[WikiEN-l] Rx Dosage Instructions in Wikipedia

[Stan Shebs]

MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 2/18/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>   
>> George Chriss wrote:
>>     
>>> If the AMA does provide such recommendations.  Having a vandal change
>>>       
>> specific dosage amounts is a scary prospect, as some people may actually
>> trust our information at face value.
>>
>> Seems to me that having people trust information from Wikipedia about
>> drug dosages at face value _at all_ is the scary prospect. I wouldn't
>> bake a cake using a recipe from Wikipedia without checking against
>> outside sources first, whether the article's history showed vandalism or
>> not. We already have medical disclaimers specifically intended to cover
>> this, IMO we shouldn't have to go to great lengths to protect idiots
>> against themselves.
>>     
>
>
>  I wonder if you think the same thing when someone dies because they trusted
> the info.
>   
I would be thinking "Darwin Award, Special Wikipedia Category". Of 
course then we'd have the all-important [[List of Darwin Award winners 
who died from trusting Wikipedia]].

:-)

But to be serious, I think it's reasonable to be ruthless about sourcing 
and quoting this kind of info, and deleting if none is found. If a 
pharma company recommends a dosage on their website, and we phrase our 
text as "As of 2007, BigPharmaCo's website recommends 75mg [1]", then 
we're just transcribing what is already on the net, not playing doctor. 
(It would be ultra-clever to develop some kind of tool that tracks 
these, and flags the WP text for review if the website changes.)

Stan