Talk:Plant sources of anti-cancer agents

Reason of removal "original research" mark

There were added adittional references and it become obvious that there was no original research in this article and that "Anticancer plants" really was used in scientific literature Turboscience (talk) 08:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Complementary treatment is better than alternative using only herbs

Complementary treatment uses herbs as additional supportive main treatment method. According to my opinion this could improove treatment by 10-20 percent if not even more. Clinical trials will solve efficiency of additional herbs usage. Turboscience (talk) 14:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

YoBot makes mistakes

The article Alternative_cancer_treatments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_cancer_treatments uses term Anticancer plants 212.122.74.6 (talk) 15:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Anti-cancer plants are NOT pharmaceutical drugs

This article says: "In popular usage, anti-cancer plants or herbs refers to antineoplastic pharmaceutical drugs used to treat cancer." How on earth can the term "anti-cancer plants", or "herbs" refer to "pharmaceutical drugs used to treat cancer"? Can someone please explain that to me? Are "pharmaceutical drugs" not chemicals that are isolated from other chemicals in a laboratory environment? How is that the same as "anti-cancer plants" in their natural form ? Is this the pharmaceutical industry once again trying to patent, or claim the glory of God's natural, herbal medicines by claiming herbs and plants are pharmaceutical drugs they own/produce?

I would like to add that when clinical trials for nutritional, or herbal treatments for diseases like cancer, etc are allowed by the FDA they are usually done with the intention of testing one particular active ingredient found in these natural food stuffs. This is similiar to how clinical trials are conducted with lab isolated pharmaceutical drugs with the express intention of patenting and marketing that particular active ingredient that costs money to isolate, cannot be done by the general public at low cost and makes a huge profit for the pharmaceutical company that now "ownes" the drug. So it makes sence that the FDA only allows this biased version of clinical trials which apply the same rules to herbal and other natural anti-cancer medicines in nature. Besides the obvious problems with this method which are listed above, very often these active ingredients found in plants work better with other active ingredients, or lessor known, complimentary, ingedients found in the same plant which get excluded in the clinical trial. This makes it seem like the plant in question is not as effective and at the end of the trial the results are not always as promising as what were expected working perfectly in favour of the phamaceutical giants. Once more trials get done with plants in their natural form people will start realizing just how powerful the combined anti-cancer agents are in many plants and herbs.

These strict clinical trials the FDA approves also cost millions to conduct. Now if someone were to invest millions in a controlled, clinical trial approved by the FDA surely they would expect, at some stage, to get a monetary return on their investment. Please explain to me how this is possible with natural, herbal medicines that are found in nature and can be grown at low cost by anyone? Therefore there is no financial incentive for anyone to conduct trials of this nature for natural, herbal or dietary plant based foodstuffs and therefore the trials don't go ahead and therefore there is no "evidence" that these natural methods work and doctors can continue to plead ignorance nation-wide!--41.150.132.227 (talk) 12:13, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you about that sentence in the introduction. It doesn't seem accurate, doesn't reflect what the sources say, and is based on sources that are not compliant with the relevant policy for medical-related articles (WP:MEDRS), so I have removed it for now. Deli nk (talk) 13:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, the whole article is questionable. Even now ([1]), not to mention the earlier version ([2]). Even the name "Anti-cancer plants" is suspicious. Out of three sources still listed in support of the definition, only one has the actual words "Anti-cancer plants" - and even that source only uses those words once, in the title. The whole article seems to be original research. I'll mark it accordingly - once again (the author has repeatedly removed the tags - [3], [4], [5])... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 22:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Since much of the content is problematic, and anything that is not would probably be better located in other articles, maybe AFD is warranted. Deli nk (talk) 15:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Probably... Although I'd prefer to wait some time, leaving the article tagged. Maybe someone will think of something? And if no one will do so, lack of useful references, presence of original research and similar problems will be easier to demonstrate during the AFD discussion. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 22:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia can also cover non scientific topics and urban legends, if these are notable enough. Maybe could be renamed differently but anti-cancer seems used by researchers as well. "Plants as anticancer agents" may be too long. In any case, the fact of somebody believing that certain plants can be anti-cancer agents is actually confirmed by these three references and I myself see anti-cancer plants, anti-cancer plants and plants as anticancer agents having more or less the same meaning. Sources must be understood rather than searching for the string pattern where every dash matters. Audriusa (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I have done some trimming because really looked very foggy and brain diluting at places. That remains boils down more or less to "plants produce a lot of chemical substances, many are biologically active, and cancer cells are just animal cells after all". Surely scientists are looking for potentially active compounds everywhere. This does not mean eating grass helps much against cancer. For more, we would really need a good reference that herbal treatment against cancer is not officially supported by medical community, this is probably true. Audriusa (talk) 17:54, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you specifically want to say that the name is being used, then you do need a sentence that uses the name. And the article still says that the name is being used ([6]). Thus it does need the sources that actually use the name (and I was searching for "anti"; it is not going to be sensitive to dashes). After all, Wikipedia:Verifiability is non-negotiable.

"Plants as anticancer agents" is simply not a name of a group of plants.

Also, there is another problem: it is simply not clear what the article is about. Is it about some plants (as the definition seems to imply)? Or about chemical substances? If it is about plants, is it about plants that are useful in treating cancer? The plants that have chemical substances that are useful in treating cancer? The plants that have such substances in amounts that are commercially significant? The plants that someone believes to be useful in treating cancer? If we knew the answer, perhaps we could look for a suitable name. But the article about everything at once is simply pointless. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Why not delete this article?

It seems to serve no purpose at all. 156.22.9.252 (talk) 02:46, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Well... Perhaps it is time to do so... Several months passed since the last try to make the article into something more reasonable - and looks like it failed... Probably because the task is impossible. If you want to prepare an WP:AFD discussion - feel free to do so. Otherwise, perhaps after a while I will get to it... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)