User talk:WLU/Pharmanoia

Future plans with this?

Are you planning on turning this into a referenced article? It's interesting. May I correct a few typos and add a ref or two? -- Brangifer (talk) 22:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh Lord I was planning on turning it into a semi-satirical reference essay for WP:MED, I didn't dream that there would be potnetial an actual mainspace article. Interesting... I thought I was just ripping off MastCell's ongoing use of the term.

You are free to edit this however you please, I don't know how much time I'll make for turning it into something worthwhile. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:27, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a section in Appeal to nature? I have not looked for sources myself as yet beyond reading that Salon article. - 2/0 (cont.) 17:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Resources

Some resources:

• Google web and books search
• Pharmanoia: Coming to a clinical trial near you. - Jon Cohen, Feb. 21, 2006 Slate (Origin of term)
• Harper's Publishes AIDS Denialist - Richard Kim, 03/02/2006 The Nation
• AIDS Denialism vs. Science - Nicoli Nattrass, Volume 31.5, September / October 2007 Skeptical Inquirer, Committee for Scientific Inquiry
• Drug Trials and Error: Conspiracy theories about big pharma would amuse, if they were not a matter of life and death. - Amanda Schaffer, May 2006 Technology Review, MIT
• In Defence of Rational AIDS Activism: How the irrationality of Act Up-Paris and others is risking the health of people with HIV or at risk of HIV infection - Nathan Geffen, Gregg Gonsalves, The Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine, Autumn 2008

-- Brangifer (talk) 02:21, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

See also

Creators of pharmanoia

• Alliance for Natural Health

• Alternative medicine

• Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

• Conspiracy theory

• Health freedom movement

• Jenny McCarthy

• Joseph Mercola

• Gary Null, co-author of Death by Medicine

Thoughts

Term "Most americans" implies that this paranoia and anti-mainstream medicine is more problematic in the USA, this might be seen as biased against americans even though that is not the case. Is there a need to bring politican parties into it, eg Sarah Palin?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The strong antiscience statement will need a reference. I do not know of anyone who is anti-science. I would not call it strong, I would call it a fringe or tiny element of society are anti-science. Sure some aspects of medicine or science are controversial eg abortion, human cloning etc but antiscience surely is very fringe? I would say there is a strong support for science in society and a weak support for anti-science.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:05, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Note the split between the first section (article) and second (essay). Though I would like to have a well-referenced essay, it's unlikely (and to a certain extent unnecessary). A well-referenced article would of course be a necessity.

The US is one of the nations reknowned for both its high level of scientific research and development, and a strong reaction against that - Creationism, AIDS denialsm and vaccine controversy for example. Certainly you can find these things in Canada, Australia and the UK as well (just picking on them because of the common language and culture), but the public debate is less visible on a national and international stage. Anyway, feel free to be bold and change it - if you've got references, even better! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh I did not know AIDS denialism was common in the USA, I am in the UK. I had never heard of it before until I read about it on the internet. Vaccine controversy was and to a certain extent is still controversial even on the national level in the UK, especially MMR jab, well maybe not so much now as more research was done which found no link to autism. I should point out, I have no strong POV on these issues such as alternative healthcare stuff except I think they do not work, except I am uneasy with GMO food technology mainly because you cannot recall a product like you can with a drugs if it is in the wild if "problems" are found. I shall see what I can do over the next couple of days to tweak article.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Rename WP:QUACKERY?

WP:QUACK is taken but WP:QUACKERY is not - LiteratureGeek made an excellent point here - the page could be much broader, but still encompass pharmanoia as a specific section. It's already been drifting that way, so... WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I think quackery is a good choice if the essay reaches the stage of a guideline.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The quackery article has existed for a long time, and while this is often intricately used as a fear mongering tool by quacks to gain customers, it isn't identical or synonymous with quackery. It is a well-known form of fear mongering used by alternative medicine practitioners, their spin doctors, supplement manufacturers, and their customers/disciples/marks. If this ends up as only a few paragraphs, it would make a nice section in the fear mongering article. What I'm basically saying is that this deserves to be an article, not just an essay. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

More thoughts

The millions of people working for Big Pharma companies are normal humans that would like everyone to be healthy. Furthermore, producing a wonder cure for a disease usually increases profits dramatically, and makes the individuals involved famous. Given a choice between being healthy, wealthy, and famous, or being dead, pharmaceutical employees are likely to choose health, wealth and fame over death.

True statement but most of those millions are just your average lab technician, drug rep etc and don't make policy decisions so it is not in context. Money can be made from marketing drugs where the risks outweigh the benefits if marketing can make doctors and patients think differently.

Yes overall drug companies make a very important and benefitial contribution to society but there is a dark side to, do we really need to sing praises of the pharmaceutical companies in order to expose quackery and POV pushing on wikipedia? Is it not better rather than trying to convince the reader of the righteuousness of pharm companies rather focus on how most research into alternative healthcare is not funded by pharm companies (independent science) which finds them no more effective that placebo or even sometimes harmful. The reader that the essay is aimed at is going to give much much more credability to statements of non-industry funded studies finding quack treatments no better than placebo, and it will back your position up a lot better as it actually largely debunks the theory that chiropractitioners and homeopaths are persecuted by big pharm when in reality it is just scientific facts which show no effectiveness for their practices.

Point is should this article be pharm companies versus quackery or science versus quackery?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:59, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Bingo! -- Brangifer (talk) 02:26, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's hard to exaggerate how bad the pharmaceutical industry is or has been, and people who have read some of the books on the topic (for example The Truth About the Drug Companies, Overdosed America) probably don't use the word "pharmanoia". It's ironic that Goldacre's Bad Science book (which I haven't read, although I've read the two mentioned above) is listed as further reading, but in an interview he said that "One of the central themes in my book is that there are no real differences between the $600 billion pharmaceutical industry and the $50 billion food supplement pill industry" (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2413704.htm link] (click show transcript). I imagine that if Wikipedia editors were being paid off by the pharmaceutical industry (likely a very good investment), they would be a little more careful about showing off that bias, so that makes me feel a bit better, but it doesn't help the credibility of the WP:MED group to show so much sympathy to those poor persecuted pharmaceutical companies - both in terms of an apparent conflict of interest and knowledge of the topic. II | (t - c) 01:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)