Talk:Vladimir Zelenko

Fixing serious NPOV issues

Hi, just posting here to say I'll be trying to work on a major overhaul of the article, as it has serious issues in its current form, including the Background which does not come from a reliable source, the Zelenko Protocol section which is an egregious violation of WP:MEDMOS, and the Criticism section which is not giving due weight to the criticism of Zelenko's proposals. There will likely be section blanking involved, and some potentially contentious edits along the way, so I'm proactively posting this here and I'm happy to discuss anything related to improving the article with anyone. —DanCherek (talk) 02:31, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• @DanCherek: Why have you posted only negative information about Zelenko? And deleted important stuff? For a start I have re-included the section "Zelenko's published findings". IZAK (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

@IZAK: I'll address your two points separately. First, it's not that I've "posted only negative information". I removed statements that were not cited by a reliable source or that potentially constituted a copyright violation.

The Background section was copy-and-pasted from Eleftherios Gkioulekas's self-published website, save the opening sentence. Per WP:RSSELF: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Never use self-published sources as independent sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer." Discounting the fact that this was a use of a self-published source about a living subject, Gkioulekas is an applied mathematician and far from an established expert on COVID-19 (see his disclaimer at the bottom of his website).

The Zelenko Protocol section was a copyright violation, given that it consisted of large sections of copied text that was non-free. Per WP:COPYPASTE: "Use of copyrighted text must be in compliance with Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria policy. This means that the quotation must not be replaceable with free text (including one that the editor writes), must be minimal, must have contextual significance and must have previously been published." That had to be removed, otherwise the article could have been speedily deleted. Additionally, Wikipedia's manual of style for medicine-related articles advises that "Wikipedia is not a procedural manual. Don't give "how-to" instructions." Giving the specific dosing regimen and schedules for different patient groups is inconsistent with this policy.

Second, I think the publications are fine to stay in the article, but three of the four citations in that section were (are) cited with PR Newswire (including the Yahoo ones, you can see the PR Newswire logo above the title), which should not be used, according to WP:RSPSOURCES. Those sources should probably just be replaced with the actual publication citation. I can do that later unless you get to it first.

Happy to continue discussing! Importantly, as I said in the beginning, no one should be purposefully trying to write the article in a positive or negative light; the article should just reflect what the reliable sources are saying. —DanCherek (talk) 21:57, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Taking a closer look at the studies listed under the publications section, it's clear that the first three sentences all reference the same study (check the DOI: they're all the same, 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.106214), while the last sentence is a press release announcing that his results had been submitted for peer review, which resulted in the aforementioned publication. So only one publication is being discussed here, FYI. —DanCherek (talk) 22:11, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Zelenko Protocol

Reinserting the Zelenko Protocol it is in the Public Domain released by Dr. Zelenko and free for anyone to copy from his website, it is not egregious WP:MEDMOS, see also Chemotherapy regimen and many others like it such as ABVD, BEACOPP, CAPOX, etc etc etc etc etc etc... IZAK (talk) 20:54, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

A few things: (1) Where's the confirmation of public domain release? Yes, it's linked from Zelenko's website, which happens to have "©2020 by Vladimir Zev Zelenko M.D." at the bottom. If it's copyrighted content, it not only needs to be removed from the article, but should also be stricken from the revision history. (2) Even if it isn't copyrighted, it's a self-published primary source. The article's coverage about his proposed treatment regimen should be drawn from. and cite, reliable secondary sources because we aren't dealing with "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts". (3) I saw you've restored the copy-and-pasted text from Eleftherios Gkioulekas's personal website, but haven't responded to my previous points about it. Again, I believe that this section violates WP:RSSELF because it's a self-published source from someone who is not an established expert, on an article about a living person. —DanCherek (talk) 22:01, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

I looked on Zelenko's website and there are free download links in Englkish (not working yet) and Russian (working) for "Download Treatment: English [not working]; ​Russian​ [works]. Download Prophylaxis Protocol: English [works] and a Download Peer Reviewed Study: English [works] [1]. This is an unfolding story so secondary sources are coming up all the time, but they are mainly in the general and Jewish media and not in scientific/medical journals yet, we should have a {{Current}} template here I think. I reset Gkioulekas's information as part of the history section which is relevant. IZAK (talk) 02:05, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

As no confirmation of public domain release has been provided, I've removed the infringing content, in accordance with Wikipedia's copyright policy, and requested revision deletion on the article page. As specified by the notice, please do not remove this template before an administrator has reviewed it. —DanCherek (talk) 03:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

See below #Permission pending from Dr. Zelenko to publish his Zelenko Protocol on WP. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 04:33, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.vladimirzelenkomd.com/. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. —DanCherek (talk) 03:06, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

See below #Permission pending from Dr. Zelenko to publish his Zelenko Protocol on WP. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 04:32, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Permission pending from Dr. Zelenko to publish his Zelenko Protocol on WP

I have sent an Email to Dr Zelenko requesting permission to publish his Zelenko Protocol. Awaiting a response ASAP: Text of Email request reads: "Dear Dr. Zelenko, Shalom Uvracha! Trust you are well. Could you please formally give permission for your Zelenko Protocol to be published on your Wikipedia article. Thank you,..." IZAK (talk) 04:23, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@DanCherek: Please remove the copyright warnings and kindly restore the content you have been deleting as I have received the following response from Dr. Zelenko to my request above: "On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 11:50 PM Vladimir Zelenko <zev@vladimirzelenkomd.com> wrote: Yes, I approve." Is there any specific language or wording you would like from him that would satisfy WP's copyright requirements? By the way, feel free to contact him yourself at zev@vladimirzelenkomd.com I got his Email address off his website. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 07:04, 13 January 2021 (UTC) 

IZAK, we can't simply take your word for it, though I personally believe you got permission from Zelenko. Regardless, that's hearsay, and does not meet the standards of our copyright policy. However, why I actually reverted your edits is because it's clearly WP:ADVOCACY, and the contribution violated our guidelines on fringe topics. In fact, it's one of the most blatant examples I've seen in a while; it's rare that I come across such a substantial contribution violating these policies. With fringe views, we need to clearly label them as such, and we shouldn't delve into such extreme detail using self-published sources of the person advocating for these fringe ideas, especially without critical balance from reliable third-party sources. This could also potentially harm someone's health. I had also cited Wikipedia not being a web server/repository for this kind of extended content, regardless of the fringe and advocacy aspects. Honestly, I'd appreciate Bishonen looking at this, as this seems to be a rather severe breach of several policies, and this article should reasonably be covered by the AP2 and fringe science discretionary sanctions. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 09:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

For the confirmed copyright permission, that would need to be shared with permissions-en@wikimedia.org, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission, sections "When permission is confirmed" and "Typical request letter for confirmation". Basically, IZAK would need to give Zelenko more information before asking for confirmation, to make sure Zelenko knows their text may be both edited and shared with others, outside Wikipedia, once they release it to us. All that can be fixed, since Zelenko is in fact willing for Wikipedia to use his text. However, I agree with Symmachus Auxiliarus that other problems are more serious. The long text not only violates WP:ADVOCACY and WP:FRINGE, it seriously violates WP:MEDRS. And violates common sense, too, since as Symmachus Auxiliarus points out, it could damage someone's health. We can't have it in an article. IMO it falls under the pseudoscience discretionary sanctions, rather than American politics (which might however apply to other parts of the article), and I've accordingly posted a pseudoscience ds alert to IZAK on their page. IZAK, please do not reinsert the text in question. It's not appropriate for Wikipedia. Bishonen | tålk 10:27, 13 January 2021 (UTC).

I'll withdraw my revision deletion nomination, given that the policy violations described above are now the more serious problems with the content in question. —DanCherek (talk) 15:00, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@DanCherek:@Bishonen:@Symmachus Auxiliarus: Thank you all for your feedback. As the original creator of the article I worked on a "first draft" which is now modified. It makes no sense to discuss Dr. Zelenko's life without focusing in more detail on his Zelenko Protocol which is what he is really known for as a practicing physician. Remember that dealing with the threat of death from COVID-19 is still a world-wide threat and there has been no universal cure found to date although progress has been made with plasma treatments and the preventative vaccines. Certainly in February-March of 2020 absolutely no one knew how to react to the outbreak of the disease in the USA and Dr. Zelenko applied his considerable medical knowledge and experience and came up with his ad hoc cure that had positive results when all all hospitals were doing was putting patients into emergency wards and isolating them essentially starving patients awaiting cures. Then along came ventilation. But Zelenko's Protocol is straightforward and was groundbreaking at the time which is why he received so much attention and still does for it. So I would like to find some sort of consensus that would allow Zelenko's actual preventative treatment plan included and not mentioned as just described as a "cocktail" as if it was a drink in a bar or a "molotov cocktail" which it is not. By the way, a lot of the cancer cures and chemotherapies listed on WP are also not fail proof and foolproof. I will follow up and ask Dr. Zelenko to contact Wikimedia to allow publication of information from his protocols. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 17:13, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

It's a medical primary source. Take a look at WP:MEDRS, it says that biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, so Zelenko's consent would not be sufficient for article inclusion. Also, "cocktail" is a standard term for a combination of medications, and reliable sources have used it to describe Zelenko's treatment (see NYT and Snopes). —DanCherek (talk) 22:41, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Removing content from Eleftherios Gkioulekas's personal website

I've once again removed copy-and-pasted content from Eleftherios Gkioulekas's personal website, for reasons I've explained twice above.The content was restored without addressing the concerns on this talk page (pinging @IZAK). I'll again try to clearly outline the issues here.

The content is copied from this website, which is the personal, self-published website of Gkioulekas who is a math professor at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His website contains a disclaimer that states that he is not an expert in the medical field or in COVID-19. According to WP:RSSELF:

Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book and claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published sources are largely not acceptable... Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Never use self-published sources as independent sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

Because this is a self-published, personal web page from someone who makes it clear that he is not an expert in the field, being used as an independent source about a living person, it violates this policy and should not be included in the article. Noting that I've raised these concerns twice (on Jan 11 and Jan 12), and the only response has been "I reset Gkioulekas's information as part of the history section which is relevant", which does not address the WP:RSSELF points.—DanCherek (talk) 15:22, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Smear campaign

This following segment is can only be understood as a smear campaign to delegitimize the medical integrity of Vladimir Zelenko:

It was reported that Zelenko attended the "Save America March" rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, though there was no evidence that he participated in the subsequent storming of the United States Capitol.[22][23] In an interview during the rally, Zelenko praised the Proud Boys, accused by totalitarian "liberals" and globalists in the American left to be a neo-fascist political organization, and said: "Hopefully, we could suppress the evil in the right way that doesn’t cause too much collateral damage.

For the first the information is totally irrelevant on the topic of Vladimir Zelenko and his medical research and viewpoints and for the second they are twisted and slanted in order to present a certain biased message. Articles on any topic should not be done by biased activists. This kind of distortions undermines the professionality of wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sokndal (talk • contribs) 23:48, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Disputed piece removed, per WP:BLP, thx for bringing an attention. Lembit Staan (talk) 23:23, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Smear campaign 2 - continuation

In the original segment I have quoted above Proud Boys are labelled as a "neo-fascist political organisation". This is a quite a controversial statement that have no consensus in the opinion. This is an accusation by radical and progressive groups that dominate the public discourse. I have tried to modify this accusation. Also to bring in "the "storming" of the Capitol is totally irrelevant since there is a) no connection between the Trump rally and the "storming" (new evidence even show that the FBI had a central part in it) and b) this loosely organized group did not represent neither Proud Boys nor the 70 million Trump-supporters.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sokndal (talk • contribs)

Tags removed

• {{Notability}}: satisfies WP:GNG: plenty of refs. Lembit Staan (talk) 23:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
• {{Undue weight}}: Undue weight of what? The whole text is directly related to this person; there seem to be no trivia.

If there are particular concerns I didn't notice in the article, please state them here, in the talk page. Lembit Staan (talk) 23:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

strange categories

the article is in the categories

• Medical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic
• Scientific and technical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

why is he not in the categories?

• Category:Medical-related conspiracy theories
• COVID-19 misinformation

--Über-Blick (talk) 02:40, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Passing

Dr Zelenko sadly passed away today Thursday on the 1st of Tammuz 5782, June 30th 2022 2600:1017:B002:42D0:1029:837F:A0F1:82FB (talk) 19:59, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Why is his B.S. in Chemistry with high honors from Hofstra University been left out of the article? https://humanevents.com/2022/06/30/dr-vladimir-zelenko-1973-2022-rest-in-peace/ 2603:8081:8902:72AE:8501:3A9B:D8B2:E863 (talk) 21:28, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Do you have his full Hebrew name and that of his father? POR613 (talk) 08:07, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Vaccines for children

I’m very concerned about the potential lack of validity in the following paragraph:

In January 2022, Zelenko falsely claimed that children are more likely to die from COVID-19 vaccines than from COVID-19.[21]

It’s far too early to say Dr. Zalenko made that claim falsely. It was widely reported early on that the Covid risk to children was less than 1%. As it’s turned out, the Covid vaccines actually have caused the deaths and often permanent injuries of several perfectly healthy children. Whether or not the unvaccinated children who die of Covid will outnumber those who’ve been harmed by the vaccines won’t be known for some time. But as many healthy young athletes who’ve been vaccinated have died unexpectedly, and it’s now proved true that the vaccinated still get Covid, it seems that saying Zalenko’s claim was “false” was premature. It should only say that he made the claim, not that it was a false claim, because we don’t know that yet. 2603:8000:ED01:5C3E:3CDF:FE74:F036:E7D3 (talk) 04:10, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

@2603:8000:ED01:5C3E:3CDF:FE74:F036:E7D3 :If one makes a statement of fact ("X causes Y") while knowing that the truth of that statement has yet to be determined, or is not supported by evidence, then that statement is false. Matuko (talk) 14:08, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

You're basically saying that one can only claim proven facts. That's circular reasoning. A fact is never proven immediately, so it can never be claimed the first time.

If the line is: "Zelenko claimed that children are more likely to die from COVID-19 vaccines than from COVID-19", then it's factual information. After all, he claimed that. When Wikipedia adds the word "falsely", Wikipedia makes a claim about the content of the claim which is not supported by evidence. Until the claim is proven or disproven, Wikipedia should refrain from adding such information. This is an encyclopedia after all. Not an opinion magazine. We should be careful to add our own opinions which is what has happened here.

I strongly suggest to remove the word "falsely". Martdj (talk) 07:43, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

"Russian-American"

Describing Zalenko as a Jewish Russian-American young man when he was born in Soviet-era Ukraine is not quite accurate (I'm not just saying this because of the war, BTW). But looking at this talk page, there are much more pressing issues, like editors not understanding WP:RS, WP:COPYVIO and WP:ADVOCACY, so I shall refrain from editing it right now. Matuko (talk) 13:55, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

• Zelenko is a Jewish Russian-American. Ukraine has a large minority of ethnic Russians and Ukrainian was not a nationality when he was born, but rather only an ethnicity. His nationality was Soviet and his ethnicity was Russian/Jewish. Now his nationality is American.

Thespearthrower (talk) 10:58, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Remove emotional opinion piece word choices

Some tiny word changes to make the article more factual and less of an emotional opinion piece:

He also promoted experimental medical advice, and alleged misinformation about COVID-19 vaccination. 2A02:8084:D6BB:F400:41C6:C998:179D:85C (talk) 06:58, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Removal of Opinion

"He also promoted unfounded medical advice, conspiracy theories, and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccination." This is not objective evidence, this is opinion or an agenda & has no place in this person's biography. If you insist on putting it back into the article, you are the equivalent of a grocery store aisle publication. I'm sorry but I can not respect this kind of blatant & flagrant personal attack. Bon Martin (talk) 01:19, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

It is sourced information. Also true. Wikipedia is a science-based encyclopedia, and we call a spade a spade. See also WP:FRINGE, WP:PSCI and WP:YWAB. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:07, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Cite 14 does not support the claim for which offered

The claim is that "Higher quality studies disproved Zelenko's claims, finding that zinc, hydroxychloroquine, and azithromycin did not improve serious outcomes of COVID-19." The title of the article referred to by cite 14 focuses on HCQ and CQ alone.

It is not clear why so many studies focused on HCQ as the anti-viral agent when good science points to zinc as the anti-viral, with HCQ, CQ, etc. playing only an ionophore role 184.56.8.140 (talk) 14:47, 14 January 2023 (UTC)