here by editors who know the terrain. We have more content on antibody testing in the COVID-19 testing article (by far) than we do in the miserable stub at Antibody titer (and Antibody testing is a disambiguation page split between two concepts of the term). There is a great deal of news reporting right now about antibody testing for COVID-19, and we have no article giving a decent explanation of what antibody testing generally entails. I think Antibody titer should be moved to Antibody testing (ELISA can go in a hatnote there), and the content on what an antibody titer is should be a section of the article in the broader context of what the testing reveals and what good it is. BD2412 T 18:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I've edited the dab page to include a link to Serologic test, which is what people generally mean when they talk about "antibody tests". An antibody titer is a specific type of serologic test that determines the amount of antibody in a sample. There are serologic tests that only give positive/negative results, e.g. Monospot and most rapid testing kits. Both articles need work though. I've been busy lately, but I'll see what I can do. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 20:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I may also add some information, but that will probably relate to the legal status of such tests as substitutes for vaccination where the law otherwise mandates the latter. BD2412 T 00:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I've expanded Serologic test quite a bit, esp. regarding testing for infectious diseases. I'll work on it some more later today but this should be OK as a start. Let me know if anything is unclear or if there's anything that seems to be missing. I work in a medical lab so what is obvious to me may not be obvious to a casual reader. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 18:56, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Username, COI, MEDRS etc

Apologies, in car, typing on iPad from hotspot, does anyone have time to deal with the username etc other issues here? [14] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I gave them the ol' {{uw-coi-username}}. They've only edited that talk page so there's nothing too concerning so far IMO. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 15:21, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you ever so much, SpicyMilkBoy. I posted a couple of recent secondary reviews on talk there, although I won't be able to address that work for several more weeks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia's response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

Page watchers may be interested to help expand Wikipedia's response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Stay safe, ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Wow, that's quite meta. Honestly, it seems a little navel-gazey to me, but since it's been written about in the media, I guess why not? But I don't think the article should get longer than it is right now, and should probably be significantly shortened in some areas per WP:INDISCRIMINATE.
At a brief glance, it looks like we don't have articles on Facebook's or Google's response to the pandemic (although we do have coronavirus app). Rather than having a Wikipedia-focused article, would it be better to have an article on technology companies' response, and have Wikipedia as one part of that? I've also proposed (unsuccessfully, so far) that misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic be broadened to have a scope not just about misinformation but about all aspects of information dissemination related to the virus. If that happened, the content on Wikipedia could perhaps fit in there. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 07:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Another addition to the big pile of wank Wikipedia is producing around this epidemic. I could find "notable" material for Home baking during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, Cycling during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic and Dog walking during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic and woe betide anyone who tried to argue against our carrying this "useful information". I think for medical editors the pragmatic strategy is to focus on the key articles, key an eye out for medical misinformation and accept there is going to be a vast amount of impregnable cruft produced during this time which will get cleaned up in a few years (or more likely, left to fester indefinitely). Alexbrn (talk) 08:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Mmm, baking. I made https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/vermont-maple-oatmeal-bread-recipe on Tuesday. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, I can smell that from here. Oh, making me hungry. I haven't been able to get any bread flour or yeast since the lockdown. I did find a packet of all-in-one breadmix at the back of the cupboard, and it was only 3 months past it's use-by date, so... desperate times. -- Colin°Talk 15:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
That recipe calls for all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour, although I happen to have made it with some bread flour and white whole wheat this time. I buy a pound of yeast every few years. It keeps indefinitely in the freezer. I'm running low (by my standards ;-)), but the worst-case scenario is that I'll use the last pinch to jump-start a not-so-sour starter. I may run out of flour before that happens. Sometimes it's available at the grocery store, and sometimes it's not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:44, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Alexbrn, you left out Gardening during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. I've got tales! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 
Damp lemon and almond cake. From "How to be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson.

Home baking during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic #2: Damp lemon and almond cake. WhatamIdoing, a shortage of flour during the pandemic => baking cakes with alternatives such as ground almonds. And the lockdown means a change from my usual photographic subjects. I can report it was exceedingly moist and delicious. -- Colin°Talk 11:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

As Colin notes, flour has been in short supply here in the UK. White flour especially. But wholemeal flour has been easier to come by and I have a favourite spicy fruit loaf to make with it - with eggs, milk and plenty of butter in the recipe it is more cake than bread. Like all right-thinking people I too am a worshipper at the feet of Nigella; yesterday I roasted two ducks for the family using her special "double cook" crisping method. Yumsk. Alexbrn (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: your idea of an umbrella article on social media and coronavirus is excellent. Alexbrn (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Čeština "Language" has to be write on the English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaplastic_oligodendroglioma page, but it is not normally working. Wname1 (talk) 04:38, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Now it is correct: Čeština, Deutsch thanks. Wname1 (talk) 11:46, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

The Help:Interlanguage links appear to be working now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Nice description of this project in The Daily Telegraph

One of them is Project Medicine, a cadre of highly-educated specialists who treat badly-sourced claims like gangrenous tissue. From here. I hope that's a bit of welcome levity in this time. Stay safe, everyone. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 20:09, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Nice one. Sometimes journalists write about things that they don't really understand. But not this time. This lad nailed it. Dr. Vogel (talk) 20:19, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for posting this Sdkb! I love the journalist's vivid simile.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 20:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Stoppa operation for hernia repair

Hello, came across this while de-orphaning. Would it be better to move it to Stoppa Repair? "Stoppa operation for hernia repair" feels awkward. ♠PMC(talk) 17:16, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

If it were to be moved, I think Stoppa procedure would be better. Natureium (talk) 17:30, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I put it there. ♠PMC(talk) 23:28, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

New page on supercomputer-assisted research?

I contributed the section "Supercomputer-assisted research" to the page COVID-19 vaccine a while back, with COVID-19 work on the Summit supercomputer and Blue Waters having piqued my interest. I relied extensively on press releases and news articles for sourcing, however; in addition, the sources themselves contained no indication of vaccine research, but rather were focused on using supercomputers towards the discovery of drug candidates, forecasting, and medical protocols. Therefore, the section was removed. (I highly recommend going over the version history for the page.)

If I may ask, where might any information on the effects of COVID-19 on computing research be located? More pertinently, would it be acceptable to create a new article on the effects of COVID-19 on computing? Perhaps as a new section on Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on science and technology? COVID-19 drug development? Jarrod Baniqued (talk) 01:47, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Jarrod Baniqued, I recommend starting with a new section in an existing article. I see that articles such as Citizen science and Folding@home already contain some content about computing research related to COVD-19. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Done. See Citizen science, COVID-19 drug development#Efforts to streamline drug discovery, and Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on science and technology. Jarrod Baniqued (talk) Jarrod Baniqued (talk) 20:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Ozone therapy and COVID-19

The section Ozone_therapy#Anecdotal_claims_in_treating_COVID-19 looks like it could use some work from an experienced medical topic editor, as it places significant emphasis on Anecdotal_claims and uses wording like '"spectacular" rapid improvement'.Dialectric (talk) 12:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Nothing reliable there for medicine that I could see, so as a first step I have deleted the entire section. I am not convinced anything of this aspect is WP:DUE. Alexbrn (talk) 12:12, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

POV editing

I have concerns about Magnovvig (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)'s recent edits to the Neil Ferguson (epidemiologist) article, specifically misrepresentation of sources to cast Ferguson's research in a poor light, unsupported by the sources.

  1. In this edit Magnovvig misquoted the source by substituting "One of Ferguson's models predicted that 65,000 people would die from swine flu" for the source's "one of Ferguson's models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu". There's a very clear difference in meaning in that edit.
  2. In the same edit, Magnovvig asserted "This latterly caused some embarrassment to Health Secretary Matt Hancock during BBC Today on 16 April 2020 while the coronavirus pandemic raged in the UK." The source says nothing about "embarrassment", nor does it describe its context as "while the coronavirus pandemic raged in the UK." The embellishment is clear editorialising.
  3. In this edit, Magnovvig selectively quoted Streek as saying "the authors assume that 50 percent of households where there is a case do not adhere to voluntary quarantine ..." The source actually quotes Streek as saying "In the - really good - model studies by Imperial College about the progress of the epidemic, the authors assume, for example, that 50 percent of households in which there is a case do not comply with the voluntary quarantine ..." Magnovvig's deliberate omission of Streek's preface puts a spin on the quote you employed and places the paper in a much worse light that Streek's actual words did.
  4. Having mentioned criticism of Ferguson's work, Magnovvig failed to make use of the Business Insider source's quotes from Tim Colbourn and Stephen Griffin, which were favourable to Ferguson's study.

WP:BLP is clear that "Contentious material about living persons ... that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing." --RexxS (talk) 20:50, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree completely with RexxS. Whispyhistory (talk) 21:07, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
As a general rule, I think that a single "thing" shouldn't be discussed in any biography unless and until we have proof that this single thing is going to be an ongoing source of attention. If it later turns out that someone's April 2020 view on coronavirus is still being discussed months from now, then let's add it at that time. But otherwise, let's not go any further than the objective, unchanging facts, such as positions held and papers published. Wikipedia articles are not a suitable place for discussing the merits and demerits of a recent paper. In between now and months from now, time-sensitive interviews of doubtful enduring significance may be linked under ==Externals links== or omitted entirely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree..I was waiting for the story to end before adding. Thank you @WhatamIdoing: Whispyhistory (talk) 21:29, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm concerned about your use of this forum for browbeating me.
In this instance, there are no quotes on wiki, and wikipedians are somewhat free to interpolate. The model influenced policy, did it not? That is why the House of Lords had their post-factum inquiry. Or do I mistake their thrust. The model itself was taken from "can die" to "will die" somewhere between abstract theory and dictated policy and concrete practice. That is the reality of what transpired, and the raison d'être for the Lords inquiry. Please, let us not split hairs. Ferguson for a time was in the jump seat of the bus. Lesser men would not have survived a call that was wrong by *two orders of magnitude*.
No it is not. It is an accurate picture of what transpired in the interview. Wiki forces us to summarise fifteen minutes of radio into one sentence. Are you naive or just a hack? What other reason is there to think that a radio host drags up some event from more than a decade earlier?
It is standard practice in academic circles to couch language in a shit sandwich; I'm just cutting to the chase. Wiki forces us to brevity, remember? And it's Streeck, if I'm not mistaken.
This is an article about Ferguson, and that is a red herring. If I want to write about Tim Colbourn and Stephen Griffin or any other character who appears in the Business Insider article, I'll do so on their pages. What you seem to be saying here, if I'm not mistaken, is that you buy into Argumentum ad verecundiam.
Ferguson is a big boy and more than able to fend for himself. Remember that lesser men would not have survived a call that was wrong by *two orders of magnitude*. Only because you have more seniority in this forum than me and can use it to silence me, I will back off my edits on this subject so as to ensure that there is no repetition. Magnovvig (talk) 07:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I am not browbeating you, and your claiming that I am is a personal attack. Please strike your attack on me.
Wikipedians are not free to put spin on sources. There is a big difference between a model that predicts that deaths could rise to 65,000, and a model that predicts that deaths would rise to 65,000. That is not splitting hairs, and your edit deliberately misrepresents the source.
"This latterly caused some embarrassment to Health Secretary Matt Hancock during BBC Today on 16 April 2020 while the coronavirus pandemic raged in the UK." is not an accurate picture of what the Business Insider source states. Anyone can read the source you used to see that is the case. You embellished what you read there to reflect your own POV and that's not acceptable. Strike your personal attack on me there.
Steek's comment was not made "in academic circles", but in a newspaper interview. He was asked for an example of a model containing an untested assumption. Your selective quotation gives a very different interpretation of Streek's criticism of the report that he otherwise found "wirklich gut" – as is apparent from a full reading of the source.
You are utterly mistaken. There's no red herring. Our article is indeed about Ferguson, but "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." You cherry-picked the critical comment about one of his models from the Business Insider source, but didn't report that the source also contained quotes favourable to Ferguson's work.
If you don't demonstrate that you're prepared to abide by our policies on NPOV and NPA, I'll take steps to see that your editing privileges here are curtailed until you do. --RexxS (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Just noticed this thread (kinda busy lately :). I encountered this editor in the last 24 hours at White House Coronavirus Task Force; they seem to be very inexperienced. I haven't had time to look further, other than removing their first, inaccurate and unsourced statement. Now they seem to be pushing a non-Task Force member into that article, for reasons that are not at all clear. If that article should include every person who ever attended a press briefing, there are several individuals more significant than the one Magnovvig added, and the content he added goes off-topic. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
You should have just given up on trying to be exhaustive with the ArbCom evidence, Sandy. I found it too exhausting   to even try. I'm pretty sure Magnovvig's edits are down to inexperience, not malice, and I'd like to see them contributing constructively as they are clearly so keen. Hopefully if enough experienced editors give them guidance, it will sink in, and they can avoid finding themselves at ANI. --RexxS (talk) 21:38, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I suspect you are right (on Magnovvig), but have not had time to look. On the other, I am certain you are right; when someone invents a pill for verbosity, I will sign up for the controlled trials and buy stock. I think it's genetic.  :/ :/ SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I'd probably do the same. Just have to check the price first   --RexxS (talk) 00:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Help with creating a new wikipedia article outlining a newly discovered disease

Hi, I am a research coordinator. My team has newly discovered a disease and would like to publish a Wikipedia article on it without being controversial. I am looking for assistance as to how I can facilitate this? Furthermore, what data will you need from me and my team so that we can facilitate this?

From what I understand, in order to publish an article about a newly discovered disease, we would need an article written about this disease by an individual who was not involved in the original study and discovery of the disease, however this person can not be someone who is uninvolved with the study. Can someone further explain this point to me? I don't quite understand what I will need to do moving forward...

Leahpoly (talk) 21:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Leahpoly and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for asking your very appropriate question as it shows respect for Wikipedia's integrity as an organization. I suggest waiting until your research has been published and has been cited at least once, if not more. (It depends partly on who cites your article.) Use the wait time to learn how to write and edit Wikipedia articles like a pro. Along the way begin writing a draft article about this newly identified disease - you do that in your Sandbox. Look for a welcome message on your talk page with a list of resources to get you started. Welcome aboard! We're glad you are here.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 22:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi and thank you for your helpful and timely response! Our research was very recently published. When you say to wait until it partly matters who cites our article - are you able to elaborate more on this? I greatly appreciate your help. Leahpoly (talk) 22:31, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Leahpoly. You don't need to bother with {{Help Me}} tags on this page. We're always here to help. You can probably understand our dilemma: we want to have comprehensive coverage, but it sometimes seems like any quack can buy an allegedly peer-reviewed journal article, so we have to restrict things and say that the original paper isn't ever enough. In this situation, we usually want is at least one peer-reviewed review article that talks about your new disease. It doesn't matter whether that article agrees or disagrees with you, but it does matter that the authors aren't you. It also matters that the review article (not yours) comes from a medium-to-good journal, and not one of those places that's notorious for publishing whatever they can make money on.
So that's where we start. From there, it depends a little on the subject. The standard for a newly isolated virus or bacteria (which is pretty objective) is usually lower than the standard for a syndrome that is currently diagnosed as one thing, but which your group thinks ought to be considered its own thing (which is probably the toughest category). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing thank you very much for your response, this was very helpful. My team and I are very appreciative of your help. 174.7.244.85 (talk) 20:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. By the way, whenever you get to that point, feel free to come back to this page to talk about it. Once there are enough sources, then we can help you sort out the bureaucratic end of things. The original article might qualify for what we have jokingly named a WP:REFUND once we have several sources in hand. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Blood irradiation therapy

File:Blood irradiation misleading screenshot.png

Circulating on Facebook are what look like (but aren't) screenshots of a Wikipedia article entitled "ultraviolet blood irradiation", and they are being used to suggest that Trump's statement yesterday that UV might be a cure for Covid-19 is more sensible than he is being given credit for. We don't have an article by that name but the term is a redirect to blood irradiation therapy, which may now see an increase in traffic. It is not the most polished article on the 'pedia, and I can see from the talk page there has been discussion before about how credible a technique this is. I have no medical background but if someone does and can take a look at it, it would be good to weed out any overblown claims, and clarify when and for what purposes UV irradiation of the blood might be indicated. Beorhtwulf (talk) 20:04, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

UV radiation has been used to treat infection in the past; here is a 2017 review chapter: PMC 6122858 --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 20:26, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Beorhtwulf, thank you for this note. Page views for that article have suddenly gone from around 50 per day to 29,000 (twenty-nine thousand!) just yesterday. If anyone was looking for a weekend project with very high impact, this would be a good candidate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I just made a copy edit correcting a pretty noticeable copy error in the lead, so it indeed looks like an area that hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Regarding this issue, is there any way to add a sentence to the lead mentioning Trump and explaining how the therapy does or doesn't connect to his statement? {{u|Sdkb}}talk 01:51, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@Beorhtwulf: Giving this some thought, I think a warning notice may be appropriate. I'm working on a template, {{False version}}, that currently looks like this:
I'm inclined to be bold and add it quickly, per WP:DEADLINENOW. How does it look? {{u|Sdkb}}talk 02:18, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@Beorhtwulf and WhatamIdoing: added. Can you share a screenshot of the false version being spread? {{u|Sdkb}}talk 02:49, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Screenshot added to top of this section (to avoid problems with spacing). I know to those of us familiar with Wikipedia it's very quickly apparent that this is not an article of ours, but the presence of our URL (with that photo, which is taken from the article in question) along with the first sentence with its definitional style, bolding, parantheses etc will make it look legitimate to a lot of uninformed readers. It's the second sentence that made me realise this was bullshit. This is not to say of course that blood irradiation is pseudoscience or quackery, just that it seems particularly important now that the article on that topic is fully grounded in reliable sources. Thank you to you and others who have made efforts to improve it. Beorhtwulf (talk) 12:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I've stumbled upon this template via WP:RFPP. A maintenance template with the sole purpose of raising attention for off-wiki issues, even more so on a widely viewed article, does not seem to be a good idea to me; I have listed it at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_April_30#Template:False_version to gain more general input about this. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:02, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Fiix prothrombin time

Does this draft satisfy the guidelines on medically reliable sources? Should it be accepted into article space? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:52, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The sources in the draft are all primary. There's one systematic review on Pubmed [15]. Seems to be in an early stage of research, and I'm not sure if there is enough secondary literature to justify a full article. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 19:27, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Some information could probably be merged into Prothrombin time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I was thinking that—or somewhere on Warfarin—but I couldn't really think of a decent place to put it. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 22:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Personally I'd place it at the end of the Prothrombin time #Laboratory measurement section (before Statistics). The Interpretation section sets up the premise that the standard PT test suffers from variability owing to the short half-life of factor VII, so the point of Fixx PT would follow naturally. It really would benefit from some secondary sourcing though. --RexxS (talk) 01:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Draft declined. Merge recommended. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Verywell

Is currently under discussion at WP:RSN#Verywell. It was previously blacklisted for "persistent violations of WP:MEDRS". buidhe 22:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

For clarity, all of these websites are listed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, and some of them are also on the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. The request at RSN is to remove it from the spam blacklist; the recent request at the spam blacklist's usual page failed to achieve the desired result (possibly due to lack of interest rather than serious opposition). At this point, please centralize the discussion at WP:RSN#Verywell. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC opened for Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality

Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality is within the scope of WP:MED, although this WikiProject does not currently have a banner on the Talk page.

  Question: To what extent should this article discuss the scientific consensus on reparative/conversion therapy's potential harms and benefits?

→ Share your insights and suggestions at Request for Comments (RfC) - Stalemate regarding undue weight.

  Thank you!   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 18:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AfC sorting

Just wanted to bring this to the project's attention in case anyone isn't aware of it. Wikipedia:AfC sorting, which classifies drafts by subject using ORES, was created last month. Wikipedia:AfC_sorting/STEM/Medicine & Health and Wikipedia:AfC_sorting/STEM/Biology may be of interest to project members. Hopefully this will help drafts on medical subjects get reviewed faster. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 13:44, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

thank you for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposing moving Needle exchange programme to Syringe service program

It is currently under Needle exchange programme but I am proposing moving it to Syringe service program (a target that already exists). The reason is that there are operations that hands syringes out to drug addicts. While those are still a syringe service, not every syringe service is a needle exchange. Graywalls (talk) 03:57, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Graywalls, there are two changes in this suggested move. The first is moving needle (the pointy metal bit) to syringe (the basically harmless plastic tube). The second is moving exchange (which implies a trade) to service (which does not). Which of these two swaps is the important bit? Or, to put it another way, is there actually an organization that hands out only plastic syringes to people who will have to stick dirty needles on the end of those clean syringes, and then congratulates themselves on doing a fine public service? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
The two terms used are needle exchange or syringe service program. There are programs under the disguise of euphemism "need-based" that HANDS OUT insulin syringes to drug addicts. By convention, I have not seen anything named "needle service program" though. "SSP" seems to be commonly used in the medical context. https://fsph.iupui.edu/doc/research-centers/SSP_Report_20180516.pdf
The term "needle exchange" refers to a program where the service user must bring in old gear in order to obtain new stuff usually 1 to 1. It is a model that few (if any) in harm reduction favor and is usually implemented for political reasons. example: The Washington Needle Depot: fitting healthcare to injection drug users rather than injection drug users to healthcare: moving from a syringe exchange to syringe distribution model.
I haven't read this whole article in depth but it does not appear to be limited to describing an exchange program. For example it mentions vending machines which obviously can't function that way. Harm Reduction Coalition (respected in HR community) also uses the term Syringe Service Programs.
Unfortunately the term "exchange" is used throughout this article and I can also see there are various permutations of the terms including hyphenation and abbreviations. I think it would be appropriate to include some kind of clarification about the difference between "exchange" and "service" because obviously it is a point of confusion though I am not sure exactly how to write such a thing or where it would go. There should be a brief section about actual exchange programs.
For the curious, the kind of injection equipment available is generally something like the BD Micro-Fine.
Also sorry if this is not the right place to put this but the term "drug addict" is considered stigmatizing (see for example What is harm reduction? footnote #1).
(I just signed up to be a editor and am intending to lurk a bit before jumping in editing. This article looks like it needs some attention... For example the section "Diversion and fraud" should just be deleted. I bookmarked this and maybe I will come back to it later when I know what I am doing more.) WhatsBest (talk) 22:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Graywalls (talk) 05:21, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Do they also hand out the pointy metal bit? Or just the plastic part? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
they're often syringes with the needle permanently built into them. Graywalls (talk) 20:20, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
A syringe–needle combination? (That's BD's name for it.)
I can see the advantage for the service vs exchange part of the name change (all are services; some are exchanges). The euphemistic aspect of "really, just the plastic bit!" rather than the "don't step on the improperly discarded sharps" concerns me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Age management

...might benefit from some experienced eyes. It's got a lot of stuff in Wikipedia's voice that I find iffy. Usedtobecool ☎️ 13:52, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

This is an alt med practice User:Usedtobecool. Most of the references were 1) poor 2) predatory 3) did not discuss the topic in question. Have trimmed a lot. Not sure the topic / concept is notable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:10, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Doc James! Usedtobecool ☎️ 06:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Tyrosinemia

Tyrosinemia (Type I) and Type I tyrosinemia seem to be about the same subject. If so, the articles need merging by a subject matter expert. In addition, Tyrosinemia type II and Tyrosinemia type III are named more similarly than the related Type I tyrosinemia. A cursory reading of WP:NCMED doesn't say whether type or disease name should be placed first in the article title. If a consensus is reached here, page moves will solve the slight inconsistencies in article naming. Vycl1994 (talk) 02:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree needs merging. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:28, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
  Done Renamed and merged. Boghog (talk) 08:23, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

New medical books at the Internet Archive

In the new books scanned by the Internet Archive I noticed that we seem to be getting a large batch of thousands of books from the NIH Library. Several of those volumes seem quite rare, although they were discarded as duplicates or whatever. There are a few volumes of editions around 2000 of the American men and women of science directory, which seems used on a few articles judging from American Men and Women of Science. Nemo 21:27, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

some books aren't too old/therefore useful[16], thank you --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 02:11, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Misinformation MEDRS

Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, which keeps growing, needs a bit of ongoing attention. Some things like Buzzfeed are being used as MEDRS (for "Potentially serious side effects from chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine include irregular heartbeats, tinnitus, blurred vision, muscle weakness or "mental changes"", for instance). There are also some medical implications in the mere fact that some statements in the article; things like an implication that COVID-19 cannot affect young people with no comorbidities should require MEDRS. Obviously the regular media cover notable bits of misinformation, but I think we should be explicitly contrasting those notable rumours with reliably-sourced information.

There are some biomedical ideas common to many conspiracy theories, such as beliefs that specific ethnic groups are more or less vulnerable (on genetic grounds, not due to demographic factors like socieoeconomic status, profession, age, prevalence of pre-existing conditions, etc.), or that the virus was genetically engineered to attack humans. Adding a section after "Combative efforts" refuting these might be an option. HLHJ (talk) 01:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

HLHJ, one thing you can do in the interim (as you wait for others to get in there), is to put a {{medcn}} tag on non-MEDRS-sourced text. That generates a "medical citation needed" tag, and will help others get to things quicker. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, SandyGeorgia; I'd been using "medical citation needed" tags, but was not aware of that convenient shortcut. The whole page frankly needs a rewrite, some of it ideally by someone who's really kept up with the COVID-19 literature, which I have not. 17:38, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Relatedly, I've had a solid go at List of unproven methods against COVID-19, which basically consists of dozens of iterations of:

There are widespread rumours on Facebook that stuffing beans up your nose prevents/cures COVID-19. A [hapless spokesperson for a public health authority] said that there was no evidence that stuffing beans up your nose is effective against COVID-19, and it is not on the WHO list of recommended measures. They also warned that stuffing beans up your nose can have side effects, like damage to the nasal passages and difficulty breathing normally. They strongly advised the public not to stuff beans up their noses, recommending that they instead wash their hands and follow social distancing measures. They also said that anyone experiencing problems as a result of stuffing beans up their nose should call their medical provider.

The MEDRS are not always stellar. Frankly there are too many of these rumours to keep up with refuting even just the notable ones that reach tens or hundreds of thousands of people. The WHO has put out statements against some of them. HLHJ (talk) 01:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

HLHJ are you thinking we need higher bars for notability of items of misinformation? We have List of common misconceptions which last time I looked had fairly high standards. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

That's an impressive list, I'd never heard of a lot of those misconceptions. Sorry, Doc James, didn't see your post at first. Here, if we just enforce MEDRS and only include things a public health authority saw fit to refute, which are generally also those with entire news articles about them, then that seems to act as a decent bar; it gets the most common and most dangerous misinformation. These rumours tend to be language-bound, and there are a lot of them that are notable; eventually we may need to prune for sheer length.
I was posting here mostly because I was worried about uncited and incorrect MEDRS implications from the inclusion of some topics in Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Some IPs have been not unreasonably complaining about this on the talk page. The "Age" section has been removed, but, for instance, content on public mask wearing, which I don't think I'd put in the same category as violet-oil suppositories, remains. I'm hoping someone expert will go through and remove any misinformation about what is misinformation. HLHJ (talk) 06:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree. An article about "misinformation" should be about misleading claims, propaganda and hoaxes. To lump in legitimate active debates and scientific uncertainty (as around masks) seems wrong. Alexbrn (talk) 07:21, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
There is discussion, or at least a series of statements, at Talk:Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic#Split the public use of face masks section. Comments are welcome, but I really think this one is overdue for action. HLHJ (talk) 18:04, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

"Human Covid-19 Immunoglobulin Injection"

Passive immunization is fast and Active immunization is slow . This is an Passive immunization Injection.

At present any Vaccine approved by Fda for "Covid-19"?

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2020/apr/30/hyderabad-firm-awaits-approval-for-covid-injection-trial-2137160.html

https://www.aaaai.org/Aaaai/media/MediaLibrary/PDF%20Documents/Practice%20and%20Parameters/IVIG-March-2017.pdf

https://www.nyoooz.com/news/hyderabad/1440050/hyderabadfirm-awaits-approval-for-covid-injection-trial/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1537-2995.1966.tb04713.x

https://epaper.newindianexpress.com/2653374/The-New-Indian-Express-Hyderabad/30-04-2020#clip/51442323/92283b06-0233-4b7b-8ae1-2e04786ef158/912.0000000000001:330.53025302530267

(Doctor Andrew Baldwin MD (talk) 17:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC))

What is the suggestion User:Doctor Andrew Baldwin MD? Yes people are studying the use of immunoglobulins from people who have recovered from COVID19 and we discuss this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
For better results “Plasma Therapy” we have to follow following points

1. Corona virus frequently changes through mutation. So Donor and Receiver from same tree of Covid-19 infection , that means plasma transfer between persons belongs to same area or between family members.

2. In Plasma therapy dosage 200 ml , no option for change dosage ,so its better option to collect Immunoglobulin concentrate from plasma with technique “Plasmapheresis” . Injecte Immunoglobulin’s instead of plasma .The above drug “ Human Covid-19 Immunoglobulins”injection (Monoclonal antibodies/IgG antibodies) from in India based on this principal,”Passive Immunity” . Patient needs only IgG antibodies (Immunoglobulins). No need to transfer total plasma with unnecessary material.“ Human Covid-19 Immunoglobulins” injection is preferable than plasm for covid-19 patients. In this injection the manufacturer mixed all various types of strains of Corona virus. We can adjust dosage based on severity of clinical symptoms.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763982

https://utswmed.org/conditions-treatments/therapeutic-plasma-exchange/

(Doctor Andrew Baldwin MD (talk) 03:22, 3 May 2020 (UTC))

Not much to say until we have RCTs really. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:30, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes you are right User:Doc James , any thing wrong in my overview? Thanq James!

(Doctor Andrew Baldwin MD (talk) 06:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC))

The only point I'd make, Doctor Andrew Baldwin MD is that we must be careful not to editorialise based on our own knowledge and experience. For example, the Atlanta study says nothing that I could find about donor and receiver being from the same tree of COVID-19. Although I'd personally agree with your conclusion that the rate of mutation indicates a higher chance of success when donor and recipient are from the same region, I would disagree with the suggestion that mutation rate is a factor in preferring family (there are other reasons for that). In my case, my son is in Canada and I'm in the UK, so I doubt we'd be encountering COVID-19 with just the same pattern of mutations. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 16:32, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
User:RexxS I agree with you .(Doctor Andrew Baldwin MD (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC))
As per news the above Vaccine provides passive immunity ( IgG Immunoglobulins), Immediate action after Corona Virus Infection like Rabies Immunoglobulins injection after Dog bite. My doubt is any information regarding this vaccine, when will it come to market after getting License from Indian Government? (49.206.92.163 (talk) 04:34, 5 May 2020 (UTC)) (49.206.92.163 (talk) 04:37, 5 May 2020 (UTC))
 https://www.nyoooz.com/news/hyderabad/1440050/hyderabadfirm-awaits-approval-for-covid-injection-trial/

Dr. W. Kline Bolton

Will take some more months for develop vaccine for COVID-19:

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/coronavirus-when-will-a-covid-19-vaccine-be-ready/article31490925.ece

"Coronavirus is difficult to isolate. But the efforts of scientists of National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune have been successful and about 11 isolates of coronavirus are available which is a prime requisite for doing any kind of research related to viruses. Even with expedited clinical trials and approvals, it will take not less than around one-and-a-half to two years to develop a vaccine," Gangakhedkar asserted.

Dr Sreehari Y, chairman of MRPA Corporation, said, “We started work on the research three months ago when the first Covid-19 case was reported in China. We have a team of 25 doctors, including general physicians, pathologists and microbiologists, among others”.

He further said, “The basic process of this injection is that Injectable Immunoglobulins are collected from asymptomatic Covid-19 persons (IgG antibodies positive) or recovered patients to protect and strengthen the immune system of new patients.

Different procedures may be used to filter immunoglobulins from the blood”

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2020/apr/30/hyderabad-firm-awaits-approval-for-covid-injection-trial-2137160.html

(Moonandsunl (talk) 18:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC))

KCMO stats

Hi all,

I've made a bunch of prevalence maps at a county level based on the JHU & census data. The only state missing is Missouri, because I'm kind of thrown off by how they treat Kansas City. Does anyone with a better insight have a suggestion as to how to interpret that data at the county level? Some other states had combined reporting (e.g. Utah's health districts, New York City) where I could just combine the counties and add their numbers (basically taking a weighted average). See Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in Missouri. effeietsanders 16:14, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

(For those less familiar with the US Midwest, Kansas City is a metropolitan area that spreads over several counties and also crosses a state line, so deciding "where" a case should be assigned can be more complicated than usual.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:25, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: are you suggesting that the Kansas City data may even include data from a Kansas county (or more)?
The complicated part is that cases show up both in counties and as 'Kansas City'. I'm hoping that the double counts are excluded, but not sure how to exactly calculate things, because I see different definitions for 'Kansas City' and how many counties it spans. They probably use some healthcare organizational structure. effeietsanders 21:34, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
The eastern edge of the biggest hospital is right on State Line Road. People from all over the region use that hospital. If you live in Missouri but get diagnosed at the hospital in Kansas, then is that a "Kansas" case or a "Missouri" one? I have no idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Dispute at Talk:Director-General (WHO)

There is an ongoing dispute regarding Director-General (WHO). Please see Talk:Director-General (WHO)#Section about Taiwan and help resolve the problem. (It's pretty straightforward and shouldn't take much time to give your opinion.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:17, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:27, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

heads up - watchlist request

This serious blp violation yesterday, by an apparent spa, seems to have slipped through the net (I stumbled on it by chance). To my innocent eyes, it appears somewhat professionally done. Which makes me think some friendly stalkers here might care to watchlist Richard Horton (editor). Thanks, 86.134.212.26 (talk) 15:37, 27 April 2020 (UTC) [no COI]

Thanks for the heads-up. I've given Lizan98 an only warning for serious BLP violations. I'll keep an eye on it for now. --RexxS (talk) 16:37, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
( ah... 'only warning', thanks :) of course, if it is profish, they might come back via different spa, so I think it's good for the page to be watchlisted 86.134.212.26 (talk) 17:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I have put Horton my watchlist too. Can someone look at the edit history of this one? Whispyhistory (talk) 17:44, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
It looks like you and User:RexxS have cleaned up most of that. Having a few more people watching it would not be a bad idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Thankyou @RexxS:...I was a little worried. @WhatamIdoing:...I'm struggling to keep up with opinions on some high profile medics.Whispyhistory (talk) 21:03, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
If we stopped trying to report what people said this week or this month, then I think you might have fewer worries on that score. Maybe the examples in Wikipedia:Recentism would benefit from a quick update. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks @WhatamIdoing:...I thought I would try and tidy Horton, but that appears complex. Let's see. Let me know if I am not dong right. Whispyhistory (talk) 21:39, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Fwiw, I feel there may be some broadly related (incremental) weighting/pov concerns regarding The Lancet permalink, from top to bottom. Just a general heads-up, as it's not really my scene, sorry. 86.134.212.26 (talk) 13:54, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Habit cough

Habit cough is a mess of marginal sources. I can clean it up to PMID 25856777 and PMID 26926981, but there are editorial comments all over the literature about the naming. See PMID 28449492 Should it stay at habit cough or be moved to somatic cough syndrome? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:27, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

It looks like the name is old, e.g., chapter 6 of this 1891 book, which also calls it a memory-cough and objects to it being called a stomach-cough because that name implies the wrong pathophysiology. (The term habitual aborter was used in veterinary medicine at the same time, and I suspect that it arises from a more neutral view of the word habit than we have these days – more like "It was his habit to take a walk everyday after dinner" than the modern use, which almost always implies a bad habit: tobacco habit, habit of chewing fingernails, etc.)
A section on the name would not be amiss, I think. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Just because a name is old, that doesn't mean that it is should be changed. While those 2015 and 2016 articles suggest a recent name change, the use of habit cough continues in the medical literature; for example, the 2017 PMID 28289448 starts Habit cough is most commonly characterised ..., so I'd argue that it's too soon for a name change, and as the name change hasn't taken effect in common (medical) use. Klbrain (talk) 08:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
That was the direction I was headed as well. I think I will rewrite the article first, with a Name section, and then we can better see if a name change is warranted. I am also concerned that Weinberger as author appears so often on that page, and want to spend some time seeing if there are differing views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:07, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

So, people, this simple little article (habit cough) is a bit fraught, and it may be expedient to sort this before I continue writing. New guidelines were issued in 2015. Those guidelines appear to suggest this should be two separate articles, placed at Tic cough and Somatic cough syndrome. But the lead author on the Guidelines (Vertigan) has written a 2017 editorial (which is basically a review), and another author of the Guidelines (Weinberger) seems to prefer the old terminology. So I have used the primary source (Vertigan editorial) in a limited way, with attribution, to explain the dilemma. And then Koreans wrote new guidelines in 2016, that stuck with the old naming.

I have only written up so far a small portion of the Name dilemma, and still have the entire article to write, based on numerous new sources. Before I continue, it would be helpful to decide if this should be two articles, and if so, under what names ... as we have apparently a situation of somewhat contentious guidelines involving four different ill-defined and not well distinguished terms and conditions (tic cough, habit cough, psychogenic cough and somatic cough disorder). The new names were to bring terminology in line with DSM-5, but that appears to have some resistance. The 2017 Vertigan editorial gives the best overview of the whole situation; she was the lead author on the 2015 Guidelines. Weinberger, another author on the Guidelines, in 2017 prefers Habit cough in a published secondary review (and one reason this concerns me is that Weinberger is the main proponent of suggestion therapy, which I had never heard of until this article). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

If there isn't a consensus as to whether there is one, two or more syndromes, then I think that its best to keep the topic on one page where the different potential meanings can be discussed. Different syndromes can be discussed in different sections, and they can also be compared. If the page were to split, then the same awkward disambiguation of related terms needs to be carried out in two places rather than one. I wonder whether there are also national differences here, with the US changing nomenclature and the rest of the world not. Klbrain (talk) 17:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
OK, it's going to be tricky to sort it all out on that one page, but I will keep trying. (Should also mention that Irwin, author of 2006 guidelines, was co-author of 2015 guidelines, and Pringsheim, co-author on 2015 guidelines, is a well-recognized tic disorder person, so it looks like a good panel). Also, on the national differences, the Vertigan editorial mentions four other countries, that I will look into ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
It sounds like a ==Classification== section might do some good. "Weinberger classifies it this way, and the Korean guidelines split it that way, and..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Headed that direction as well, but I can't even say "it", since there may be two "it"s. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:14, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Maybe if I just roll the whole mess into one Section called, "Classification and name"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I had a look, and I think that's working. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 7 May 2020 (UTC)