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Revision as of 02:52, 19 April 2015 editSlimVirgin (talk | contribs)172,064 edits →Question about Rosiglitazone (Avandia) section← Previous edit Revision as of 02:55, 19 April 2015 edit undoRenamed user 51g7z61hz5af2azs6k6 (talk | contribs)6,460 edits →Question about Rosiglitazone (Avandia) sectionNext edit →
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::::I didn't say it was relevant to questioning anything. I said we should add the funding because the NYT discusses it. ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 02:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC) ::::I didn't say it was relevant to questioning anything. I said we should add the funding because the NYT discusses it. ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 02:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

::::::::Slim, we have very different world views, but I am sure we can work together here to make the article as good as it can be.

:::::::::Why would we add the information that the trial was GSK funded except to raise questions about the reliability of its conclusions. Wouldn't that be second guessing the MEDRS compliant sources that took the fact that the trial was GSK funded in forming their conclusions? ] <sup>]|]|]</sup> 02:55, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

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Revenue

There seems to be a typo on the Revenue which states Revenue: £21,660 (2005) Which should be Revenue: £21.66 billion (2005)

nishv: 12 Sept 2006

Related news

In November 2005, Singapore licensed a new vaccine, called Rotarix, developed by drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to protect infants against rotavirus gastroenteritis.

Donations to SPN

The donations from GSK to the State Policy Network are notable for an article about SPN, but are not notable to GSK. The annual budget of SPN is about $8M. If we assume that GSK funded fully 10% of SPN's operating budget, this comes to $800K from a company with a charitable contribution budget that runs over $350M per year. Its difficult to see how this particular 0.2% of GSK's charitable giving deserves to be highlighted this way other than to WP:SOAPBOX. In contrast, the other programs discussed in this section run into the tens of millions of dollars annually. Formerly 98 11:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The grant is highly noteworthy because it is referenced in a highly noteworthy and highly reliable, verifiable source, The Guardian. Inclusion of this grant is entirely appropriate under WP:DUE. Arguments against inclusion based on the % of the grantee's or grantor's total activity have no basis in policy or guideline. We are not required to find all grantees, and rank order them in descending order of dollar amount, and include only the top ones. Coverage in WP is proportional to coverage in reliable sources. Excluding this grant from this article would only be proportional to reliable sources if this grant were not in reliable sources. Excluding this grant is non-neutral WP:NPOV. Hugh (talk) 15:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
"Coverage in WP is proportional to coverage in reliable sources. Excluding this grant from this article would only be proportional to reliable sources if this grant were not in reliable sources."
Your first sentence is true but the second one does not follow. The NYTimes has contained over 500 articles about GSK since 2002. Fewer than 5% of these are discussed in this article. The sheer volume of article that exist about a company the size of GSK is such that many stories for which one can find evidence of news coverage will still not have sufficient weight to belong here.
The small contribution made by GSK to SPN does not seem to have ever been mentioned in any of the following sources:
  • The NYTimes
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • The Washington Post
  • Time Magazine
  • Newsweek
and those are just the first 5 than I searched. The sources you have found are articles about the State Policy Network and not about GSK. The donation is material and due weight to the SPN article, but not to this one given that GSK is many thousands of times larger than SPN.
The other activities in this section have been discussed in not just in a single major news outlet, but in virtually all of them. For example, Glaxo's malaria vaccine has been discussed in every one of the sources above (in addition to the Guardian), as has the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis and the distribution of drugs at reduced prices in developing countries.
WP:CONSENSUS states that
"In discussions of proposals to add, modify or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit."
Please don't edit war. You are welcome to hold an RFC if you like to try to gain support for this addition. But a one to one disagreement on the appropriateness of this addition does not represent consensus to add. Formerly 98 18:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


These are still all minor sources or articles about SPN and not about GSK. Please stop edit warring, you don't have consensus for this addition. Formerly 98 18:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones all agree this content is noteworthy. I'm sorry you do not. Most of the content in this article has less weight in reliable sources. Most of the content in this article is not from the five sources you mention for some reason. Excluding or including certain donors because of perceived positive or negative connotations is non-neutral. Sources for a WP article are not required to be primarily about the subject of the WP article. Much of the content in this article is from sources of which GSK is not the main subject. Hugh (talk) 19:08, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
A WP on article on the subject of this article that characterizes the philanthropy of the subject of this article as exclusively "Developing world access to medicines" is an indefensible gross misrepresentation of reliable sources. Hugh (talk) 19:18, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I added detail about what the donations actually were, and what they were for, as far as I could find that. Perhaps this will help resolve the question of whether this is UNDUE more concretely. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Formerly 98 i think you pulled the trigger a bit too fast on the RfC - do you mind pulling it while others weigh in here? thx Jytdog (talk) 21:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


Done. My point here is that if Bill Gates comes to my home, it is a notable event in my life but not in Bill's. You can't use articles written about SPN to establish weight in an article about GSK. There are only a few dozen articles in major media about SPN. There are thousannds about GSK, and this one is only on the list of top 500 GSK stories if you happen to be obsessed with SPN. It is certainly not one of the top 500 by prominence in RS.
Including a $20k donation to the Heartland Institute is a similarly pointy detail. GSK has a scholarship progrsm that gives larger amounts than this to individual students. Its not material to a $35B company.
As for Hughs assertion that "GSK is not the main topic of most of the sources cited in this article", this is readily refuted by a glance at the reference section. Most of the sources have GSK in the title. Formerly 98 21:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
hugh, i am willing to compromise on keeping this if that is where consensus takes us, but this was not a good edit. We have the detail, well sourced, and there is no reason not to use it if we keep this. Jytdog (talk) 22:15, 2 April 2015 (UTC) (add note about consensus and a conditional Jytdog (talk) 22:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC))
Good morning. "We have the detail, well sourced, and there is no reason not to use it" Is that your experience with that source? I agree it is juicy, chuck full of fascinating well-referenced, accurate facts and figures. You would think it would be used all over! Are you aware of one article where it was used and stuck? Thanks in advance for your reply. Hugh (talk) 16:09, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

== RFC - Donations to State Policy Network - Is including this WP:UNDUE? ==


Hugh and I have a disagreement about whether contributions to this organization should be included in the article. The discussion of the issues can be found above.

I really just can't see that this information is important enough to note in this article. I'm not going to get into a long-winded argument about it. Many large corporations donate to conservative think tanks, but it's not worth a mention at all of their articles, IMO. Gandydancer (talk) 22:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
If you were notable enough to have your own WP page (I dunno maybe you are), and Bill Gates stopped by, and it was written up in The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones, I would include the event in both your articles. Hugh (talk) 05:20, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
HughD please self revert this, or I will bring you to 3RR. You are arguing against 3 editors here. Jytdog (talk) 11:06, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. The edit you diff is changing a subsection title from "Lobbying and political activities" to "Other philanthropic, lobbying and political activities," a short subsection including grants in Europe and the US. I am not so familiar with Europe, but here in the US the grantees mentioned are technically public charities performing social welfare missions by educating the public, and largely prohibited from political activity. So when we include these grant activities in a subsection entitled "Lobbying and political activities" it is actually a mild form of accusing the subject of an article of an illegal activity. We have no evidence of illegal activity. In fact, the section admits a quote attributed to the subject of the article that the activities were a health care initiative which if memory serves you added. Now maybe you & I & most clear-thinking persons know it is political activity but friend someone IS going to come up behind us and notice this and delete the whole section, is my experience, what's yours? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 16:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

− This is a joke. This editor has a a problem with rightiwing think tanks, who doesn't ? But you don't disrupt other articles to make a point. This is undue (Hugh can look it up) and a Coatrack. Sorry 140.239.47.1 (talk) 16:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Coatrack? Is it your perception that the largess of the the subject of this article toward the Heartland Institute and the State Policy Network, the mere mention, reflects poorly on the the subject of this article? Is there something wrong or negative about the subject of this article granting funds to the Heartland Institute and the State Policy Network? In my perception the content is neutral. What do you think? Hugh (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Too big for detail? The subject of this article is SO big, and SO much as been written about it, that detail becomes irrelevant? Seems like that line of reasoning could apply to any editor trying to add anything to this article about anything in any level of detail more detailed than is already there, regardless of reliable sources. Hugh (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC) (edit conflict)
(edit conflict)the section header is not such a big deal to me. what is bugging me is your (Hugh's) dragging whatever ax you have to grind about these two organizations, into an article about another one. GSK's donations to Heritage are for the newsletter - that is what the fund-raising document itself says with HCN code, and what other sources say the code means, and what GSK itself said. your putting quotes around that was tendentious. We don't know what the donations to the conservative network are for, but the amounts are a drop in the bucket. and larding content about those organizations, with the scare-headlines sourcing, into an article about this organization, is just more ax-grinding. Just stop. you have no consensus for the edits you want. (btw, some IP address has deleted the content. Could be you, could be anybody. wasn't me. Please don't add it back until we have consensus for the exact language. I really mean it on the edit-warring thing. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 16:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, I did not address the quotes. Yes, I put quotes around "healthcare initiative," a quote attributed in text to the subject of this article. I was not being clever, cute, or ironic. It is a phrase direct from a source. The quotes are not such a big deal to me. What is a big deal to me is finding a few sentences that reasonably summarize reliable sources and has a shot at not being reverted so our encyclopedia presents a balanced view of the subject of this article's philanthropy, lobbying, and political activity. When I came here it was all about bringing drugs to the world. Will you help? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
"When I came here it was all about bringing drugs to the world." I think that if you Google GSK, you will generally find it described as a Pharmaceutical Company. So yes, the article should be overwhelming about the drug business. That would be due weight.
I will reiterate that I don't think it is appropriate to use articles that are primarily about a different subject that mention GSK in passing to establish due weight/notability for the purposes of this article. There are literally scores of GSK donations and non- or minimal profit internal research activities directed toward world health issues that have received greater press coverage than the ones Hugh is attempting to edit war into this article.
I could go on, but all of these are the subject of articles written by third party sources and all are articles written ABOUT GSK. In order for a $20K donation mentioned only in articles about the recipient to fit into this article with Due Weight, we'd have to include all of the above and many many more donations of equal notablity. At that point we'd have to rename Misplaced Pages "GSKs donations and other miscellany."
Hugh, your edits are opposed by four other editors. It is really time to stop Formerly 98 17:28, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
We agree the philanthropic activities of the subject of this article are under represented with respect to reliable sources. May I respectfully suggest I think you may be focussing too much on the dollar amount at the exclusion of the criteria in our policy, which is proportionality to reliable sources. And may I observe from your reply that it appears to me you are agreeing that yes, you DO think so much has been written about the subject of this article that no additional detail of any kind is warranted. In my travels in WP I have seen a similar line of reasoning, it goes like this: run the article up to 110% of page size guidelines, fork out some subtopics, run it up again - then if anyone tries to contribute, ask them what they want to take out. Have you considered that approach here? May I respectfully make a suggestion, please spend a few minutes with the sources, The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones (magazine), currently available only in history, and propose an alternative summarization? I mean other than nothing of course. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
no one is buying your arguments here. reviewed your edits. you have thing about these two organizations. i was willing to try to compromise with you and include something short, but you blew my sympathy. Listen - no one is denying that RS mention these donations. but that is not What It Is All About. There is all WP:WEIGHT and four editors are here telling you that this deserves none. (like i said, i would have been willing to support some small mention, but you blew that) Please stop beating the horse. I will not be responding further to your repeating the same argument. Jytdog (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Hugh, I"m not saying it should be expanded. I'm providing these examples to show how the charitable contribution section would explode and overwhelm the article if we included everything with the same level of notablity as your SPN and Heartland Foundation additions. We can't cover EVERYTHING in an encyclopedia article, and in the case of a multibillion dollar corporation, we can't even include every news story that was notable to get near universal coverage across all major media outlets. So including information that was 1) covered only in a handful of major sources, and 2) that was a minor part of a story about another entity pretty much defines WP:UNDUE in such a situation. But I think we are already deep in WP:IDHT territory here, so I'm not clear what good further explanations will accomplish.Formerly 98 19:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
"I'm providing these examples to show how the charitable contribution section would explode and overwhelm the article..." Don't be afraid! The Wikimedia Foundation will help us. They will get us whatever resources we need, disk space, memory, computer power, to accommodate us. Our job is to fairly summarize reliable sources. We have procedures for splitting. Maybe someday "Charitable activities of GlaxoSmithKline" will have its own article, summarized here. Wouldn't that be grand? I'm very sure nothing will explode. This is not the end of the world. It's an article growing. Let's work together. Hugh (talk) 15:27, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Here's where we're at:

  • Document statistics: (See here for details.)
  • Prose size (including all HTML code): 40 kB
  • References (including all HTML code): 6052 B
  • Wiki text: 54 kB
  • Prose size (text only): 24 kB (3727 words) "readable prose size"
  • References (text only): 385 B

I think we have room for a little more detail. Don't you agree? What is your opinion of the coverage of the philanthropic and other grant-making activities of the subject of this article, with respect to what you know of reliable sources? Over-represented, under, just right? So much has been written about the subject of this article, would you support deleting all content which is not in consensus in at least 5 reliable source references? May I ask, is it the level of detail as you say that is your issue, or the specific content? May I respectfully ask, would you support adding any other grantee, or is it just the Heartland Institute and the State Policy Network you object to? How did the writers at the The Guardian, New Yorker (magazine), the Nonprofit Quarterly, and Mother Jones (magazine), get this grantee passed their editors? Didn't those editors understand how insignificant the grants were in relation to all the fine work the subject of this article is doing? Hugh (talk) 21:09, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

No one agrees with you. Drop it. 140.239.47.1 (talk) 00:40, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes you see a green star up top and you know you're looking at a good article. Other times, you try to contribute, and someone steps up and explains to you the article is perfect, just the way it is. 01:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Neutrality of grant-making

Multiple highly noteworthy, neutral, reliable sources document the subject of this article's grantmaking to grass-roots lobbying efforts in the form of donations to public charities involved in public education. The article presents a philanthropic portrait that is exclusively concerned with access to drugs. The article is non-neutral with respect to reliable sources. Hugh (talk) 14:33, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

You have raised this subject previously and your addition of this material has not gained consensus, being opposed by four other editors. It is not appropriate to use the POV template as a "badge of shame" or to tendentiously argue a position that has been resoundindly rejected by other editors.
This moving rapidly into edit warring behavior. I urge you to self revert and abide by consensus. Formerly 98 14:36, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
agree with Formerly. Tags are not to be used in a POINTy way with regard to content that there is no consensus to add. Jytdog (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Multiple highly noteworthy, neutral, highly reliable sources ignored in this article, in non-neutral fashion:

  • Mayer, Jane (November 14, 2013). "Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 2, 2015. In addition, according to the Center for Media and Democracy study, corporate donors to the S.P.N. have included many of America's largest companies, such as Facebook, Microsoft, A.T. & T., Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Philip Morris and Altria Client Services (both subsidiaries of Altria), GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft, and funds from various entities linked to the fossil-fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch.
  • Gillis, Justin; Kaufman, Leslie (February 16, 2012). "Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science". New York Times. Retrieved April 2, 2015. "We absolutely do not endorse or support their views on the environment or climate change," said Sarah Alspach, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, a multinational drug company shown in the documents as contributing $50,000 in the past two years to support a medical newsletter.
  • Loftus, Peter (December 23, 2008). "Glaxo Plans to End Political Donations". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 6, 2015. pharmaceutical industry workers and their PACs have been big contributors to U.S. congressional and presidential candidates...Glaxo employees and affiliated PACs gave $1.1 million in the 2008 election cycle, ranking third behind Pfizer Inc. and Amgen Inc.


This has already been discussed and we are definitely deep in WP:IDHT territory. As has been repeated many, many times before, these are all articles about SPN, not GSK. When Bill Gates schedules a business meeting at one of Stone Brewing Co.'s microbreweries, it will be notable for Stone Brewery Co. and will be written up in San Diego papers as an article about Stone Brewery. It will not show up in national media articles as an article about Bill Gates, and adding it to the Bill Gates article would not be due weight. That's it, I will not continue to repeat myself, you are not bringing any new arguments to the table. Formerly 98 15:34, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
So. Formerly. I have of late been encourage to engage on the talk page. I was glad you withdrew your RfC at the time, thinking there was nothing here we could not work out on the talk page, but now I regret it. There was wisdom in that RfC. I hope you have some time. I have some questions. I hope you will respond. Are you the owner of this article? Is it a good article? Have you considered a GA nomination? Do you believe the article fairly summarizes reliable sources? Is your understanding of WP:DUE infallible, or is it possible you may have something to learn about WP:DUE, perhaps even from one such as me? You keep bring up Gates, maybe there is an analogy, I will honor you and go with it. Stipulate, Gates does a bunch of good in the world. Let's say for the sake of argument he gave $40b to his charity in one swell foop. In so doing has he immunized himself from scrutiny for million dollar grants? Now suppose he gave $100 to ISIS, factually incontrovertible, and it was covered in Mother Jones, would you say it passes WP:DUE? What if it were covered in the NYT and WaPo? See where I am going? The dollar amount literally does not matter. Coverage in reliable sources matters. We as WP editors are asked make judgements, and form consensus on those judgements, all over, all the time, but this is not one of those times. WP:DUE is clear, unambiguous, quantitative, and objective. Thank you in advance for your time and commitment to building consensus. Hugh (talk) 15:40, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
HughD you are not trying to reach consensus here, you are beating a dead horse, not just to death, but to a pulp. Jytdog (talk) 16:16, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment. Please I would like to hear from my colleague @Formerly 98:. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
Hugh you are repeating your self. Please stop beating the horse. not responding further. Jytdog (talk) 15:38, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

re-arrangement

hughD did a big re-arrangement this morning in this set of diffs, under the rationale of WP:CRITS. I am generally a big fan of that and was curious to see how it worked out, and waited til this evening to look in.

this big re-arrangement was not effective. we still end up with out-of-chronological order subsections on larger issues like SB Pharmco Puerto Rico. so i reverted. happy to discuss.Jytdog (talk) 23:05, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

did you try fixing? are you familiar with WP:ROWN? Hugh (talk)
and am taking you to 3RR in 15 minutes unless you self revert. am teeing up diffs now. Jytdog (talk) 23:15, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Please, may I ask, I would like to know what WP:ROWN means to you, in your own words, briefly. Thank you in advance for your reply. Hugh (talk) 15:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
sure i will answer if you will tell me in what your own words what WP:Civil POV pushing and WP:Edit warring are.Jytdog (talk) 16:15, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
The reason I asked after WP:ROWN is that above, you mentioned that the attempted resolution of the WP:CRITS left a few sentences out of chronological order, yet you reverted, with no attempt to fix the issue. Your revert re-instated the WP:CRITS noncompliance. It seemed to me that with just a little more effort someone might have fixed the chronology and resolved the WP:CRITS issue. So I raised WP:ROWN. I meant no disrespect. It was a sincere question with context. I know different editors have different values. We have not collaborated before to my knowledge. Please I would like to know your thoughts. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
  • HughD you were blocked for edit warring once already. You came back and are doing the exact same edits which still have no consensus. Are we going to have to back to 3RR? Jytdog (talk) 20:42, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Jytdog, I'd appreciate it if you would stop reverting. There has been some deterioration (e.g. a return to one-sentence paragraphs) that I would like to fix, and whole sections removed. I'd appreciate time to restore some of it (some, but not all), and do a brief copy edit. Sarah (SV) 20:56, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
SlimVirgin Do you realize that there are now 2 sections discussing Ribena? Jytdog (talk) 21:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Ribena

SlimVirgin raised a question about this dif where Formerly 98 removed content about Ribena. Edit note was: "Ribena" - 7 year old incident involving a $217K fine on a $130B company isn't material, and certainly doesn't merit a Level 2 heading, 10 lines of text, and a supporting illustration". In my view that was a reasonable WP:UNDUE argument - not a thing to do with MEDRS. Issues of WEIGHT are always debatable and key information (like the status of a brand in markets where you don't live) can effect decisions about weight. Reasonable people, acting in good faith, can differ on questions of WEIGHT. Nobody objected on Talk to that. SlimVirgin has now.

This prompted me to go read about Ribena and it turns out we have an article on Ribena and if you read it (and i'll note that i just worked it over as it was full of unsourced content; version prior to my edits is here), it becomes pretty clear that the brand is a big deal in commonwealth countries, which is context i didn't have - i had never heard of Ribena. So now i have learned that the original Ribena ( blackcurrant syrup) is rich in Vitamin C, and was given out by the UK government in WWII to kids to help prevent scurvy, which gave the brand a "healthy" aura, that they played on over the years, even as they developed all kinds of soft drinks under the brand, and one of them in Aus/NZ, "ready to drink ribena" , was diluted so much that it had no vitamin C. here is an analysis of what happened and GSK's reactions, most of which were bad. sugary drinks were developed as well, that also have been problematic.

Given the status of the brand, i restored that content and copyedited it, in WP:SUMMARY style based on the lead of Ribena article, which I just worked over, and keeping mind of WEIGHT in the GSK article.

Subsquentlly, SV added a 2nd section on Ribena restored from the deleted content, which I reverted, since there was already content in the article on Ribena and this created 2 sections on it. SC reverted without acknowledging that she had created duplicate content. I took out the duplicate content. That is where we stand now. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

You removed the section I had added, and you've violated 3RR. The problem with the constant reverting is that it becomes impossible to fix mistakes. I would have removed the duplicate section myself. I'd appreciate it if you would restore the updated section, and move it higher, so that it's not after "other," which looks odd. Sarah (SV) 21:37, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
i self-reverted and I removed the updated content. do what you want with it. i am stepping away from this article for a while - i am not tangling with you on this. Jytdog (talk) 21:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)


I guess I have no real objection to re-adding this content. I had no idea it was such a major brand. I do feel that, like many of Misplaced Pages's pharmaceutical industry articles, this one has the shortcoming that the only products discussed in detail are ones that have been associated with scandal. Do none of the products below deserve the same number of inches of text as Ribena?

  • Augmentin, which combines the world's first beta lactamase inhibitor with one of the world's first penicillins with activity against Gram-(-) pathogens? Its combination of broad spectrum activity and exceptional safety have made it the most widely used antibiotic in the world
  • The world's first malaria vaccine?
  • Imitrex, which established 5-HT1 agonists as the new standard of care in migraine?
  • Tagamet, which ended the era of surgical treatment of gastric ulcer?
  • AZT, the first approved drug for HIV?
  • Ceftazidime, one of the mainstays of treatment in hosptial acquired pneumonia and other serious Gram-(-) infections?
  • Albendazole, an antiparasitic drug that is first line for the treatment of lymphatic filiarisis? GSK has committed to donating sufficient amounts of this drug to elimiate lymphatic filiarsis by 2020.

The problem here is probably better seen not as a problem of excessive inclusion, but one of neglect. The article is not unbalanced because GSK's sins are described in detail, but because its accomplishments are casually passed over and individual products are discussed in detail only if they are associated with scandal. I will look into fixing this in coming weeks. Formerly 98 23:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Malaria vaccine in lead

I think the malaria vaccine very clearly belongs in the lead. It is hard for me to understand how the rosiglitazone fine remained in the edited lead but the malaria vaccine and the committment to provide it at 5% above cost was removed.

  • Half a million children die of malaria each year, and the vaccine has the potential to reduce this by a third or more.
  • It is an extraoridinary technological achievement that has been the subject of unsuccessful prior research efforts going back to at least 1925
  • It has been extremely well covered in reliable sources, including
  • Reuters
  • Fortune
  • WSJ
  • The Telegraph
  • The BBC
  • Bloomberg
  • The Times
  • the NYTimes
  • The NEJM
  • Nature Medicine
  • PLoS
  • Scienbtific American
  • Forbes
  • NPR
  • The Guardian
  • The Economist
  • The Washington Post
  • The Houston Chronicle
  • The SF Chronicile
  • Newsweek
  • CBS
  • NBC
  • CNN

I think this development is at least as important as other items that were kept in the lead, and I was frankly surprised by this choice. Formerly 98 01:30, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Question about Rosiglitazone (Avandia) section

Formerly98 added this to the section about Avandia:

In 2013 the FDA held a joint meeting of the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee to discuss the results of RECORD, an open label, randomized trial comparing rosiglitazone to the combination of a sulfonylurea with metformin. In contrast to the mostly short term trials included in the Nissen meta analysis, RECORD was specifically designed specifically to examine cardiovascular safety in a trial of 14,000 people observed over 3 years or more. An independent analysis of the data from this trial conducted at the Duke Clinical Research Institute found a non-statistically significant reduction in all-cause mortality, for rosiglitazone compared to the combination of metformin with a sulfonylurea (hazard ratio 0.86) and a non-statistically significant increase in the risk of myocardial infarction (hazard ratio 1.15)

The reliability of the conclusions of the RECORD trial has been criticized based on its open label design and the low rate of cardiovascular events observed, which limits its statistical power.

In November 2013, the US FDA lifted restrictions on the sale of Avandia, stating that the results of the RECORD trial had failed to confirm Nissen's analysis.

  1. "www.fda.gov" (PDF).
  2. Nissen SE, Wolski K (2010). "Rosiglitazone revisited: an updated meta-analysis of risk for myocardial infarction and cardiovascular mortality". Arch. Intern. Med. 170 (14): 1191–1201. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2010.207. PMID 20656674. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  3. "F.D.A. Lifts Some Restrictions on Avandia - NYTimes.com".

Should we add that the RECORD trial was funded by GlaxoSmithKline? Formerly argued recently that "multiple studies have shown that conclusions are strongly affected by the source of funding," and it seems to me good practice to add that as a matter of routine when it might be relevant. Formerly added it here when a patient group partly funded some research. The NYT mentions the GSK funding of the RECORD research. Sarah (SV) 02:08, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Slim,
I think that the key here is to work with secondary sources. We then let the secondary source interpret the data and trust them to take into account the source of funding while interpreting the primary data.
In the case of the Finasteride meta analysis that I suggested that the funding source should be mentioned, we were directly citing a study funded by a COI organization. In the case of rosigilitazone, we are quoting an FDA advisory committee briefing that evaluated the RECORD trial and which explicitly took the fact that RECORD was GSK funded into account. It is appropriate for us to take the funding of a secondary study into account (as we do at the Atrazine article) but it is not appropriate for us to question a secondary source's assessment that a trial supports a certain conclusion in spite of its funding source.
You have removed the statement that "Studies of the cardioivascular safety of rosiglitazone have yielded inconsistent results" which was properly sourced and which is supported by the FDA's decision to return the drug to full marketing approval without labeling restrictions. Could you provide some additional explanation for why you made this edit? Thanks. Formerly 98 02:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
You wrote that: "multiple studies have shown that conclusions are strongly affected by the source of funding." That obviously has to apply across the board. We have a secondary source, as I said above (NYT):
"Some researchers had criticized the original trial as flawed and argued that re-evaluating an old trial amounted to relitigating a case that had already been closed. Others questioned its independence, as Glaxo paid for it."
That was the first I knew that the trial was an old one paid for by GSK. I didn't get that information from this article.
As for the sentence you added at the top of the section, I couldn't see what it added, especially not in that position. Sarah (SV) 02:46, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
The NYTimes source is not relevant to the issue of interpreting the RECORD results, as it is not WP:MEDRS compliant. I have noted your support of MEDRS in the recent "COI duck" debate, and have appreciated your recognition of MEDRS' importance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Formerly 98 (talk • contribs)
I didn't say it was relevant to questioning anything. I said we should add the funding because the NYT discusses it. Sarah (SV) 02:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Slim, we have very different world views, but I am sure we can work together here to make the article as good as it can be.
Why would we add the information that the trial was GSK funded except to raise questions about the reliability of its conclusions. Wouldn't that be second guessing the MEDRS compliant sources that took the fact that the trial was GSK funded in forming their conclusions? Formerly 98 02:55, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
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