Forwarded conversation
Subject: About Wikipedia medical entries
------------------------

From: Nurunnaby Chowdhury <nh@nhasive.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 7:39 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>



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From: Stevie Benton <stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 7:44 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Hi Nurunnaby,

A similar story has appeared in the Telegraph -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10857468/Dont-diagnose-yourself-on-Wikipedia-doctors-warn.html-
and the BBC -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27586356

The BBC piece is the best of the three and WMUK has reached out to all
three sources. The article stems from a report published a while ago by the
Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. The paper was discussed by
members of WikiProject Medicine and some issues found in its methodology.

I hope this is helpful,

Stevie
> Title of this news: *Do NOT try to diagnose yourself on Wikipedia! 90% of
> its medical entries are inaccurate, say experts*
> *! *
> *Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive*
> Administrator | Bengali Wikipedia<
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--

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----------
From: Marc A. Pelletier <marc@uberbox.org>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:01 PM
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org


On 05/27/2014 09:44 AM, Stevie Benton wrote:
> American Osteopathic Association

I'm not an expert on the latest woo-woo, but isn't Osteopathy one of the
numerous "faith-based 'medecine'"?

-- Marc

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From: Stevie Benton <stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:11 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


I think one of our friends who is US based can more helpfully answer this,
but I believe osteopathy in the US is somehow different from elsewhere. I
couldn't tell you how, but I seem to remember this being the case.

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From: Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:18 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


That issue was discussed before too. From what I remember from it is that
what is called Osteopathy in the UK isn't the same thing that's called
Osteopathy in the US, where the UK one is basically voodoo, and the US one
a legitimate specialty in medicine (but correct me if I'm wrong)

-- Martijn

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From: Marc A. Pelletier <marc@uberbox.org>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:22 PM
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org


Ah, that explains it.  :-)

Regardless, "Don't diagnose yourself with Wikipedia" seems to be
infinitely good advice, regardless of any hyperbole about article accuracy!

-- Marc

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From: Nathan <nawrich@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:23 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


You are correct. In the UK osteopathy is a woo woo homeopathic discipline,
in the U.S. (where the study was conducted) the training and degree
granting processes for osteopathy are equivalent to medical doctors and the
two are treated identically.

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From: Thomas Morton <morton.thomas@googlemail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:26 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Osteopathy is one of those “difficult” ones, where it does have some real evidence to back it up - but in the UK certain practitioners make exceptional and (hokum) claims.

The NHS recommends it for Lower Back Pain (http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Osteopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx, and personally I’ve found it the only effective treatment for my back pain) and also say may be effective for other forms of muskculoskeletal problems.

But you get plenty of osteopaths claiming that they can fix anything from IBS to heart problems (total BS).

Talking about it to my osteopath, those latter claims became popular in the 90s during the “hokum-medicine” (his words :P) boom, but fortunately today it seems to be falling further out of favour, with a twist to more realistic attitudes.

The US has a much more robust approach to such claims, and hopefully the UK will go that way too :D

Anyway, just an interesting aside :) As a note, the WP article on osteopathy does a good job of overviewing the topic!

Tom

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From: Todd Allen <toddmallen@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:33 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Actually, "Don't diagnose yourself" is just generally good advice. Even if
the medical information you have is accurate, there might be other possible
causes or factors that need to be considered.

Internet information, Wikipedia or otherwise, might be a good place to get
things to ask your doctor about, but "ask your doctor" should always be the
end of the process.

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From: geni <geniice@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:27 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


The problem is the number of doctors who use wikipedia.

--
geni

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From: Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:31 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


s/use wikipedia/rely on the completeness and accurancy of Wikipedia to
practice their profession/

There is nothing *wrong* with using Wikipedia as a doctor, but there may be
something wrong with the way they use it.

-- Martijn

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From: Lane Rasberry <lane@bluerasberry.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 9:01 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Hello,

I am a participant in WikiProject Medicine on English Wikipedia and know
about this case. I also have talked to the researcher who published this
paper since its publication.

Lots of people have lots of objections to Wikipedia. In my opinion, the
study itself is correct for what it reports, but no newspaper or other
media understands what the study is saying and they are reporting all kinds
of silly things. Here is the discussion of this paper in WikiProject
Medicine -
<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_48#Poor_paper_.5B4.5D_on_Wikipedia
>
That is in the archives, so if someone has more to say, post to the main
forum.

While I think this study is being perceived negatively, I appreciate any
research team who does any kind of research on Wikipedia's health content.
Here is a list of what has been done:
<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Research_publications
>

@geni - "The problem is the number of doctors who use wikipedia."

I disagree. I feel that the problem is that for all of history there has
never been health information accessible to doctors and patients. Wikipedia
at least says that people should have health information, whereas every
government and health organization in the world (NIH, NHS, WHO and the
rest) are still saying "Not yet, it is not important, nobody wants this"
and not providing any alternative. There are no alternatives or competitors
to Wikipedia for what it does, so of course doctors use it. The problem is
that no one else thinks doctors need ready access to good information right
now, and Wikipedia is just doing the best it can to meet the existing
demand that is otherwise ignored.

@Todd Allen - "ask your doctor" should always be the end of the process."

The number of people how have as much access to their doctors as they wish
is definitely not more than 20% of the English speaking world and the
reality is probably closer to 2-3% of people. Doctors simply do not have
more than minutes to answer questions and many people would like to study
for hours over their lifetimes. Referring people to doctors ignores the
problem that people do not get as much access to healthcare as they would
like, and doctors are not ready to provide health information on demand. At
the same time, patients are being encouraged to make more health decisions
with their doctors, but not given educational resources to help them make
those decisions.

I wish there were enough doctors, and people should try hard to ask them
lots of questions, but something more is needed too.

yours,
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane@bluerasberry.com

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From: Jeevan Jose <jkadavoor@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 9:07 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Wikipedia discourages self diagnosis and treatment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Medical_disclaimer

And I think professionals are capable enough to verify the credibility of
the referred sources instead of blindly reading the articles.

Regards,
Jee


On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 8:31 PM, Lane Rasberry <lane@bluerasberry.com>wrote:

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From: Nathan <nawrich@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2014 at 9:17 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


FYI - Here is the previous thread on this list about this study / topic:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/460005?do=post_view_threaded

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From: Jayanta Nath <jayantanth@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 28, 2014 at 1:20 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Hi Hasive,

I think we need to read again
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Medical_disclaimer

Jayanta

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From: Amy Vossbrinck <avossbrinck@wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, May 28, 2014 at 1:51 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_the_United_States

Osteopaths also have chiropractic training.

Take care, Amy
--
*Amy Vossbrinck*
*Executive Assistant to the*
*Chief of Finance and Administration, Garfield Byrd*
*Wikimedia Foundation*
*149 New Montgomery Street*
*San Francisco, CA 94105*
*415.839.6885  ext 6628*
*avossbrinck@wikimedia.org <avossbrinck@wikimedia.org>*

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From: Nathan <nawrich@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 28, 2014 at 2:08 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


That's a weird content architecture, right there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_Canada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_physician
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_manipulative_medicine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy

No redirects listed.



On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Amy Vossbrinck
<avossbrinck@wikimedia.org>wrote:

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From: Nurunnaby Chowdhury <nh@nhasive.com>
Date: Wed, May 28, 2014 at 11:42 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>



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From: Cristian Consonni <kikkocristian@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:03 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


2014-05-28 7:42 GMT+02:00 Nurunnaby Chowdhury <nh@nhasive.com>:
This news found is way also on Italian media:
http://www.corriere.it/salute/14_maggio_27/occhio-wikipedia-nove-voci-mediche-dieci-sono-sbagliate-02d46f6a-e5b1-11e3-8e3e-8f5de4ddd12f.shtml

The good thing is that the articles mentions that the author of the
original study invited physicians to participate in Wikipedia to raise
the quality of its articles.

Cristian

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From: Jane Darnell <jane023@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:18 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


What I think is funny about this whole article and this email thread
is that the quality of Wikipedia is not brought into relation with
anything else. For example, I know that one of the main causes of
death in the Netherlands today has to do with improper dosages of
medicine, caused both by failure to follow instructions in the medical
information accompanying pharmaceuticals and by mistakes in that
medical information.

Wikipedia may be full of mistakes, but so is the "official" medical
information offered to doctors and patients.

2014-05-28 20:03 GMT+02:00, Cristian Consonni <kikkocristian@gmail.com>:

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From: Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:24 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Let's not focus on what others are doing wrong, but improve on what we may
be doing wrong - that's the only thing we have most influence on in
changing.

--Martijn

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From: Yves Z <zyzzyvy@outlook.com>
Date: Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:31 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Are there spot checks by professionals in medicine, or ways to flag often-read pages for peer review?  That seems like a way that experts could help without getting into edit wars.
The wikiproject medicine chat is fine but incomplete.