Eddievos

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Hello, Eddievos, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  JFW | T@lk 16:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

POV edits

Mr Vos, we seem to have met before. Your view on cholesterol vs heart disease is well known, and your userpage declares your interest quite clearly.

Unfortunately your view that cholesterol has limited impact on heart disease is not shared by the vast majority of health scientists. Even if your views were the absolute truth, Wikipedia would still have to relegate them to the small print under conditions imposed by our neutrality policy. Original thought and reinterpretations of published material are likewise prohibited under the original research policy.

Needless to say, attempts to inappropriately push non-standard views are frowned upon, and I urge you to discuss any edits to cholesterol-related pages on their talk pages first.

I have long been looking for an authoritative source that best represents the "cholesterol skeptics" POV, preferably a printed work that has made an impact (i.e. being quoted in the literature). Would you have any suggestion which work is most suitable? I understand Ravnskov has published books on his views, but I am uncertain which work has made the most impact. It would certainly be appropriate to insert a paragraph on hypercholesterolemia that some dispute the link between cholesterol and arterial pathology. JFW | T@lk 16:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Conflict of interest: has just admitted a 52-year old with an MI whose cholesterol was 8.6. JFW | T@lk 16:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

-- Response in addition to the edited email I sent you last night; I figured out the POV issue and here's why I propose you reestablish my version you reverted back from, although I should edit it possibly to remove any: "Original thought and reinterpretations of published material ... prohibited under the original research policy."

We may disagree for some time as to if cholesterol per say has any more of a causal effect in CHD than a fever has in the cause of an infection ... and the total absence of MI and mortality benefit from any kind of 'managing cholesterol' in women will [in fact has] bear that out.

With all due respect, 'the vast majority of .. scientists' [your text] once thought the Earth was flat and while I met 5 of the N American [pharma conflicted] 'cholesterol' guideline authors and call at least 1 of them a social and scientific friend, the issue has to be larger than that on Wiki. Your opinion that the amount of 'LDL-cholesterol' causes heart disease has no more reason to feature as opinion on Wiki than mine and that centers around the chemical composition [from trans fat to omega-3] of that also cholesterol carrying LDL particle.

Whatever I have changed is data supported, and I submit, merits being there since it gives cautious balance; something 'clopedias' must do.

Your conflict declared below is anecdotal, and did you measure Hcy, Lp(a) and do a blood fatty acid and electrolyte analysis to exclude confounders? If that 8.6 mM (335 mg/dL) cholesterol patient had a 'LDL receptor problem', all cells would also be low in phospholipid, fat soluble nutrient, be they ingested or liver generated or repackaged, with high cholesterol the marker of that problem.

I do sympathize with MD's that are expected to cure; my quest is the causa causans of vascular structural decline and here cholesterol simply does not figure there any more than calcium, the dutch aderverkalking. Cholesterol is 'een keizer zonder kleren' so to speak.

I found your http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/332/7555/1453 exchange with Dr. Ravnskov and I have most of his coordinates. [deleted]

Clearly, we share the 'atheroma quest' but what Wiki should be guarded from, I submit, is reliance on cholesterol as part of the axis of Evil, or statins as part of the cure [it mimics NO-synthase and has minor antiinflammatory roles but the cost is damaging the entire mevalonate pathway tree], less a part of prevention.

MVG and best wishes for a healthy 2007 and beyond, Eddie [no conflict of interest; just a material sciences failure engineer with 10 ref's in the cardiac field on Medline] Eddievos 15:35, 25 December 2006 (UTC)Eddie at vos@health-heart.org

February 2009

Please do not add commentary or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. Thank you. JFW | T@lk 12:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not want you to email me unless the matter is personal. Please discuss your edits to atorvastatin on that article's talk page (Talk:Atorvastatin), so other contributors can participate in the discussion. Most of your edits are based on cherrypicked results from individual trials; I urge you to read WP:MEDRS concerning the hierarchy of sources. JFW | T@lk 14:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

If you are troubled by the fact that I refer to you as "someone with strong views on atherosclerosis and statins", then could you explain why your website downplays a role for cholesterol and places enormous amounts of emphasis on homocysteine despite an absence of proof for homocysteine manipulation? A quick look at WP:TRUTH may be useful. JFW | T@lk 14:40, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Email

Again, please stop contacting me by email. This is unnecessary. Please await responses on Talk:Atorvastatin or make contributions that clearly meet the requirements of WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS. JFW | T@lk 07:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

=

Dear J de W, hoping this posting here will reach you. Homocysteine is not the topic here, but it will degrade virtually any short or long living protein, some irreversibly so, and we've known since the 1950's that low intake of vitamins [specifically B6] that raises homocysteine causes atherosclerosis in monkeys, and the science has been consistent since then. Just like nobody thinks that glycation damage in diabetes/insulin resistance causes hard to reverse damage through 'glycation', homocysteine causes 'thiolation' damage that exceeds glycation damage in spades since it degrades proteins at more locations. Cause, solution and prevention: absolutely, but vitamins to correct homocysteine are no quick cure [although here is RCT evidence in stroke and in bone fracture prevention of which the P values are significant, and biologically plausible]

The topic is atorvastatin and while I posted something on the talk, ie 'discussion' page, how will that change error and bias that is there, if you systematically turn back changes? I don't 'cherry pick' trials but know and consider ALL randomized trials with atorva ever done, and published, now of which found significance in mortality. If you know of others that I have left out, please make my month! [ASCOT, ASPEN, CARDS, SPARCL, 49-in-house ie Author: C. Newmann]

They show conclusively no mortality benefit and SPARCL in the abstract showed more hemorrhagic stroke [P-0.02 at RR 1.66], that being a conditional exclusion for patient selection and yet*). Clearly such significant caveat regarding harm should not be gone unstated in the article about atorva, as per yours truly with a senior Dutch cardiologist: http://www.neurology.org/cgi/eletters/68/10/719#7946

*) SPARCL in NEJM discusses the increased hemorrhagic stroke also found in HPS and discusses causes, making it probably meet the secondary evidence criteria MEDMOS MEDRS of Wiki, and they issue a caveat.

So the question remains, who apart from you has the power to change the atorva page?

And another email

I just found your last email in my inbox. As usual, I will respond here because these are issues that should be discussed on-wiki. As usual, you make allegations that reveal a complete misunderstanding of the processes of Wikipedia. It's a bit of a shame that you have now sought to perpetuate your own ignorance on the THINCS list. You are however correct in noting that I am opposed to the THINCS agenda, and you are also correct in noting that I have no "big pharma" conflicts of interest. There is no need to suppose any particular motives other than I am interested in ensuring that the cholesterol and statin pages are not taken over by people who do not subscribe to the mainstream views. And yes, as a clinician I make decisions on the management of dyslipidaemias on an almost daily basis; I do not discuss my own practice on Wikipedia.

I do not "control" editing of any page more than any other editor, and I will not revert an edit if clearly correct, well-sourced and answering to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines with regards to neutrality and verifiability. The fact that your edits get reverted says more about your inability to get used to the processes of this website.

Just an example. You are correct that the evidence for using statins in women for primary and probably also secondary prevention is deficient. But absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, and every guideline on the subject recommends the use of statins in such situations. On Wikipedia, it is not necessarily the truth that gets the most airtime.

I am quite willing to collaborate with you on the statin pages. Could I make the following recommendations?

• If your edit gets reverted, try WP:BRD. In other words, discuss your edit on the talkpage and try to achieve consensus. Sending me emails or agitating on email lists achieves nothing.
• Familiarise yourself with the medical sources guideline. This guideline contains advice on the suitablility of particular sources.
• Read the talkpage guidelines (your signing of talkpage posts is still idiosyncratic)
• If you are consistently unable to arrive at consensus, consult the dispute resolution policy.

This is the last time I will respond here to an email. If you want Wikipedia to conform to your expectations, please make an effort. JFW | T@lk 19:18, 24 May 2009 (UTC)