Talk:Karol Sikora

Role as Expert Witness for GMC in defence of Jane Barton

Jane Barton, who was found guilty of prescribing hugely excessive morphine overdoses to 90+ ww2 veterans (not in pain, not suffering from cancer, not terminally ill) at the gosport war memorial hospital to 'unblock beds was not struck off at the GMC, but allowed to stay in practice. Sikora gave evidence at the GMC in support of her prescriptions (overdoses, not for chronic pain, not suffering from cancer). To all involved, she is considered to be responsible for murdering their family members, and they are on record saying this in countless newspaper articles. As Sikora is a 'cancer ' specialist , does anyone know how/why the GMC would have called him as an 'expert' , as these 'deliberate deaths under the guise of palliative care' were cases that involved elderly patients who did not even have any pain, let alone 'cancer'? 79.70.225.88 (talk) 17:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)twl79.70.225.88 (talk) 17:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Is he still on the GMC Register ?

His GMC licence details are: GMC Reference Number

1524152 

Given Names

Edward Karol 

Surname

Sikora 

according to the GMC website at http://www.gmc-uk.org/doctors/register/LRMP.asp

79.75.210.75 (talk) 19:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)twl79.75.210.75 (talk) 19:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Recent edits

This page has been somewhat sanitized recently. If the responsible editors would like to explain the removal of so much pertinant, sourced information - I'll all ears. Famous_dog (c) 08:33, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Imperial professorship

Is there any credible source according to which Sikora was indeed professor at Imperial as he has claimed? I just deleted a reference to British Medical Journal, V. 337, Issues 7660-7668 (2008), 480 because no article corresponds to this reference. This guardian article claims that was indeed a clinical doctor at the Hammersmith hospital, but that this was before it became an Imperial College's University Hospital (and there is no mention of any professorship. Grapesofraph (talk) 21:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I did find this now (McNeil, C. "WHO Reorganizes, Groups Cancer Program With Other Non-Communicable Diseases", Journal of the National Cancer Institute, v. 91, no. 16, 1355), also referred to in the article elsewhere, but it is from 1999, not 2004. Grapesofraph (talk) 21:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The BMJ refers to him as such several times; reference fixed.

The situation appears to be that Sikora held a professorship at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, which was then taken over by Imperial, and that he ceased to be a member of Imperial staff a few years prior to the online article that led to Imperial's comments. 2004 was suggested by Imperial themselves as when Sikora ceased to hold any "honorary" position with them, which would match the "5 years" suggested in the Guardian.

I think this all needs to be carefully considered as in the past few weeks I've seen various people using a previous iteration of the Wikipedia article to claim Sikora, who has been in the news a bit more recently, is not currently a professor (he is in fact a professor at Buckingham).

Svejk74 (talk) 05:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Great research and well referenced, thank you for clarifying everything! Grapesofraph (talk) 23:06, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi all, I notice that there has been quite a lot of activity on this page recently which has aroused some interest on social media, with people suggesting that recent edits have downplayed Sikora's controversial past actions and statements. What I notice from looking at recent edits is that the Controversies heading has been removed, and certain sources, like the Times article about Sikora giving a 14 year old Leukaemia patient a fatal oversose have been removed. I'd just like to seek clarification about why other editors don't believe that this particular case, which seems highly controversial to me, doesn't deserve inclusion. A Telegraph article about Sikora recently suggesting that the Covid 19 death toll has been exaggerated because old people were going to die anyway has also been removed. This source seems significant to me, and I don't see any problem with putting it back in. Jwslubbock (talk) 11:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

First, let's be accurate. What has happened is that one person on Twitter has suggested the edits were paid for by Sikora (untrue; I have no connection with the man) and has then asked for help in attempting to reinsert material into the article (a big no no in itself - this is canvassing), apparently as he disagrees with Sikora's views politically, rather than in the name of accuracy.

Grab bag 'controversies' sections are a terrible idea in any BLP as they can be used to chuck in any news mentions, even passing ones, in an attempt to discredit the subject. I have seen it before and doubtless it will happen again.

This is one article where this appeared to have happened - half the items were not noteworthy 'controversies', simply passing news mentions, while any which seemed part of a story with a bit more legs (eg his views on NHS reform, which seem to be long-held, consistent and which have genuinely attracted controversy) have been retained and moved to an appropriate place in the article. The article was terrible, that's why I rewrote it. Sikora has clearly attracted one or two enemies - look at our IP friend further up this talkpage; I'm not sure why these comments haven't been deleted - and there has to be an effort to maintain reasonable BLP standards.

As for "A Telegraph article about Sikora recently suggesting that the Covid 19 death toll has been exaggerated because old people were going to die anyway has also been removed" - this is precisely my point; it is not a 'controversy', it's a single (very recent) newspaper article by Sikora which is not in itself particularly controversial or notable.Svejk74 (talk) 12:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I note you tried to re-add this. Please discuss here first, particularly given the canvassing issue mentioned above.Svejk74 (talk) 12:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The recent coverage of his controversial comments on the Covid-19 death toll have been covered widely, and since they were covered by the Telegraph, I don't see how you can say that they are not noteworthy. Telegraph is a WP:RS. I would like to assume good faith here, but Sikora has received significant coverage recently for his controversial views, and while I'm happy to give way on the point of not having a specific Controversies section, I think that we are going to have to request comment from other editors if you persist in removing my edits without good reason. Jwslubbock (talk) 12:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Try creating a section on his comments on the Covid-19 policy perhaps? He has said many things about it, some actually widely reported - why choose this one in particular? Svejk74 (talk) 12:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah, so you're now accusing me of bad faith? That doesn't really improve my perception of your motivations. Nevertheless, if you search for 'Karol Sikora Covid-19' on Google News, the Telegraph article is the first article from a Reliable Source which turns up, so I would say that shows the prominence of this particular statement. He may have made lots of non-controversial statements about the pandemic, but this is the only one I was aware of because it was controversial.Jwslubbock (talk) 12:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Can you please explain why you believe the Telegraph has given 'undue weight' to Sikora's claim that old people were going to die anyway? You cannot argue that this is not a WP:RS, so you are simply saying that you personally believe it's been given too much coverage by the Telegraph? It's also been given a ton of coverage in tabloid sources which do not meet the WP:RS guidelines. So it's simply your personal opinion that you don't want this piece of information to be in this article, despite being highly relevant to his opinions about the current health crisis. Are we going to have to take this to an RFC? I'm more than happy to do so because I don't think most editors would agree with your position on this. Jwslubbock (talk) 12:42, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Easy; it's simply that the article reports, as the title notes, Sikora's opinion that deaths "may be less than half of what has been recorded". This is what was also reported by the Sun etc. Whether this is in itself a long-running or notable news story - no idea, it's too recent to say. The emphasis on the subsequent Twitter apology (not sourced to the Telegraph) rather than the comments themselves is indeed undue weight. An RFC may be necessary and indeed I have already noted the current issues on the BLP noticeboard, given the Twitter canvassing etc.Svejk74 (talk) 12:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I can tell you that I had not heard of this guy before these specific comments received attention. If you search for his name, the Telegraph article is the 5th link in the Google ranking, and the first good press link under News. The Telegraph reported it first because he made the statement in a Telegraph podcast. The fact that tabloids reported it afterwards seems neither here not there to me, and is irrelevant to the fact that this is a good source for a controversial comment which has been widely covered by the press. You've not claimed that the second source used for the apology was a bad source, so in fact I think it proves that this incident received significant coverage. Further, your attempts to suggest that because I was alerted to your extensive editing of this article by someone on Twitter, that this somehow makes my contributions invalid is bizarre, given that the WP:Canvassing guidelines state that "In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it be done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus." Someone asked me to take a look at the article because they were concerned that aspects of Sikora's controversial career were being minimised, and I came here simply to improve the article and make sure it accurately reflects recent coverage. Yet you have persistently tried to suggest bad faith in my edits, which itself in contradiction to Wikipedia:Assume good faith. This person is a highly controversial figure who has made widely publicised controversial statements recently. I would appreciate it if you restricted your discussion to whether Sikora's recent statements merit inclusion based on Wikipedia's guidelines, rather than attempting to derail this discussion by accusing other editors of bad faith. Jwslubbock (talk) 13:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to be charitable here: I wonder if the difference in our opinions may come from the fact that you are not on social media? I found a good article from Times Higher Education which I've cited in the Controversies section, because I think that what it shows is why Sikora is getting a lot of media attention recently - because he joined Twitter and quickly racked up 270,000 followers. This explains why I have only recently become aware of him, and explains some of the issue whereby his controversial comments are getting so much attention, yet you don't believe that they have attracted widespread coverage. I think it's fair to say that Sikora's big, and recent, social media presence helps to explain why his recent comments have attracted so much attention. Jwslubbock (talk) 13:17, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I am on social media, and I am well aware of the coverage Sikora is getting over recent comments. This seems to me like a classic case for WP:NOTNEWS which states "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and Wikipedia is not written in news style." That is, we don't cover every controversy in a WP:BLP no matter how excited twitter is getting. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:41, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

"Someone asked me to take a look at the article because they were concerned that aspects of Sikora's controversial career were being minimised". My first concern is that this isn't really correct. They had decided that Sikora was paying for edits (untrue), and the language they have used elsewhere suggests their view is hardly impartial.

My other broader concern is that it is very simple to, as I've mentioned, cobble together a load of possibly transient news mentions and add a "controversy" heading - this happens all the time in political biograophies here. BLPs require care, and if a report is significant, it requires context to demonstrate that significance. See for example my latest change to the 'Times' story from 2010; this may be significant in terms of Sikora's long service as a professional witness, but as a single news story its significance is dubious, and labelling it as a 'controversy' is editorialising.Svejk74 (talk) 13:45, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19

I notice that this article doesnt have any mention of his controversial statements on covid 19 that have brought him some notoriety recently. Please help add information on this to the article, it is very notable. Given the importance of a fair and rational presentation of the facts on COVID-19, this needs to be done carefully. If anyone can help with edits on this, I would really appreciate it. I have found some mainstream sources that could be added to the article:

1: https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-open-letter-on-covid-19-strategy-written-by-prof-karol-sikora-prof-carl-heneghan-prof-sunetra-gupta-and-others/

2: https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3702

3: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/11/prof-karol-sikora-covid-19-death-toll-may-less-half-has-recorded/

4: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/saturday-interview-karol-sikora-zr3qxsn6f

5: https://www.spectator.co.uk/writer/prof-sunetra-gupta-prof-carl-heneghan-and-prof-karol-sikora

6: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/fionola-meredith/karol-sikora-meet-the-professor-of-positivity-we-should-all-listen-to-during-coronavirus-pandemic-39260234.html

7: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-vaccine-immunity-uk-who-karol-sikora-oxford-trials-transmission-a9518986.html Gd123lbp (talk) 00:40, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds positive but I am wondering where this "controversial" comes from that isn't your own editorialising? He has written a few times in newspapers on the subject, signed the one joint letter along with Gupta, Balloux and a few others, and had a tabloid column (in the Express) for a while, but said nothing particularly "controversial" in any of them beyond suggesting the UK government might rethink its virus strategy - mainly, in his case, due to awareness of the developing cancer care backlog (note the content of the "Times" interview linked above).

Given that his column repeatedly talked about the importance of washing hands, sticking with distancing measures, and that he's welcomed vaccine development I think people need to clarify what counts as 'controversial' - I'd say that label's more for the 'virus doesn't exist' types.Svejk74 (talk) 04:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)