[Foundation-l] Paid editing, was Re: Ban and moderate

[wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk]

On 23/10/2010 08:02, SlimVirgin wrote:
>
> Look at our article -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atorvastatin There
> is criticism, no mention of how much money the drug is making for the
> company, no mention of how widespread and unquestioned the
> prescription of these drugs is. And I know from experience at another
> statin article that it would be very difficult to add this material.
>
> Some examples of the criticism available in the media, which you
> almost certainly won't find on Wikipedia:
>

OK this is going to be controversial but have you ever considered taht 
maybe you shouldn't have anything on Atorvastatin other than what comes 
as the medical advice in the packaging? One cannot provide any useful 
advice on whether someone should use the drug or not that should be 
between the patient and their doctor. I mean its not as if wikipedia is 
an expert pharmacopeia as wikipedia doesn't have experts weighing the 
evidence one way or the other, all you can do is mimic the day to day 
controversy which of its very nature is going to be conflict ridden.

If there are still any pretensions of being encyclopaedic here then any 
such articles should only be written once the conflict has been resolved.

Example here is the MMR article from one period in 2004:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MMR_vaccine&oldid=6127791

any parent reading that article at that time is highly unlikely to have 
opted for the vaccine. Or take the final paragraph here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MMR_vaccine&oldid=6127791#The_MMR_controversy

adding every rumour, statement, or innuendo that someone somewhere in 
the world might have once said, however wrong, is unencyclopeadic. It is 
certainly not without consequences. How many children were made ill by 
those paragraphs?
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/vaxpictures/measles3.htm
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/vaxpictures/measles1.htm
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/vaxpictures/mumps1.htm
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/vaxpictures/mumps2.htm
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/vaxpictures.htm