Doctor Wikipedia

[Mancunium]

Confíe en su médico y no en wikipedia [Video]
Alta Densidad TV, 11 July 2014 link

Google-translation from Spanish link

Trust your doctor and not wikipedia [Video]

Definitely not a good idea to replace a doctor's visit for an internet consultation. The popular encyclopedia 'online' Wikipedia fails in nine out of 10 items related to health, so if you have any questions, do not trust to the letter on this page. So warns a study published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. According to a team of 10 scientists, errors have to do with common issues such as cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, depression, diabetes, back problems, asthma, and osteoarthritis, among other conditions.

[Poetlister]

Then, I would directly lobby Google, Yahoo, etc. to add it to their algorithms.

Best of luck with that! Why should they go to the trouble of making what could be a tricky alteration?

at least there'll be a link to the reviewed version at the top of the article.

Will it say, in large letters, WHATEVER YOU DO, IGNORE THIS VERSION AND GO TO THE BETTER ONE? Otherwise, people won't bother to make the extra click.

[Anthonyhcole]

Then, I would directly lobby Google, Yahoo, etc. to add it to their algorithms.

Best of luck with that! Why should they go to the trouble of making what could be a tricky alteration?

at least there'll be a link to the reviewed version at the top of the article.

Will it say, in large letters, WHATEVER YOU DO, IGNORE THIS VERSION AND GO TO THE BETTER ONE? Otherwise, people won't bother to make the extra click.

User:WereSpielChequers proposed in one discussion that we refer to the unreviewed versions as drafts. I support that. "This current draft of the article has not been checked for accuracy. To see the difference between this and the fact-checked version, click here" would be helpful to the reader.

[Mancunium]

WikiProject Medicine has a noble goal of 300 "Good Articles" (300 out of the total of 30,802 articles under the project's purview). Great news: this goal is now 57% complete! Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine#Goals (T-H-L)

Huzzah! I hereby award them the Mother Teresa Barnstar For Selfless Humanitarianism:


The 10,000+ negative news reports on their good works have been firmly addressed by this riposte:

Was Study Of Wikipedia Errors Wrong?
Health IT Outcomes (press release) - Jun 30, 2014 link.

If only anyone -- anyone! -- had republished their press release. Instead, we still find slurs like this:

WIKIPEDIA Βρίθει από ιατρικά λάθη
Εφημερίδα Μακεδονία, 13 July 2014 link

Google-translation from Greek link

WIKIPEDIA rife with medical errors

Nine out of ten articles medical content of the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia contain errors or outdated references from the latest medical developments-which is why users should be cautious and prefer to trust their doctor, according to a new U.S. scientific research. Ten researchers compared the entries in Wikipedia articles in scientific medical journals in relation to different conditions (such as cardiac, cancer, depression, diabetes, asthma, osteoarthritis, back pain, etc.). The study revealed many scientific errors of the open online encyclopedia, which has about 30 million articles in 285 languages ​​and is the 6th most popular website.The specification of each person contributes Wikipedia, and then if enough volunteers from the medical field to monitor any inaccuracies (which, however, apparently not ultimately avoided). The study found that about 90% of the articles contain references that contradict the latest medical research and publications.

Confession: I'm one of those people who still thinks text looks more authoritative when written in the Ionic.

[Casliber]

You think by repeating that quote often enough it'll make it true?

[HRIP7]

You think by repeating that quote often enough it'll make it true?

Well, it works for all those who repeat the meme that a Nature study proved that Wikipedia was as reliable as Britannica (or even more reliable).

[Casliber]

You think by repeating that quote often enough it'll make it true?

Well, it works for all those who repeat the meme that a Nature study proved that Wikipedia was as reliable as Britannica (or even more reliable).

Never paid that item much heed meself.......try and avoid using tertiary sources as info often wrong......

[HRIP7]

You think by repeating that quote often enough it'll make it true?

Well, it works for all those who repeat the meme that a Nature study proved that Wikipedia was as reliable as Britannica (or even more reliable).

Never paid that item much heed meself.......try and avoid using tertiary sources as info often wrong......

I've lost count of the number of times journalists have quoted and misquoted that Nature piece. If they start quoting the "9 out of 10 Wikipedia articles on medical conditions are inaccurate" meme and the recent study on drug entries being "often inaccurate or outdated" just as enthusiastically as the Nature study, it will arguably help redress the current imbalance (if you believe that two wrongs can make a right).

[Mancunium]

You think by repeating that quote often enough it'll make it true?

You think by denying the facts often enough it'll make them untrue?

Bad Medicine: Why Your Doctor Shouldn’t Use Wikipedia
Yahoo Health, 16 July 2014 link

Let’s ‘fess up: Most of us have logged on to Wikipedia to find information on an unexplained ailment — and, surprisingly, so have doctors. A recent report published by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics found that Wikipedia is, believe it or not, the single leading source of medical information for doctors. In fact, 70 percent of MDs use it as an “information source in providing medical care,” according to a study published in the Journal of Internet Medical Research. Not so reassuring, considering that 90 percent of medical information on the community-edited website is inaccurate, says research published by the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. “We compared the 10 conditions responsible for the most medical costs. For example, hypertension, back pain, and depression, then cross-referenced them with updated, peer-reviewed studies,” study author Hilary Gerber, MD, tells Yahoo Health. “Most of the information on Wikipedia was inaccurate.”

Here's one example, cited in a story published in Prevention: Wikipedia states that before doctors can make a diagnosis for hypertension, blood pressure readings from patients on three separate office visits were necessary, but national guidelines actually require only two readings. [...] “It’s good that Wikipedia cites most of its content, however, you don’t know who is writing the articles so, at best, the site should be used for general reference, not to confirm a symptom or diagnosis,” Jeremy Fine, MD, a Los Angeles-based medical concierge internist, tells Yahoo Health. He suggests patients join the site UpToDate, a subscription service that, while expensive, is the most trusted source for medical information online. There’s also accredited free websites WebMD and the Mayo Clinic, as well as government sites such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Of course, consult your doctor before making decisions that would impact your health. [...]

[Mancunium]

Your pet's vet is the best source for his health info
Sun Herald 17 July 2014 link

[...] Drs. Mike Roizen and Mehmet Oz recently have written pieces in their weekly newspaper column appearing in the Sun Herald about inaccurate online medical information. Of Wikipedia they say, "A new study compared info on Wiki's medical articles to facts from peer-reviewed medical journals: 90 percent contained false or misleading information!" They go on to say "reviewers spotted mistakes that could lead you to treat yourself incorrectly or pass along faulty info to your doctor." Wikipedia "often had missing or incorrect info on dosages, interactions and contradictions." These physicians recommend using the site of the National Institutes of Health instead (nih.gov). They also endorsed other dot-gov sites. [...] Because there are many diseases that affect people and pets similarly, a search on one of these reliable sites may lead you to information you can extrapolate to your pet's health. Ultimately, however, you should discuss your findings with your pet's doctor before taking any medical steps. He is the expert who can tell you when the information you've read is accurate or inaccurate.

Pets trust us to protect them. What sort of cruel or irresponsible person would endanger their animal companion's health and life by consulting one of WikiProject Medicine's articles in Wikipedia?

[mac]

Your pet's vet is the best source for his health info
Sun Herald 17 July 2014 link

[...] Drs. Mike Roizen and Mehmet Oz recently have written pieces in their weekly newspaper column appearing in the Sun Herald about inaccurate online medical information. Of Wikipedia they say, "A new study compared info on Wiki's medical articles to facts from peer-reviewed medical journals: 90 percent contained false or misleading information!" They go on to say "reviewers spotted mistakes that could lead you to treat yourself incorrectly or pass along faulty info to your doctor." Wikipedia "often had missing or incorrect info on dosages, interactions and contradictions." These physicians recommend using the site of the National Institutes of Health instead (nih.gov). They also endorsed other dot-gov sites. [...] Because there are many diseases that affect people and pets similarly, a search on one of these reliable sites may lead you to information you can extrapolate to your pet's health. Ultimately, however, you should discuss your findings with your pet's doctor before taking any medical steps. He is the expert who can tell you when the information you've read is accurate or inaccurate.

Pets trust us to protect them. What sort of cruel or irresponsible person would endanger their animal companion's health and life by consulting one of WikiProject Medicine's articles in Wikipedia?

Wikipedia:WikiProject Veterinary medicine (T-H-L) also exists, but it is lame.

[Mancunium]

Are you one of the rising numbers of the 'worried well'?
The Telegraph, 20 July 2014 link

[...] Dr Davies, whose practice is in Warrington, Cheshire, says cyberchondria (as some GPs have dubbed it) can have its funny moments. Doctors are reporting huge rises in the “worried well” – healthy patients who, fuelled by Google and Wikipedia searches, are diagnosing themselves with everything from food allergies to brain tumours. [...] Dr Laurence Buckman, a former chairman of the British Medical Association’s GPs committee, who practices in London, says: “There has been an extraordinary rise in the worried well. I don’t mind patients who do their own research and are trying to inform themselves, but it’s interesting that most people wouldn’t dream of going to their accountant or lawyer and telling them how to do their job, and yet they feel fine about doing it to their doctor. “My heart does sink when someone comes in with a sheaf of papers with the Google logo at the top, absolutely convinced they know what is wrong with them before you’ve even discussed their symptoms. And often there is nothing wrong with them at all.” [...]

For some people, worrying about being well can actually lead to health problems. Health anxiety – the new term for hypochondria – is also on the increase. The charity Anxiety UK estimates that a third of calls to its helpline are from people obsessed with their own health. Dr Paul McClaren, a psychiatrist and medical director of the Priory Hospital Hayes Grove, says patients can benefit from cognitive behavioural therapy to help their health anxiety, but says GPs need to spot the problem rather than indulge the demands of someone they may see as “worried well”. “Doctors may think that sending someone for tests will reassure them they are not ill, but the patient can actually get hooked on needing that reassurance,” he says. And, ironically, research has suggested that people who complain about their health are more likely to die earlier – even when they are in the same medical condition as non-worriers. Just another thing for the worried well to fret about.

[Mancunium]

No, Casliber and Anthonyhcole, these stories will never ever stop. The reputation of WikiProject Medicine's 30,802 deadly "anyone can edit" articles is now common knowledge.

Top 5 Internet medical resources you should be wary of
Voxxi, 22 July 2014 link

With the introduction of the Internet more and more people are foregoing a visit to the doctor’s when they have a medical question. For many, this form of self-medication through online articles works and no harm is done, but for others there may be serious complications and disease oversights. [...] So how do you keep yourself as safe as possible when browsing the Internet looking for medical advice? Here are some of the top suggestions brought to you by Saludify:

Wikipedia: [...] When it comes to medical advice, however, think twice before you use this site. According to a report, published in the The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, nine out of 10 public-edited Wikipedia articles on common medical conditions contained factual errors when compared to peer-reviewed resources. That’s because Wikipedia remains a website where the public contributes information–almost anyone can apply to become an editor.

Blogs: There are many websites out there that are blogs masquerading as legitimate health resources. [...] Thanks to customizable website templates, many of these blogs can look like professional health sites. Before you take someone’s medical advice, make sure to look at their credentials and see if they cite accurate and reputable case studies.

Product advertisers: Another way people get fooled by medical advice is through websites trying to sell or promote a medical product/service. [...] For example, a website promoting the use of medical marijuana may list all of the studies supporting the product but none of those cautioning about side-effects.

Forums: [...] Not everyone on the Internet is honest, and while you wouldn’t think someone would go into a forum just to give inaccurate information, things like that happen all the time. In fact, a recent report indicated computer hackers can now take over life-saving medical monitors in hospitals, deliberately causing them to malfunction. If someone would do such a thing, the same kind of people would have no issue putting out unreliable medical advice.

Celebrity doctors: [...] remember that these individuals and others like them use the medical business as a money maker. Dr. Joseph Mercola, for example, has received at least three warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to stop making illegal health claims about the efficacy of certain products. Dr. Oz recently came under scrutiny for promoting a weight loss supplement he promoted.

So what information can you rely on? While it always pays to be wary of the medical information on the Internet, the ALS Association makes the following recommendations for Internet searchers: First, the following sites have been acknowledged to provide accurate and reliable medical information:

The ALS Association – http://www.alsa.org
WebMD – http://www.webmd.com
Healthfinder – http://www.healthfinder.gov
MayoClinic.com – http://www.mayoclinic.com
Prevention.com – http://www.prevention.com

Second, when visiting a health website, check the following:The purpose of the web site should be clearly stated. The authors of the material must be identified. Look for the authors’ credentials. Is the author a physician, nurse or other health care professional? [...] When in doubt, always check with a local doctor about symptoms you are having. Something as seemingly minor as a cough could be the warning sign of a chronic disease.

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Exhausted (T-H-L)

Have come across another two users who have mostly simply copied and pasted from sources. I am tired of spending my days dealing with this rather than writing content. That User:Truebreath was able to make more than 3,500 edits over more than a year before being picked up [7] is sad. Many excellent edits were lost in the removal. The other user was User:Janbaekelandt and the two may be related. We need a solution to prevent this and we need it now. We need foundation support. We need the foundation to take this seriously. User:Eloquence, User:Frank_Schulenburg and User:Jimbo Wales can the foundation support WP:Turnitin? User:Ladsgroup I am willing to hire you for this work if you want to take it on. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:42, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I have just offered $5000 CAD for a working solution. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 02:01, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Doc, Please take care not to harm yourself, for the sake of the encyclopedia. We need you. Regards, --Ancheta Wis (talk | contribs) 02:56, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks no concerns of harm. Just see a serious problem that has been festering and needs to be fixed. Not sure if it is also a huge issue in other topic areas but I assume that this is likely. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:03, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Have you posted the details of the offer somewhere, James? -- Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:17, 21 July 2014‎ (UTC)

Not yet. You interested Anthony? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:39, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring is usually one of the few methods of "dispute resolution" on Wikipedia that actually worked. However now it is appearing not to. User:Technophant added a bunch of primary sources and a 1900s German alt med text that was recently translated to English which introduces a new "body system" to the standard 11 (the collagenous matrix and ground substance) [8]. They were reverted multiple times by a couple of editors. They re-added content four times making a technical total of 5 reverts in 20 hours. No block [9] I am sure it will just take some time to straighten out Myofascial meridians and at least the page is protected now. Still contains the text "Continuing education courses in Anatomy Trains are taught regularly.[10]" Glad to see Wikipedia is helping out the "fearless" leader on his birthday. (per text at the bottom of the above link ref) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:45, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Fighting on the wrong side of losing battle is frequently exhausting. Perhaps you take a wp:wikibreak and take some time to think about what your reasons are for being an editor. - Technophant (talk) 09:53, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Techno. Your comments have helped me refocus on why I am an editor :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:04, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Someone with experience on writing on opiates really needs to give a good look at the train wreck of anecdotes and unsourced waffle that is Poppy tea. To my mind, this kind of "folk remedy" article is where the biggest risk (both to readers, and to Wikipedia) lies—all it takes is one kid to die or suffer serious psychological trauma after taking diluted unprocessed opium as a cure for diarrhoea ("Well, Wikipedia says it's a traditional cure so it should be all right") and there's some nasty explaining to do. I suspect that because it doesn't fall neatly into either pharmacology or psychiatry, this one has a tendency to slip through the net when it comes to fact-checking. – iridescent 2 12:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Here is a ref [11]. Trimmed some Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:47, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

[thekohser]

I find it amusing that Doc James says he "just offered $5000 CAD" to fix a Wikipedia problem, when the Wikimedia Foundation is literally sitting on tens of millions of dollars that are doing nothing but drawing 1.5% interest. That may be the very definition of sucker.

[HRIP7]

I find it amusing that Doc James says he "just offered $5000 CAD" to fix a Wikipedia problem, when the Wikimedia Foundation is literally sitting on tens of millions of dollars that are doing nothing but drawing 1.5% interest. That may be the very definition of sucker.

There is a related mailing list thread:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/w ... ion/486310

Continuation on the wiki-research-l mailing list:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wi ... .html#3598

[Mancunium]

I find it amusing that Doc James says he "just offered $5000 CAD" to fix a Wikipedia problem, when the Wikimedia Foundation is literally sitting on tens of millions of dollars that are doing nothing but drawing 1.5% interest. That may be the very definition of sucker.

That money is for quantity, not quality.

[Mancunium]

Pharmaceutical_Research_and_Manufacturers_of_America (T-H-L)

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA, pronounced /ˈfɑrmə/), founded in 1958, is a trade group representing the pharmaceutical research and biopharmaceutical companies in the United States.

PhRMA Edits @phrmaedits: link

I’m a bot. I tweet anonymous Wikipedia edits made from the IPs of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) members]

Anonymous Wikipedia edits from PhRMA member organizations link

This is a list of anonymous edits of en.wikipedia.org made from the IP addresses of PhRMA member organizations from 2002-2014 (other sources). A total of 4983 edits were found. The data comes from dumps.wikimedia.org. You can download the raw data used for this page as CSV or see the IP ranges used to find the edits. Questions? Email or tweet me.

[Mancunium]

Jay-Z and Scarface: pharma staff’s anonymous Wikipedia interests
in-Pharmatechnologist, 22 July 2014 link

Big pharma employees are among the brightest minds in the world, and data released yesterday on their Wikipedia use shows their interests spread beyond drug development into lighter fare. Using data compiled by the automated Twitter account @PhRMAedits and open source enthusiast Jari Bakken , in-Pharmatechnologist.com took a look at anonymous edits to Wikipedia articles which @PhRMAedits says were made from the computers of big pharma companies. Bakken used Google BigQuery's Wikipedia revision history to find 4047 edits between 2002 and 2010 from IP addresses identified by @PhRMAedits as belonging to Eli Lilly, Pfizer and other members of the body Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

IP addresses are unique numbers assigned to computers within a network using the same internet server. “Who owns which IPs is already publicly available information maintained by Regional Internet Registries,” Bakken told us. “Anyone can do a WHOIS [an internet look-up tool] query to find the owner. Usually it’s an internet provider with a large number of subscribers, but it’s not uncommon for corporations or governments to essentially act as their own internet providers, and own big blocks of the IP space. That’s what we rely on to identify the edits. In the case of the edits [made by PhRMA member companies], the actual IPs were found by the owner of the @phrmaedits, and can be seen here . I didn’t have any hand in that, I just did the historical data extraction.” The list of edits shows an enormous range of interests by pharmaceutical employees. Some of the changes linked to pharmaceutical servers were made to articles about drug development , drug companies themselves , and medicines .

[... examples of edits from various pharmaceutical companies ...]

Bakken told us he plans to add pharmaceutical data from the last four years and from Wikipedia sites in other languages soon. He added that, while most sites tracking Wikipedia edits concentrate on political IP addresses, “it's great that transparency initiatives like these are being brought to the private sector. Governments are not the only centres of power.”

[Mancunium]

Now updated: Anonymous Wikipedia edits from PhRMA member organizations link

This is a list of anonymous edits of en.wikipedia.org made from the IP addresses of PhRMA member organizations from 2002-2014 (other sources). A total of 4983 edits were found. The data comes from dumps.wikimedia.org. You can download the raw data used for this page as CSV or see the IP ranges used to find the edits. Questions? Email or tweet me.

[EricBarbour]

Now updated: Anonymous Wikipedia edits from PhRMA member organizations link

This is a list of anonymous edits of en.wikipedia.org made from the IP addresses of PhRMA member organizations from 2002-2014 (other sources). A total of 4983 edits were found. The data comes from dumps.wikimedia.org. You can download the raw data used for this page as CSV or see the IP ranges used to find the edits. Questions? Email or tweet me.

This is actually quite juicy. Lilly and Pfizer, two of the biggest (and sleaziest) drug manufacturers, have been up to no good on Wikipedia since its early days. And I don't see any Wikipedians, much less Heilman and his gang of monkeys, doing anything about it in an organized way--or even talking about it, except for one person, who was ignored.

[Mancunium]

That would be CFCF (T-C-L), a medical student from Sweden.

The page has now been updated and follows up till 2014. There are a number of more controversial edits on pharmaceuticals etc. here, much of which at the very least is not WP:MEDRS compliant.

WP:MEDRS is Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine) (T-H-L).

[thekohser]

This is actually quite juicy. Lilly and Pfizer, two of the biggest (and sleaziest) drug manufacturers, have been up to no good on Wikipedia since its early days. And I don't see any Wikipedians, much less Heilman and his gang of monkeys, doing anything about it in an organized way--or even talking about it, except for one person, who was ignored.

One of my first five paid editing clients was a marketing firm working on behalf of one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. The job was to author an article about one of their vaccines, and I made it clear that I would include a paragraph about some of the social controversy surrounding the product (as is the case with many vaccines). A few months after my work was done, a loyal Wikipedian (still active today, in good standing) asked on the Talk page if the article really needed a section about controversy. After nobody responded, he went ahead and removed the controversy section, and it's never really returned.

The article has been viewed over 330,000 times. You can still see some of the core content that I first created, though it's been through hundreds of edits since my first touch.

[enwikibadscience]

This is actually quite juicy. Lilly and Pfizer, two of the biggest (and sleaziest) drug manufacturers, have been up to no good on Wikipedia since its early days. And I don't see any Wikipedians, much less Heilman and his gang of monkeys, doing anything about it in an organized way--or even talking about it, except for one person, who was ignored.

One of my first five paid editing clients was a marketing firm working on behalf of one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. The job was to author an article about one of their vaccines, and I made it clear that I would include a paragraph about some of the social controversy surrounding the product (as is the case with many vaccines). A few months after my work was done, a loyal Wikipedian (still active today, in good standing) asked on the Talk page if the article really needed a section about controversy. After nobody responded, he went ahead and removed the controversy section, and it's never really returned.

The article has been viewed over 330,000 times. You can still see some of the core content that I first created, though it's been through hundreds of edits since my first touch.

No surprise.

[Mancunium]

Bird: Why the Healthcare Industry Needs to Chart a Social Media Course
O'Dwyer's PR News, 25 July 2014 link

How many times do concerned co-workers, friends or family members say they have this or that medical condition because they've looked up their "symptoms" on the Internet only to later learn from their doctor that it's not the case. Or, heard about a treatment that is "really effective" because someone read about it on the Internet. Consumers now turn to the Internet as their primary source of health information. One recent study reported 72% of Internet users looked online for health information within the past year. People are exchanging stories about health to help understand what is happening to them and their loved ones right now and what might lie ahead. [...] According to an IMS report, only half of the top 25 pharmaceutical manufacturers have active social media engagement with patients on healthcare-related topics. Online resources bring healthcare into peoples' homes every day and provide valuable peer-to-peer support. Ensuring the accuracy of that information is now more important than ever.

Is information accurate and who is responsible for its accuracy?

Social media raises issues for us that peers in other industries don't face, mainly due to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's oversight. It carefully controls labeling, advertisement, and promotion for drugs and devices before clearance. [...] Social media tools host online content that is primarily created and published by users other than the intellectual property owner or product manufacturer; much of this content, therefore, may not be accurate. The FDA plays an important role in protecting public health and recently provided parameters for PR firms on the acceptable promotion of regulated medical products on social media and other Internet channels. These include how to present risk-and-benefit information on social media that rely on character-limited messages such as Twitter. FDA also provided guidance on how drug and device companies can counter misinformation spread by critics or other users on third-party sites such as Facebook and Wikipedia. [...]

While critics will debate whether the FDA guidelines violate free speech rights under the First Amendment or whether the agency is really up on the realities of social media, we can't ignore those who are actively using social media to obtain and share health information. We must stay consistent with the FDA's position on social media but also remember the age-old guidelines of regulated promotion and use common sense: [...] Be aware of your individual association with the company and/or its clients in online social networks; there is no longer a clear boundary between work life and personal life. [...] Regardless of the online source used to communicate, public health is best served by clear, accurate, truthful and non-misleading information about all medicines and devices.

Timothy Bird is president & COO of Cooney/Waters Group, a family of strategic communications companies focused exclusively on healthcare.

We know that Doc James doesn't give a damn about the FDA and its guidelines. It's just a USA legal thing.

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Draft_FDA_guidelines_for_social_media (T-H-L)

With respect to "off label use", this is an USA legal thing. We are a global encyclopedia. We want what the best available literature says. The position of regulators can go in the section on society and culture.
With respect to replying I am not sure what we should say. Having had some very negative runs in with industry here on Wikipedia I am inclined to see those being paid to promote a product limited to the talk pages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

A good example of "off label use" is Methamphetamine: link

What Is It Used For?
As mentioned above, it is licensed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD for short. In addition to being hyperactive (having trouble sitting still), people with ADHD have problems paying attention, focusing, and controlling their behavior. While most people think of ADHD as a problem in children, it can also occur in adults (see Adult ADHD). Although methamphetamine has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating ADHD in adults, healthcare providers may prescribe it "off-label" for adults with ADHD.

Here's another "off label use": link

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that can have long-lasting effects on your body. Crystal meth is methamphetamine in the form of a rock-like crystal that users heat and then smoke, although it can also be snorted or injected. Unlike most other drugs, many users report that they became addicted after trying crystal meth just once. Abuse of crystal meth is prevalent in the United States, with the National Institute on Drug Abuse reporting that in 2009, 1.2 million American adults and children 12 years old and over had abused the drug at least once in the previous year.

"With respect to 'off label use', this is an USA legal thing. We are a global encyclopedia."

[Mancunium]

How Manufacturer-Funded Research Compromises Patient Care
Forbes, 24 July 2014 link

[...] Perhaps the most damning study comes by way of the National Center for Biotechnology Information. In it, the authors identified 24 peer-reviewed studies published in highly respected medical journals. Each study compared two different types of suction devices that help wounds heal faster. One device uses a sponge-type material while the other relies on a gauze-wound interface. The researchers asked five independent surgeons to read all 24 papers and determine which product was judged as better in each study. The conclusion: Seven papers seemed to favor the first treatment, 15 favored the second and 2 didn’t reach a definitive judgment.

Now, Here’s The Kicker

Of the 24 studies, 19 were funded by a manufacturer of one of the two devices. Lo and behold, based on determinations made by the independent surgeons, 18 of those 19 papers recommended the product made by the manufacturer who funded the research. Just one manufacturer-funded study was deemed to have a neutral conclusion. From a statistical perspective, this is nearly an impossible outcome. Flip a coin 19 times and there’s a 1 in 524,288 chance it comes up heads each time. We might expect that if the two alternative products were relatively equivalent and the research truly unbiased, the product sold by the non-funding company should come out on top about half the time. To have no study go against the funding company yields nearly impossible odds. And if they are not equivalent, the better product should be identified in nearly all studies, regardless of the source of the researcher’s funding. There is no way to interpret these results, except to assume the researchers themselves were biased based on who paid for their work. [...]

Over the past decades, attempts have been made to limit the inappropriate influence of bias in research. Today, authors of peer-reviewed articles and presenters at accredited meetings are required to disclose any personal financial benefit from the research. They must also disclose financial dealings with the manufacturer – but not any of the details. [...] Physicians rely on published data to determine the best treatment for their patients. When it is contaminated by inappropriate influence, doctors can’t provide the best possible care. As a result, patients end up with lower quality care, increased complications and higher costs. [...] If manufacturers wanted to advance medical knowledge, competing drug and device companies could contribute to a common, independent research fund for their particular industry. This would eliminate the manufacturer-researcher relationship from a study’s equation. [...] Of course, we should expect manufacturers to resist such changes. After all, drug and device companies aspire to drive product sales, not produce unbiased research. But the problems created by the current system are far too serious to accept the status quo. We need to stop hiding our heads in the sand. The data is clear. Change is essential.

Dr. Robert Pearl is the CEO of The Permanente Medical Group, a certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, and Stanford University professor.

As the good people of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America are such prolific editors of WikiProject Medicine's pharmaceutical articles, this should be of interest to James Heilman, make-believe Editor-in-Chief and Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Medical Internet Research Wiki Medical Reviews, make-believe President and Chairman of the Board of the Wiki Project Med Foundation, and make-believe Professor of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.

[Mancunium]

A few days ago I noticed that this thread has been moved from the "News and Media" forum to the "Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects - General Discussion" forum. As a result of this, perhaps, the thread has 424 posts and only 296 views.

Perhaps a Moderator could explain this.

Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap
Global Voices Online, 27 July 2014 link

Internet users from around the world often turn to Wikipedia to answer questions of all kinds. The information offered there includes medical subjects, especially important in parts of the world where access to medical professionals may be limited. However, much of this information can be unreliable and is available only in the most oft-spoken languages. A group of experienced Wikipedia editors and medical professionals is trying to change that with the Medicine Translation Project, an effort to improve health care-related topics in English Wikipedia and translate them into other languages, including Hindi, Chinese, Persian, Tagalog, Indonesian and Macedonian. Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Individual Engagement Grant (IEG), a microgrant supporting work on Wikipedia-related activities, granted 10,000 US dollars to the Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing project, which aims to enhance communication and coordination among the team. Medical student and Wikipedian User:CFCF along with two advisors, Dr. James Heilman (User:Doc James) and Jake Orlowitz (User:Ocaasi) lead the group. We spoke to founder CFCF over email.

Rising Voices (RV): How did the project get started? What inspired it and how did you identify the needs it would fulfill?

CFCF: [...] Dr. James Heilman [...]

RV: How is the process of translation going?

CDCF:


[...] Many of our translators are medical professionals and have in-depth knowledge in their native languages. On the top of it, they dedicate plenty of time on the content creation and translation. This helps to get good quality translations. What this also means is they they seldom have any knowledge of Wiki markup or Wikipedia. Someone else who knows the language in question has to go through links, templates etc. and fix them, proofread the translated content so it is up to scratch and readable.

RV: How do you address this?

CFCF: [...] I think the resistance we met early in the project's life was not against translation of content. But, because we did not spend enough time getting the translated articles up to shape before sending them live on the target Wikipedia. [...]

RV: Are you in conversation with the Wikipedia Zero team — a mobile data project focused on Wikipedia access in the developing world — about popularising this with their partners in the developing nations?

CFCF: Currently we are not in touch with the Wikipedia Zero team specifically, even though our works target the same communities. The difference between us and them is that we target developed countries as well as countries where there barely is any mobile connectivity at all, such as Burma where I do not know if we will be seeing Wikipedia Zero in the foreseeable future.

RV: What are your plans to engage with the larger Wikimedia communities that are multilingual and totally diverse?

CFCF: We aim to get high quality content in as many languages as we can. It is difficult to translate such deeply technical content, so we are really looking for professional translators, or individuals with some form of medical background so that information loss and corruption of content in translation is minimal. [...]

Grants:IEG/Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing
Wikimedia Meta-Wiki: link

Budget
Total amount requested
Total: $10,000 USD

Budget breakdown
9000 Community coordinator, project management, organization and execution 20-30hr/w
1000 Incentives, drive/content prizes, rewards, merchandise, advertising material

Participant(s)
CFCF Medical student, Göteborgs Universitet.

I've done work on Wikipedia to revitalize Wikiproject Anatomy, and improve overall medical coverage where I can. I've also overseen the integration of a number of translated articles into the Swedish Wikipedia.

[Mancunium]

First case of ebola reported in Africa's most populous city Lagos
Death marks new and alarming cross-border development in world's biggest epidemic spreading across three countries
The Guardian, 26 July 2014 link

A man has died of ebola in Lagos [Nigeria], the first confirmed case of the highly contagious and deadly virus in Africa's most populous metropolis. [...] The death marks a new and alarming cross-border development in a disease that has spiralled into the world's biggest epidemic, spread across three west African countries. At least 660 people have died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since ebola was first diagnosed in February.

I could find only only one Nigerian news story containing medical information about this terrible virus.

All You Need To Know About Ebola Virus – Wikipedia
Osun Defender, 26 July 2014 link

The article is nothing but a quotation from the current Wikipedia article about Ebola_virus_disease (T-H-L), and it is absolutely worthless for the population that is being threatened by this outbreak, and wants to know how to protect itself.

[...] The potential for widespread EVD epidemics is considered low due to the high case-fatality rate, the rapidity of demise of patients, and the often remote areas where infections occur…

Source: Wikipedia

The Osun Defender article has only one comment:

Etebele
July 26, 2014 - 9:14 am

HIV, Kidnapping, armed robbery, child trafficking, assassination, ritual killing, political thuggery, high profile stealing and corruption, BOKO HARAM and now EBOLA VIRUS… Oh God of mercy the provider and the protector of the helpless, please do not ignore the cries and teeth gnashing of your helpless children. Our sins are too much that they may block our ways to solving these problem, even if we can. Do not judge us by any standard, just graciously rescue us – your foolish children
Amen

[AL1]

[...]The potential for widespread EVD epidemics is considered low due to the high case-fatality rate, the rapidity of demise of patients, and the often remote areas where infections occur…

Source: Wikipedia

Looks like the 20 million people in Lagos have nothing to fear, then...

My favorite part is that I have literally no background in virology or public health or anything like that, and I know that bit of information is the exact *opposite* of what is true. This being Wikipedia, it's safe to say the same about whoever wrote that, apart from the conclusion, of course.

[Mancunium]

Cancer Research UK urges medical community to help make Wikipedia more accurate
Medical Xpress, 11 August 2014 link

Cancer Research UK is today (Friday) calling for scientists, doctors and nurses to get more involved in Wikipedia to help ensure the free online encyclopaedia has the most up to date and accurate information on cancer. Speaking at the Wikimania 2014 conference in London, Cancer Research UK will be discussing Wikipedia's role as a resource for people searching for cancer-related information on the Internet, and how this fits in with their use of other online medical content. The charity – working with Wikimedia UK – is employing an 'in-house' Wikipedian in Residence and at the conference, will also its outline plans – as part of this project - to evaluate how people use the site to find information, and how to make its pages easier to understand. It will also be evaluating whether the content has improved since the project began. A panel including Wikipedia's medical editors will discuss the issues.

Henry Scowcroft, Cancer Research UK's news and multimedia manager, said: "Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world, and probably the most frequently used online source of medical information. Keeping it up to date, accurate and relevant is a huge challenge – one that requires a lot of input, effort and time. We'd like to see more medical professionals, researchers and science communicators get involved in editing and reviewing Wikipedia's medical and scientific pages. We feel it's our responsibility to make sure that cancer information online is as good as it can be, to remove uncertainty, reduce fear and worry, and to help people take their next steps after they, their family or friends hear the phrase 'it's cancer'." Jon Davies, Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK, said: "As someone who has personal experience of cancer, I know the information on Wikipedia has to be as good as possible. The work that Cancer Research UK is doing to support the improvement of medical content is excellent and I hope that many others will contribute to their efforts." [...]

Strangely, this press release does not mention the name of the charity's Wikipedian in Residence. He is Wiki_CRUK_John (T-C-L) aka User:Johnbod (T-C-L) aka John Byrne.


"It's cancer!"

[Mancunium]

Wikimania: student medics get credit for webside manner
Times Higher Education, 14 August 2014 link

The opportunities and challenges of integrating Wikipedia into higher education formed a central strand of the tenth annual Wikimania conference, which heard how academics and students are using and improving the collaboratively edited online resource. The conference, held at London’s Barbican Centre last week and kicked off by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, heard from Shani Evenstein, who works at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. She described Wiki-Med as “the first full academic Wikipedia course in Israel”, and probably the world. [...] The course attracted 37 medics and 22 students of dentistry as well as a doctoral candidate, an academic and an administrator. The gender balance was 25 women to 37 men, a higher proportion of women than is usual on Wikipedia, with 30 people who had Hebrew as first language, 29 Arabic and three Russian. The direct results were 64 new articles for Hebrew Wikipedia, including one for “mitral valve replacement”, and 64 stubs such as “birth mark” and “metastasis” developed into full articles. In addition, some of the Arabic speakers on the course decided to contribute to Arabic Wikipedia or to set up editing workshops in their own towns. Ms Evenstein hopes that Wiki-Med can serve as a model for “similar elective courses as part of any BA programme all over the world”.

Martin Poulter, website editor and technical developer at the University of Bristol, noted that academic psychologists, for example, had only themselves to blame if they believed there was too much pop psychology on Wikipedia. Many articles are now improved by students, although this “goes on under the radar and doesn’t get noticed”, he said. Another speaker, James Heilman – “a small-town emergency room physician” who is also a clinical instructor at the University of British Columbia – recalled the first time he read a poor-quality medical article on Wikipedia, spotted the edit button and realised that he “could fix the internet”. Today, he noted, 93 per cent of medical students use Wikipedia, and it has also become the major source of information for junior doctors. Although the average American sees a doctor for a total of just 60 minutes each year, he or she also spends 52 hours looking at health information on the internet, Dr Heilman said. For anyone who cares about healthcare, “fixing the internet” was now one of their critical tasks, he argued.

Esh77 (T-C-L)

Hello, Everyone. My real name is Shani Evenstein and I'm from Israel.
I have a B.A. in English Lit and French Culture, Faculty of Humanities, TAU, and am now working towards an M.A. in East Asian Studies [specifically India and Sanskrit], at TAU.
Have been studying and teaching Yoga since 2000.
Other Interests
Yoga on its various branches - specifically Raja Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Ayurveda, Jyotish, Vastu Shastra and Tantra.
Holistic medicine, Herbalism, Iridology, Feng Shui.

So reassuring to know that Wiki-Med is being run by a B.A. with expertise in ten different schools of "alternative" medicine and magical thinking.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia's medical errors and one doctor's fight to correct them
Dr. James Heilman says medical students and physicians are using potentially inaccurate Wikipedia entries
CBC News, 21 August 2014 link

You can't always believe what you read on the internet. That is particularly true when it comes to medical information in the crowd-sourced online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. But one doctor is on a mission to change that. Dr. James Heilman works as an emergency room physician in Cranbrook, B.C., and is also a clinical instructor at UBC. He's just returned from Wikimania, a Wikipedia conference that was held in London this August, where he encouraged his colleagues to help edit and improve the accuracy of medical information found on Wikipedia. "We know Wikipedia isn't perfect. We know it can be better," says Heilman. [...] Despite the potential for misinformation, the doctor says the public doesn't need to be worried. "Many students are using this as a starting point. The further along they are in their education, the more likely they are to use multiple sources." Heilman believes his colleagues and medical students are turning to Wikipedia for the same reason as many members of the public — the information is easily accessible and presented in plain language. In 2013, medical-related content on Wikipedia was accessed five billion times. [...]

"The internet is an opportunity for patients to get involved in their own care," said Heilman. "They can read about the disease they have to a greater extent than what their doctor was able to tell them in a set amount of time." The physician has been advocating for improvements to Wikipedia entries since 2011 and is collaborating with the National Institutes of Health, the Cochrane Collaboration and Cancer Research UK through WikiProject Medicine. Their goal is to improve the accuracy and simplicity of the top 200 medical articles on Wikipedia. Articles on cancer, diarrhea and hepatitis A are some of the articles that have already been reviewed and approved. In his fight to bring high quality health information to people around the world, Heilman has one more passion — translating those top 200 articles from English into Wikipedia's 286 other languages. [...] "We see Wikipedia as one way to get high quality health-care information out to people who need it," says Heilman. "We're creating some of the first medical content to ever exist in some languages."

Dr James Heilman, seen here reading a big book, works in Cranbrook, B.C., where he has embarked on
a mission to correct inaccuracies in 200 popular Wikipedia articles on cancer, diarrhea, and so on.

You may consult the doctor in his emergency room here: link

Further information about the good doctor here: link (Warning: nsfw)

[Mancunium]

SSRI is Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor (T-H-L): "a class of compounds typically used as antidepressants in the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, and some personality disorders." PPSD is described here:

Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction: PSSD. Wikipedia Stumbles.
RxISK, 11 February 2014 linkhttp://wp.rxisk.org/post-ssri-sexual-dy ... -stumbles/[/link]

Editorial Note: There was until recently a Wikipedia post on Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction – PSSD, which helped put this condition on the map. On January 27 it was taken down. We reproduce the original post here and in a post tomorrow we will give the debate surrounding its removal.

Wikipedia Page Gone, But RxISK Presses On to Educate about Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction
Mad In America, 26 August 2014 linkhttp://www.madinamerica.com/2014/08/rep ... sfunction/[/link]

The English-language page on Wikipedia about Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) was removed earlier this year, re-posted, and removed again in July, but according to RxISK, their organization is pressing on with efforts to learn more and educate the public about antidepressants and PSSD. RxISK is soliciting participants for an fMRI study, and recently published two studies in the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine. In one of the studies, led by Carys Hogan and MIA Foreign Correspondent David Healy of the University of Bangor, the researchers reviewed 120 reports from over 20 countries compiled in their RxISK online database, where people had stated that they had experienced enduring sexual problems after ceasing taking SSRI antidepressant medications. [...] The article also discusses possible biological mechanisms that could lead to the syndrome, and reviews various experiments with treatments. The full study is available and the discussions among Wikipedia editors about whether to delete the page about PSSD are also included in a series of posts on the RxISK blog.

PSSD – One Hundred and Twenty Cases (RxISK, July 9, 2014) linkhttp://wp.rxisk.org/pssd-one-hundred-and-twenty-cases/[/link]

RxISK Research on PSSD (RxISK, July 18, 2014) linkhttp://wp.rxisk.org/rxisk-research-on-pssd/[/link]

One hundred and twenty cases of enduring sexual dysfunction following treatment (Hogan, Carys et al. International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine 26 (2014) 109–116 DOI 10.3233/JRS-140617) linkhttp://davidhealy.org/wp-content/upload ... d-PSSD.pdf[/link]

[Mancunium]

Re the post immediately above this one, I should note that RxISK is an independent site devoted to the possible risks posed by prescription drugs, which are the leading cause of injury death in the USA.

Prescription Drug Overdose in the United States: Fact Sheet
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: linkhttp://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationals ... facts.html[/link]

Deaths from drug overdose have been rising steadily over the past two decades and have become the leading cause of injury death in the United States.1 Every day in the United States, 113 people die as a result of drug overdose, and another 6,748 are treated in emergency departments (ED) for the misuse or abuse of drugs.2 Nearly 9 out of 10 poisoning deaths are caused by drugs.3 [...] In 2011, of the 41,340 drug overdose deaths in the United States, 22,810 (55%) were related to pharmaceuticals.1
Of the 22,810 deaths relating to pharmaceutical overdose in 2011, 16,917 (74%) involved opioid analgesics (also called opioid pain relievers or prescription painkillers), and 6,872 (30%) involved benzodiazepines.1 (Some deaths include more than one type of drug.)
In 2011, about 1.4 million ED visits involved the nonmedical use of pharmaceuticals. Among those ED visits, 501,207 visits were related to anti-anxiety and insomnia medications, and 420,040 visits were related to opioid analgesics.2
Benzodiazepines are frequently found among people treated in EDs for misusing or abusing drugs.2 People who died of drug overdoses often had a combination of benzodiazepines and opioid analgesics in their bodies.1

RxISK: linkhttp://wp.rxisk.org/about/[/link]

Drug side effects are now a leading cause of death, disability, and illness. Experts estimate that only 1–10% of “serious” adverse events (those causing hospitalization, disability, or death) are ever reported. Not to mention the millions of “medically mild” adverse drug events that occur each year — ones that compromise a person’s concentration, functioning, judgment, and ability to care. RxISK is the first free, independent website where patients, doctors, and pharmacists can research prescription drugs and easily report a drug side effect — identifying problems and possible solutions earlier than is currently happening.

Note that RxISK's Medical and Research Team is comprised of highly-qualified medical experts-- not amateur "medical editors", fans of "alternative" medicine, subtle vandals, and anonymous passers-by. This is their blog post on Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction: Wikipedia Falls: linkhttp://wp.rxisk.org/post-ssri-sexual-dy ... dia-falls/[/link]

Editorial Note: This is the debate among Wikipedia referees about whether the PSSD post should be retained. The lead person in having it removed goes under the nom de plume of ‘Formerly 98′. [...]

Citation needed: pharma needs to make the most of Wikipedia
The online encyclopedia is an increasingly important source of knowledge for patients and information must be kept accurate and up to date
PMLiVE, 28 August 2014 linkhttp://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/citat ... dia_594405[/link]

Wikipedia is a prominent source of health information. According to a recent IMS Institute report, Engaging Patients through Social Media the top one hundred Wikipedia pages for healthcare topics, on average, were accessed 1.9 million times in 2013, ranging from 4.2 million for tuberculosis, to 1.3 million for acne vulgaris. Moreover, observed the IMS report, Wikipedia is used throughout the entire patient journey, and not just at the point of treatment initiation or change in therapy. Wikipedia's influence has led to concerns about the reliability of its health information. A paper published recently in the Journal for the American Osteopathic Society said most Wikipedia articles representing the 10 most costly medical conditions in the US contain many errors when checked against standard peer-reviewed sources. The authors stress caution should be used when using Wikipedia to answer questions regarding patient care.

Through WikiProject Medicine, a partnership with the Cochrane Collaboration, Wikipedia is working to improve the correctness and usability of its medical information. In January, Cancer Research UK said it plans to recruit its very own 'Wikipedian in Residence' to help ensure Wikipedia has the most up to date and accurate information on cancer. Funded by the Wellcome Trust and supported by Wikimedia UK, the new in-house Wikipedian role will be the first of its kind to be created by a medical research organization. Yet, pharma remains fairly disengaged, reports IMS. Perhaps indicating a potential model for pharma, in his June 13, 2012, open letter to pharmaceutical companies, Bertalan Meskó, MD, founder and managing director of Webicina.com, urged them to appoint employees as Wikipedia “spokespeople” who would perform all Wikipedia article edits on behalf of the company (linkhttp://stwem.com/2012/06/13/an-open-let ... kipedian-2[/link]). In comments submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in 2010, the US pharmaceutical trade group PhRMA suggested that manufacturers would welcome correcting misinformation about their products posted to sites like Wikipedia if these corrections were not subject to FDA regulation. In June 2014, the FDA offered draft guidance for companies seeking to correct misinformation posted by independent third parties and in chat rooms. A company may either correct legitimate misinformation directly on the forum or it may submit the correction to an individual blogger or author of a web page. Editing a Wikipedia page. With this in mind, what should someone consider if asked to edit a healthcare-related Wikipedia page? Consider the following.

1. Monitor Wikipedia pages [...]
2. Set parameters for engagement [...]
3. Work through the talk page, and avoid editing the page directly [...]
4. Stick to the facts and don't be promotional [...]
5. Recommend edits and don't seek to rewrite entries [...]
6. Use judgement [...]
For example, if your content is accepted to the page, it is possible that the FDA could hold the company responsible for the page in future. [...]

Here are some of the clients of Bertalan Meskó, MD (NCurse (T-C-L)):



But who would take the "advice", offered by a nameless person in a press release, when it's so much easier to promote your drugs pseudonymously or anonymously?

Anonymous Wikipedia edits from PhRMA member organizations: linkhttps://jarib.github.io/anon-history/ph ... en/latest/[/link]

This is a list of anonymous edits of en.wikipedia.org made from the IP addresses of PhRMA member organizations from 2002-2014 (other sources). A total of 4983 edits were found. The data comes from dumps.wikimedia.org. You can download the raw data used for this page as CSV or see the IP ranges used to find the edits.

[Poetlister]

Re the post immediately above this one, I should note that RxISK is an independent site devoted to the possible risks posed by prescription drugs, which are the leading cause of death in the USA.

I started in disbelief at that. In fact, as the quote explains, they are the leading cause of injury death in the United States.

[Mancunium]

Re the post immediately above this one, I should note that RxISK is an independent site devoted to the possible risks posed by prescription drugs, which are the leading cause of death in the USA.

I started in disbelief at that. In fact, as the quote explains, they are the leading cause of injury death in the United States.

Yes. Thank you. Sometimes I submit a post, and then wander off to nap, or to attend to other things. It always mortifies me when I return to this site, hours later, and find errors I have made, and which I can no longer edit out of existence.

[Zoloft]

Fixed post. All good.

[Mancunium]

Cancer Research UK Working to Improve Info on Wikipedia
Medscape, 1 September 2014 linkhttp://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/830696?src=rss[/link]

"Five billion people per year look up medical information on Wikipedia...so we owe it to people to at least engage with it and try to ensure that the information is correct," said Henry Scowcroft, news and multimedia manager at Cancer Research UK (CRUK). The charity, which funds more than 4000 cancer researchers, also provides detailed information on cancer to the general public, as do many of the large cancer organizations. But recently it has taken a step further. CRUK has appointed a Wikipedian-in-residence to monitor and correct information about cancer on the Web-based encyclopedia, which has become one of the most, if not the most, widely used sources for medical information. [...] The role of a Wikipedian-in-residence at CRUK is the first of its kind in a medical organization, although this type of position has already been used with great success at museums, libraries, and art galleries. [...] "It got me to thinking that maybe we could do something similar at Cancer Research UK," Scowcroft commented in an interview with Medscape Medical News. A grant application to the Wellcome Trust resulted in funding for 6 months, and the Wikipedian-in-residence at CRUK, John Byrne, started in May. Byrne had previously been a Wikipedian-in-residence at the Royal Society and had worked at Wikipedia UK, so "his expertise is very much with Wikipedia and the etiquette of making and changing entries," Scowcroft said, "which is what we needed, as we already have the cancer expertise." "The overarching aim of the project is to build links between CRUK and Wikipedia," said Scowcroft, with training for CRUK staff and funded scientists on how to modify entries and insert accurate information into the encyclopedia. The hope is that a culture of monitoring information on Wikipedia will be established among staff and scientists during the 6-month period that will leave a legacy once the grant comes to an end.

So will CRUK assume all responsibility for the accuracy of Wikipedia's anyone-can-edit cancer articles?

Ensuring Information Is Accurate

The "nuts and bolts of the project" involves review of information already available on Wikipedia: taking a topic, checking the entries and references, sending it out for review to experts in the field, incorporating their comments, and striving to make sure that the coverage of that topic is both accurate and up to date. The Wikipedian-in-residence will focus in particular on 4 topics, which were recently highlighted by CRUK as areas of unmet medical need. They are pancreatic, esophageal, and lung cancer, and also brain tumors. Inaccuracies in particular are a focus, but also many of these entries were originally written by medical students and they contain complexities that need some simplification and explanation for general public use, Scowcroft commented. Also, these pages were often created by a number of people inserting sentences at different times, so there is often an issue with flow and readability, which also needs to be addressed, he added. Part of the stipulation from Wellcome when issuing the grant for this position was a requirement to measure what has been achieved, so there are plans for a study in which volunteers will be asked to compare the older and the modified versions of the Wikipedia entries to see if the newer version is easier to understand.

Has the Wikipedian in Residence explained to Mr Scowcroft that all the entries are constantly liable to be edited by anonymous "anyones"? Or does Wikipedia intend to lock these articles against all but CRUK-approved editors?

A big move has been the releasing of content prepared by CRUK, both words and images, through a creative commons license, which then allows anyone to reproduce it with the only proviso that the image or wording is attributed to CRUK. Prior to this, the information provided by CRUK was copyrighted, so editors who wanted to use it on Wikipedia could not cut and paste, but would have to rephrase the wording. "But we spend a lot of time making sure that our wording is robust and accurate and that it is unambiguous," Scowcroft explained, and this need for rephrasing undid all of that hard work.The release of material under the creative common license removes this extra step, and it means that information that has been very carefully prepared can now be used without modification.

How does CRUK expect to guard their robust and accurate wording in an encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

As well as wording, the CRUK has also released more than 400 images, all with the charity logo. This took a lot of work and discussing with legal and marketing teams, but it is a "big win for us," said Scowcroft. "The primary reason for doing this is to make the information on the Internet better, but there is a knock-on effect that gets our brand out there, and we get kudos and recognition," he added. Finally, there is also a research project underway in collaboration with the FARR Institute of Digital Health at University College London, which aims to find where exactly Wikipedia falls in the huge ecosystem of medical and patient information that is now available. [...] "This should be interesting, as there has been little research to date on how people use Wikipedia, how long they spend there, whether or not they find it useful, etc," [Scowcroft] said, adding that there is a plan to eventually publish the data from this study.

Yes, it should be interesting, and it would have been useful to provide a link to information about this study and its methodology. CRUK makes it clear that it does not consider Wikipedia's medical articles reliable; if a huge ecosystem of medical and patient information is already available, why would CRUK not direct people to those sites which they consider accurate and useful-- rather than to the bottomless pit of ignorance and misinformation that is Wikipedia?

Applause From America

"We applaud this new effort by our friends at CRUK. Providing accurate cancer information is one of our highest priorities," Richard Wender, MD, chief cancer control officer at the American Cancer Society (ACS) commented to Medscape Medical News. "Millions of people reach us every year and have the expectation that the information they receive will be based on the best available science and will be accurate. So our highest priority is making sure that we meet or exceed that very high standard on our own Web site and materials to justify the high level of trust we have been given," the ACS official commented. "We know that lots of other cancer information is available from lots of Internet sources, including Wikipedia. We monitor this information so we can respond when needed, including making corrections in Wikipedia when we find them."

Is the American Cancer Society vouching for the accuracy of every one of Wikipedia's cancer articles? How could they possibly do so?

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) told Medscape Medical News that it does not currently review the accuracy of cancer information posted on non-ASCO Websites, including Wikipedia. To address the public need for accurate, trusted information about cancer, ASCO maintains a comprehensive patient information Website, Cancer.Net, featuring current oncologist-reviewed and -approved information on more than 120 different cancer types and syndromes, they added.

So the American Society of Clinical Oncology, at least, is not so misinformed as to grant its imprimatur to WikiProject Medicine. It describes the content of its own Cancer.Net site as comprehensive and current oncologist-reviewed and -approved information. Why would people be encouraged to seek online information elsewhere, especially to such a notoriously unreliable, and constantly edited and re-edited, website as Wikipedia?

[Mancunium]

Trying to jump on the viral bandwagon, the Wikimedia Foundation seems to think that it is helping to find a cure for ALS.

ALS Wikipedia Page Views Up 18-Fold Since Ice Bucket Challenge
Mashable, 9 September 2014 link

[...] New data from the Wikimedia Foundation sheds some positive light, however, indicating that an increased number of people have at least searched for more information about the neurodegenerative disease. The ALS Wikipedia page in English was viewed 2.89 million times in August; that's compared to an average of only 163,300 times per month between January 2013 and July 2014 — marking an 18-fold increase. The page in other languages saw increases as well, including a 59-fold increase in Chinese-language page views and a 14-fold increase in Spanish-language page views.

Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis (T-H-L) has been revised 3,586 times by 1,831 different editors (all of them medical specialists, I'm sure). It concludes:

A contestant will fill a bucket full of ice and water; they will then state who nominated them to do the challenge and will nominate three other individuals of their choice to take part in it. The contestant then dumps the bucket of ice and water onto themselves. The contestant should then donate US $10 (or a similar amount in their local currency) to ALS research at the ALS Association, or Motor Neurone Disease Association in the UK. Any contestant who refuses to have the ice and water dumped on them is expected to donate US $100 to ALS research. As of August 25, the Ice Bucket Challenge raised $79.7 million for the ALS Association, compared to $2.5 million raised over the same period in 2013. Many celebrities have taken part in the challenge, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Chris Pratt,[94] Roger Federer, David Beckham, Britney Spears, George W. Bush,[93] Lady Gaga,[95] Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Sheen and Bill Gates, among many other well-known personalities and members of the general public.[96]

Oh, those wacky WikiProject Medicine articles, replete with such helpful information.

[Mancunium]

Translations of Ebola health info on Wikipedia
Rubric, a global language service provider, has donated its translation services to Wikimedia ZA to provide SA with essential health information on Ebola.
Health24, 10 September 2014 link

[...] Françoise Henderson, CEO at Rubric, says that in other instances UNICEF’s efforts to promote health messages in English and French is complicated by the majority of the population, especially in rural areas, not speaking colonial languages. “People need to have information in their own language to improve understanding of the measures that can reduce their risk of infection,” says Henderson who is also an adviser to Translators without Borders. Isla Haddow-Flood, Project Manager at WikiAfrica and Wikimedia ZA board member says: “There is a massive crisis unfolding on the continent and one of the most effective ways of fighting the fear, disinformation and spread of the disease is with clear, factual knowledge – the kind you can access free, and on your mobile phone.” She says Wikipedia is written by volunteers and in many cases the data is freely available via Wikipedia Zero, but in Africa for a number of reasons, the numbers of local language editors is very low. This has obvious repercussions that become critical when confronted with a crisis like Ebola. [...] Various languages available:
• isiXhosa
• isiZulu
• Setswana
• Sesotho
• Siswati
• Xitsonga
• Tshivenda
• Northern Sotho (Sepedi)
• Ndebele

List_of_Wikipedias (T-H-L)

This is a list of many of the different language editions of Wikipedia; as of July 2014, there were 287 Wikipedias. For their number of articles, see the main list.

Every time I read of Wikipedia's 287 languages, I know the author has no idea what they're talking about. Scroll down to Wikipedias with between 100 to 1000 articles

isiXhoso Wikipedia ranks 260th link with 337 articles
isiZulu Wikipedia ranks 236th link with 676 articles
Setswana Wikipedia ranks 244th link with 509 articles
Sesotho Wikipedia ranks 273rd link with 197 articles
Siswati Wikipedia ranks 255th link with 400 articles
Xitsonga Wikipedia ranks 261st link 303 articles
Tshivenda Wikipedia ranks 271st link with 206 articles
Northern Sotho Wikipedia ranks 230th link with 938 articles
Ndebele Wikipedia ranks below Herero Wikipedia at 278th link which has 0 articles

Rubric: link

Rubric is a global language services provider, speaking to the hearts of your customers. Reach the 95% of people who don’t speak English as a first language with superior quality translations and first-class localisation project management

[bobrayner]

UNICEF’s efforts to promote health messages in English and French is complicated by the majority of the population, especially in rural areas, not speaking colonial languages.

Emphasis on "colonial languages" is itself unhelpful, since these efforts desperately need government coöperation in areas where ministers tend to get their jobs on the basis of alignment with a (usually anticolonial) political movement rather than their expertise in medicine or healthcare governance.

One of the higher-profile examples is Manto, who believed all kinds of nonsense, including that herbs and witch-doctors could cure AIDS, and that The West (or the North) was part of the problem; but she was married to the ANC treasurer so obviously she became health minister and set health policies and, hence, killed hundreds of thousands of people. There are more examples but en.wikipedia tends not to have comprehensive or neutral coverage of politics in Africa.

Across much of sub-Saharan Africa, knowledge of English and French is certainly more widespread among qualified professionals such as doctors. Let's not undermine that whilst seeking the laudable goal of making health information more accessible in local languages. English or French is usually the local lingua franca; they're also shared with external NGOs who want to come and help; they're also official UN languages.

Reach the 95% of people who don’t speak English as a first language

Reach a mostly rural population that has minimal internet connectivity, by using wikipedias that have minimal readership and no googlejuice? I think priorities should lie elsewhere. Print some posters and broadcast some public-information pieces on radio. Even if you're doing it online, there are better options.

[Mancunium]

Ebola health info available in all SA languages
One of the most effective ways of fighting disinformation on the disease is with clear, factual knowledge.
Eyewitness News (South Africa), 16 September 2014 linkhttp://ewn.co.za/2014/09/16/Ebola-info- ... -Wikipedia[/link]

South Africans can get advice on how to prevent and recognise the symptoms of the Ebola virus in all 11 official languages. The initiative has been spearheaded across Africa by the Wikipedia project, Wiki Project Medicine’s Translation Task Force, whose volunteers saw a lack of relevant information on Wikipedia in the languages of regions affected by the outbreak. [...] Isla Haddow-Flood, Project Manager at WikiAfrica said, “There is a massive crisis unfolding on the continent and one of the most effective ways of fighting the fear, disinformation and spread of the disease is with clear, factual knowledge – the kind you can access free, and on your mobile phone.” She says Wikipedia is written by volunteers and in many cases the data is freely available via Wikipedia Zero, but in Africa for a number of reasons, the numbers of local language editors is very low. [...]

There have been no cases of Ebola virus disease reported in South Africa; I hope Ms Haddow-Flood's Wikipedia:WikiAfrica (T-H-L), which claims to speak for the entire continent, is also interested in getting this information out to African countries which are not home to five million jittery white people.

Languages_of_Africa (T-H-L)

There are 1,250 to 2,100[1] and by some counts over 3,000 languages spoken natively in Africa,[2] in several major language families:

Afroasiatic is spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel
Nilo-Saharan is centered on Sudan and Chad (disputed validity)
Niger–Congo (Bantu and non-Bantu) covers West, Central, Southeast and Southern Africa
Khoe is concentrated in the deserts of Namibia and Botswana
Austronesian is spoken in Madagascar.
Indo-European is spoken on the southern tip of the continent. [...]

The high linguistic diversity of many African countries (Nigeria alone has over 500 languages,[4] one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world) has made language policy a vital issue in the post-colonial era. In recent years, African countries have become increasingly aware of the value of their linguistic inheritance. Language policies being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism. For example, all African languages are considered official languages of the African Union (AU) [...]

[Mancunium]

Study shows Wikipedia Accuracy is 97.5%
ZME Science, 25 September 2014 [link]http://www.zmescience.com/science/study ... -25092014/[/link]

Wikipedia is a resource used by people everywhere, from middle school students to college students (and it’s safe to say that researchers also use it from time to time). But the blessing and the curse of Wikipedia is that everyone can edit it – that means that a massive amount of articles can be written and managed, but it also means that inaccurate information can easily sneak in articles. A group of German researchers set out to test that and see just how accurate Wikipedia really is. [...] They analyzed articles on drugs, drawing every piece of relevant information, as well as references, revision history and readability. Their conclusion is that the accuracy of drug information accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia was 99.7%±0.2% when compared to the textbook data. However, even though the articles were very accurate, they weren’t fully complete. Scientists rate the completeness of articles at 83.8±1.5%. However, completeness had a huge variation, ranging between 68.0% and 91.0%. This difference shows that Wikipedia is not always the best resource to draw complete information from, but it always provides over two thirds of the whole story. Furthermore, from the drug information missing in Wikipedia, 62.5% was rated as didactically non-relevant in a qualitative re-evaluation study. This is crucial especially in areas which change a lot, such as pharmacology. The fact that you have this huge resource from which you can draw massive amounts of information is remarkable. The fact that it is open source, ad free, community driven (though moderated) and still manages to have an almost perfect accuracy is simply amazing! The only problem I have with this study is the sample size. Of course, it’s a tough analysis to conduct, but 100 drugs is still not enough to draw definite conclusions.

Accuracy and Completeness of Drug Information in Wikipedia: A Comparison with Standard Textbooks of Pharmacology
PLoS ONE, 24 September 2014 [link]http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... ne.0106930[/link]

Abstract
The online resource Wikipedia is increasingly used by students for knowledge acquisition and learning. However, the lack of a formal editorial review and the heterogeneous expertise of contributors often results in skepticism by educators whether Wikipedia should be recommended to students as an information source. In this study we systematically analyzed the accuracy and completeness of drug information in the German and English language versions of Wikipedia in comparison to standard textbooks of pharmacology. In addition, references, revision history and readability were evaluated. Analysis of readability was performed using the Amstad readability index and the Erste Wiener Sachtextformel. The data on indication, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, adverse effects and contraindications for 100 curricular drugs were retrieved from standard German textbooks of general pharmacology and compared with the corresponding articles in the German language version of Wikipedia. Quantitative analysis revealed that accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia was 99.7%±0.2% when compared to the textbook data. The overall completeness of drug information in Wikipedia was 83.8±1.5% (p<0.001). Completeness varied in-between categories, and was lowest in the category “pharmacokinetics” (68.0%±4.2%; p<0.001) and highest in the category “indication” (91.3%±2.0%) when compared to the textbook data overlap. Similar results were obtained for the English language version of Wikipedia. Of the drug information missing in Wikipedia, 62.5% was rated as didactically non-relevant in a qualitative re-evaluation study. Drug articles in Wikipedia had an average of 14.6±1.6 references and 262.8±37.4 edits performed by 142.7±17.6 editors. Both Wikipedia and textbooks samples had comparable, low readability. Our study suggests that Wikipedia is an accurate and comprehensive source of drug-related information for undergraduate medical education.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

[thekohser]

ZME Science:

ZME Science was established in the summer of 2007. Along the years, we’ve been a trusted and provocative source of science news and features, covering research and developments from all scientific fields. Our purpose has always been to bring you the best and latest information, while keeping it as simple as possible.

...

Editor's picks:

The Stinkiest Creatures in the Animal Kingdom

Fantastic Fungi: Mind Blowing Mushroom Diversity Photographed by Steve Axford

[EricBarbour]

The drug info on WP is usually pretty good. Whoever put that stuff in (mostly paraphrasing from the PDR, WebMD, etc) did decent work. But not without problems. For example, the articles about major antipsychotics should be examined with a very critical eye, because of the many "peculiar people" who edited them, like SandyGeorgia (T-C-L) and "MrADHD (T-C-L)". Same goes for articles like Tourette's syndrome (T-H-L), one of SandyGeorgia's faves.

[Thracia]

I don't know if this has already been noted, but en.wiki has apparently had a version of its article on Dengue fever (T-H-L) peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in this prestigious online medical journal.

(In truth, I know nothing about this journal, and careful consultation of the Wikipedia article on Open Medicine (T-H-L) has unfortunately left me in much the same condition.)

However, at least one commentator (presumably not involved in the proof-reading process) is clear that this is a game-changer the tremors from which will resound down the centuries, or something like that: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/w ... 082#514082

That a Wikipedia article in medecine is reasonably considered as the basis for a peer reviewed is an acheivement it iself; that it /was/ in fact published is nothing short of a crowning acheivement.

[Mancunium]

I don't know if this has already been noted, but en.wiki has apparently had a version of its article on Dengue fever (T-H-L) peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in this prestigious online medical journal.

(In truth, I know nothing about this journal, and careful consultation of the Wikipedia article on Open Medicine (T-H-L) has unfortunately left me in much the same condition.)

However, at least one commentator (presumably not involved in the proof-reading process) is clear that this is a game-changer the tremors from which will resound down the centuries, or something like that: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/w ... 082#514082

That a Wikipedia article in medecine is reasonably considered as the basis for a peer reviewed is an acheivement it iself; that it /was/ in fact published is nothing short of a crowning acheivement.

This is the Wikipedia article for Open_Medicine (T-H-L):

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (August 2010)

While I'm here, I should mention that the ZME Science article notes:

The only problem I have with this study is the sample size. Of course, it’s a tough analysis to conduct, but 100 drugs is still not enough to draw definite conclusions.

Perhaps that's the reason why the study has not been reported anywhere else. Another recent study, however, has legs:

Study: Most Wikipedia articles about medical conditions contain errors
ABC News, 3 October 2014 linkhttp://www.kait8.com/story/26694176/stu ... ain-errors[/link]

Doctors said relying on Wikipedia for medical information is a mistake. A research article in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association compared Wikipedia to medical journals and found major flaws in articles regarding diabetes, high blood pressure, lung cancer and more. [...] "Everybody uses Wikipedia and everybody uses Google, but it's not the place to go for your health care needs," said Dr. Shane Speights with St. Bernards Medical Center. [...] "If individuals start looking up high blood pressure and diabetes and start assuming that's all fact in there, that would be a mistake," Dr. Speights said. He said people then make bad decisions based on bad medical information. "When it comes to your health care, you want the right answer, not the quickest," Dr. Speights said. To test the article's results, Dr. Speights looked up another major medical condition that was not included in the study: Ebola_virus_disease (T-H-L).

"I Google Ebola and the second one is Wikipedia," he said. "That's the first one people click on because they think, 'Well, it's the easiest and maybe it's the best.'" But Dr. Speights said that's wrong. He noticed errors early on in the Wikipedia article on Ebola. "I don't know about this, where they cited it," he said. "They cited the New York Times Magazine. We don't do that." Dr. Speights said doctors never cite newspaper articles, rather journal articles and studies. "So even on Ebola, just in this quick review here, we found this is not referenced correctly," he said. [...] Dr. Speights said people can find better information by taking a few more seconds to scroll down the Google search results page. "It's going to be right here at the CDC," he said. "That's a reputable website. It's fifth down the page." Dr. Speights said the following websites are reputable sources that he would recommend using for medical information: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and New England Journal of Medicine. "They're actually going to look at the information and make sure that there is good, reliable facts behind the information they post," he said. [...]

Video of the ABC News television report is embedded.

[Poetlister]

I don't know if this has already been noted, but en.wiki has apparently had a version of its article on Dengue fever (T-H-L) peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in this prestigious online medical journal.

Has that version been protected against "improvement"?

[Thracia]

I don't know if this has already been noted, but en.wiki has apparently had a version of its article on Dengue fever (T-H-L) peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in this prestigious online medical journal.

Has that version been protected against "improvement"?

I don't think so - it's semi-protected, and people are still merrily editing it.

It has a flashy new logo in the top corner too, whose Tooltip text says (sic):

This is article has been published in the peer reviewed journal Open Medicine.

Shame they didn't peer review the Tooltip!



Edit - added screenshot:

[Poetlister]

At least that icon links to the published article, so those in the know can check that.

[Textnyymi]

Well, do you realize that some foreign language Wikipedias have banners at the top of medical related pages which warn the readers about the possibility of wrong information regarding those topics?

"This information is not to be considered as medical advice and could not be accurate. The content of these pages is here only for the purpose of illustration, and are not meant to be a substitute for certified medical assistance"

And who is writing medical articles on the English Wikipedia? Dr. Nagyfi Richárd?
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dr-nagyfi-richard