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Better Citations
I suggest improving the citations for the initial, strong statements of public and scientific consensus. For example, the sentence "Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes disease, disability, and death," should be citing scientific journals. Currently it entirely cites memos from national governments and international organizations rather than scientific sources. That is good evidence of why governments are acting how they're acting on this issue; it is not good scientific proof. More direct primary scientific citations would greatly improve this article. 76.164.224.149 (talk) 17:29, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Pleading for the law of parsimony
Jmh649 introduced a reference after "Currently, the health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus" in the summary to an article by Tong and Glantz, saying in his comment: "added more refs that are not really needed" (see ). I reverted this reference, with a comment explaining why. User Jmh649 reverted my edit without explanation. I gave an elaborate explanation of why I had removed the reference on his Talk page and removed the reference again (see ). This is the explanation I gave:
I removed reference to (Tong and Glantz paper) after "Currently, the health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus." since this reference is far from being the most appropriate to support the statement (compared to Kessler's findings, which have pages detailing the extent of the consensus). However, I did not delete Ref. , as it is very appropriate after "the tobacco industry coordinated a scientific controversy with the aim of forestalling regulation of their products", since it indeeds provides evidence of such activity by the tobacco industry. I provided an explanation of my change. Deleting it without explanation is not a good practice on Misplaced Pages, and can be assimilated to vandalism. I contend that the article by Tong and Glantz is inappropriate as a reference to support the statement about the general scientific consensus, as, firstly, it provides no additional information beyond what is in Kessler's document, secondly, it deals exclusively, with little elaboration, with the consensus that passive smoking increases on particular type of diseases (CVDs), not the general scientific consensus about the "health risks of secondhand smoke", and thirdly, such specific consensus about CVDs is already acknowledged in prior and more authoritative documents, such as the 2006 Surgeon General Report. If a second reference was needed, then the FCTC (ref. ) would be more pertinent than ref. ). I will make another attempt along this line, hoping that you will not revert my change without at least discussing it on the Talk page.
Jmh649 replied peremptorily that the reference is "definetely appropriate" without addressing my argument, and reverted my edit a second time. To please his requirement for a second reference, I found one that would do the job much better than the Tong and Glantz paper, and provided Jmh649 with the following explanation on his Talk page ((see )):
This reference is neither appropriate nor necessary for the reason I indicated in my comment above, which you did not address. The paper by Tong and Glantz superficially mentions the consensus with respect to one condition, CVD, without further elaboration. If one were to include all papers that make reference to the scientific consensus on some specific condition, the list of references would be long. The other references (Kessler and FCTC) refer to the general consensus and, in the case of Kessler's report, it details the arguments supporting the conclusion that there is a general scientific ocnsensus. The paper by Tong and Glantz relates to a different subject, the tobacco industry efforts to undermine evidence. Kessler's findings, the SG report and the text of the WHO FCTC are all freely available on the Internet - and I don't know which Misplaced Pages rule indicates that freely accessible sources are superior to those which aren't. I found a peer reviewed article by a well respected expert on the subject who provides good evidence and arguments establishing that there is a scientific consensus, which I will use instead of the paper by Tong and Glantz. Comparing the two papers, you will see what I mean by providing proper evidence and arguments supporting the assertion that the health effects of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus. The paper by Samet meets such requirement, while the paper by Ong and Glantz doesn't - when you added it as reference, you actually indicated the it was "not really needed". Interestingly, the Ong and Glantz paper is not even cited in the Samet paper, which is rather comprehensive. Finally, the Samet paper is freely accessible on the Internet. I hope this time you will not revert my update without an explicit justification and a proper discussion in the Talk page of the article and refrain from starting an edit war.
Jmh649 has ignored my explanation and has reintroduced the Tong and Glantz reference without any discussion. I still contend that this reference is not really appropriate as source of the statement on general scientific consensus, it is also redundant, as a much better one is now provided, and, as Jmh649 remarked when he introduced it, it's "not really needed". I am a proponent of the law of parsimony and think that things that are not really needed should not be included. The specific issue at stake here is a minor point. The principle on which it is based has huge repercussions. Dessources (talk) 08:59, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
- The ref I have added is 1) to a review article 2) is from the highly respect medical journal circulation 3) is freely accessible thus I would say it is relevant. I do not see any justification in your statement above for its removal. My reply justified its replacement Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:01, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
- User Jmh649 reverted 4 times my edit - this is a case of edit warring which I feel obliged to report, as violation of the 3RR rule. Jmh649 has systemtically ignored my explanations and has bounced back with the same peremptory arguments: "it's a review paper" (yes, but on a different subject), "it freely accessible" (so what? - no Misplaced Pages rule says that freely accessible articles are more authoritative), "it's relevant" (well, it's only marginally relevant, together with thousand other references of similarly low relevance with respect to the issue under consideration and that could be equally used - this is why, even Jmh649 himself added this reference with the apologetic comment that it was "not really needed" - see ). Finally, Jmh649's reply at did not justify its replacement. Surely, the Tong and Glantz paper supports the legal findings in the sense that it provides evidence of the misconduct of the tobacco industry - this is why I have not removed the reference after the sentence "the tobacco industry coordinated a scientific controversy with the aim of forestalling regulation of their products" - since this coordinated scientific controversy is the subject being excellently reviewed by Tong and Glantz. I feel that my removing the reference where it was not needed and leaving it where it is relevant is both appropriate and contributes (admittedly, in a very small way) to improving the article. One should apply the principle of parsimony (Occam's razor) in the choice of references, when there is a vast choice. Finally, it's not a very constructive practice on the part of some editors to instantaneously delete contributions made by others without allowing some time for reflection and discussion. Being a stakhanovist of editing is not an excuse for such dissuasive practice, which, in the end, is more harmful than beneficial to the development of Misplaced Pages, as it tends to reduce the diversity and universality of its pool of editors.
- Dessources (talk) 14:24, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
This references is directly significant to the point at hand. You have replaced it with a non review published in Spanish. I have know idea why and do not understand your explanation. Asking for further input Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
- Jmh649, please, would it be too much to ask that you take at least two minutes to give minimal consideration to my explanation and the reference I proposed, before jumping to conclusions. I'm sorry to say, but, reading your comment above, I get the feeling that you have deduced that, because the Samet paper was published in Salud Pública de México, a Mexican scientific journal devoted to public health, it had to be in Spanish and, furthermore, it cannot be a review paper, and has to be, therefore, inferior to the Tong and Glantz review published in English in a US journal (Circulation). Had you simply clicked on the link which is provided in the citation, which gives free acces to the full text of the article (you can also get a PDF copy), you would have immediately seen that it is actually written in English (surprise, surprise...), that the paper was submitted on December 7, 2007 and accepted only seven months later, on July 2, 2008, because it was peer reviewed, as this is the policy of the journal (see ). Its author, prof. Jonathan Samet, is one of the most eminent and qualified experts in the field. He is chairing the Departmnent of Epidemiology at the The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the same institution. Furthemore, prof. Samet was the senior scientific editor of the 2006 Surgeon General Report on the health Effects of Seconhand Smoke, and was awarded the Surgeon General’s Medallion, the highest honor bestowed by the Surgeon General, for his contribution (see ). If this is not enough for you, let me add that Jonathan Samet acted as one of the key expert witnesses in the USA vs. Philip Morris and al. trial, his name being mentioned over 60 times in Kessler's document (Elisa Tong's name is not mentioned, while Glantz's name appears only once) - this provides the best possible link to what you call the "legal document". Finally, if you take two more minutes to look at his paper, you will see that he devotes a great part of it reviewing the state of knowledge on the health effects (plural) of exposure to SHS, leading to the conclusion that there is indeed an overwhelming scientific consensus on this subject. He provides a nice a clear summary of this review in his Table 1. Actually, the Samet reference is so good as a secondary source, including for Kessler's finding, that it renders superfluous any other reference to support the point where it is used. If one uses this paper to set the standard, one really sees that the Tong and Glantz paper is not only "not really needed" as a reference, it is simply inadequate. I hope this provides the clarification you needed.
- Dessources (talk) 16:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- The impact factor of the journal does not ensure the relevance of the cited article. Your comment is therefore misses completely the point.If the current impasse continues, I will feel obliged to refer the matter to arbitration.
- 86.197.234.90 (talk) 18:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Please stop. I count 14 changes in 5 days directly related to the insertion and removal of <ref name=Circ07/> i.e. Tong and Glantz 2007. That is far, far beyond what is acceptable in reversions. Surely both of you understand that edit-warring is not the way to establish the best text for an article? James: I understand your view and sympathise with it, but you are a senior editor and know better. Dessources: although you have been around for some time, you could still claim ignorance of WP:3RR. Both of you are working hard to improve this article, and from your contributions, I don't see any real difference in your opinions, merely different emphases. Let me ask both of you this question: "How much worse would the article be, if Tong and Glantz were included or omitted at that point?" In other words, how much does it matter to each of you? Could either of you simply give way to the other without really hurting the article? If you were to ask for a third opinion, I'd be amazed if the opinion was anything more than "this is too trivial to spend any time worrying about". So please, please, pretty please, one of you just leave it be, and see how much easier it would be to work together on this article – it could benefit so much more when major contributors are working together. Hopefully, --RexxS (talk) 00:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- RexxS, le me repeat here what I say at the Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine talk page (see http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Passive_smoking).
- My motivation for replacing the Tong and Glantz reference, which I tried hard to communicate to user Jmh649, is as follows:
- The paper by Tong and Glantz is indeed a review article, but it reviews a different topic than the one for which it is used as reference. Its subject is: how the tobacco industry tried to undermine the science on secondhand smoke (SHS) by creating a false controversy. I agree that it is a paper of high standard, and this is why I have left it as reference to the last sentence of the summary section, which says "the tobacco industry coordinated a scientific controversy with the aim of forestalling regulation of their products" since this matches quite well the subject of the paper. So the paper is not removed from the list of references.
- The Tong and Glantz paper is of low relevance as reference to support the assertion that "Currently, the health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus," since its purpose is not to review such consensus. The paper makes only a brief reference to the scientific consensus in the first paragraph of its introduction.
- The main limitation of the Tong and Glantz paper is that it does not deal with the overall scientific consensus about the health effects of SHS, and therefore is inadequate as a source supportng the assertion that "the health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus." It's important to note the plural in the word "risks". There is a wide range of risks, as can be seen in the Effect section of the article (see ), while the Tong and Glantz paper only provides a rather superficial review of the consensus related to one type of risk among them (namely the risk of CVD). The Tong and Glantz paper is particularly inappropriate in the summary section of the paper. It would be more suitable in the body of the article, in particular in its Evidence section, where it's not currently referenced.
- It should be observed that user Jmh649 himself, when he added the reference (see diff ) indicated, in the Edit summary, "added more refs that are not really needed". He was therefore not fully convinced that his reference was appropriate.
- Having made the observation which I just described, I tried to improve the article by replacing the weak reference with a better one, that would achieve the same purpose of providing a good source for the factual assertion made in the summary. Initially, I opted for the text of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, an international treaty now ratified by 174 countries, which states in its Article 8.1: "Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability." However, I managed to find an even better paper, by Jonathan Samet, which actually contains an elaborate review of the status of knowledge of the health risks associated with exposure to SHS. The paper has exactly the content required to do the job: "This paper begins with an overview of the current state of the evidence with regard to the health effects of inhaling SHS, based largely on recent reviews, including the 2004 monograph of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization, the 2005 report of the California Environmental Protection Agency, and the 2006 report of the U.S. Surgeon General." It's written by one of the most authoritative experts in the subject. Jonathan Samet is chairing the Departmnent of Epidemiology at the The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the same institution. Furthemore, Samet was the senior scientific editor of the 2006 Surgeon General Report on the health Effects of Seconhand Smoke, and was awarded the Surgeon General’s Medallion, the highest honor bestowed by the Surgeon General, for his contribution. Prof. Samet also was one of the key expert witnesses in the USA vs. Philip Morris and al. trial. His name being mentioned over 60 times in Kessler's document (Elisa Tong's name is not mentioned, while Glantz's name appears only once). The Samet paper dedicates almost two and a half pages to review the consensus, and provides on page 430 a table that nicely summarizes the state of knowledge, by type of risk.
- I therefore propose to replace the Tong and Glantz reference with the Samet reference, which is a great improvement over the Tong and Glantz reference, and which more fully supports the assertion that "the health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus". This is what I have been trying to communicate to user Jmh649, but he has responded either by ignoring my position or summarily dismissing it, as if what I wrote was not worth of his consideration. This is a bit frustrating for someone who has dedicated a lot of time and energy in the past contributing to improving this article (see ).
- As for the edit warring, I got the feeling that Jmh649 was staging an edit war against me, since my edits, which I elaborated with care, taking the time to reflect and write explanations on the Talk page, were each time, almost instanteneously reverted with virtually no explanation from him, or with explanations that clearly indicated he had not taken the time to examine the reference (claiming that the Samet reference is in Spanish and that it's not a review). Looking at his log of contributions, one can see that he did not spent more than a few seconds before jumping to conclusions.
- I admit that the subject of this particular reference is a minor issue, but the underlying principle is important, because if the editing practice of Jmh649 became accepted as the norm, it could dissuade many competent and qualified editors (I unmodestly pretend to be one with respect to this article), who may not be as superficially prolific as him, to continue to contribute to Misplaced Pages, with devastating consequences for the encyclopedia.
If a reference to a review article in a very important journal is not appropriate than I guess I am editing the wrong encyclopedia. We appear to have a WP:SPA that controls every aspect of this page. I shall leave it too him. Cheers Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- I reject the accusation of being a WP:SPA. I have made contributions to many other articles. If I make many more contributions to the article on Passive smoking, it's simply because it falls within the area of my professional competency.
- Dessources (talk) 13:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- "If a reference to a review article in a very important journal is not appropriate than I guess I am editing the wrong encyclopedia." Point well taken, provided the review article is about the subject under consideration. The Tong and Glantz paper reviews how "the tobacco industry coordinated a scientific controversy with the aim of forestalling regulation of their products". Its natural place is as reference to support the last sentence of the summary section, where it is. So, where is the problem? Would you insist that this paper is so fundamental that it needs to be referenced twice in the summary section of the article, while actually it's not even cited in the body of the article?
- Dessources (talk) 13:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Human are animals
Thus per this and WP:MEDMOS we use the heading "In other animals" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- "Other animals", although technically correct in a very narrow sense, is pedantic, unnecessary and likely to confuse readers. The section on "Animals" refers to the main article on the subject, the title of which is "Animals and tobacco smoke" (not "Other animals and tobacco smoke"). Unless one is an idiot, everybody understands that this means non-human animals, in the same way as everybody understands that the Animal right movement is about the rights of non-human animals. The article "Animal testing" is also clearly understood by everybody to refer to non-human animals - it would be equally silly to say "Other animal testing" or "Non-human animal testing". Here, the intellectual "rigor" that would be invoked to justifiy the choice of a title such as "Other animals" verges on actually intellectual rigidity, and the presumption that readers are stupid.
- Dessources (talk) 19:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- Please note that I am invoking WP:MEDMOS rules to revert from "Other animals" to "Animals", since the first title may confuse readers into thinking that two kinds of (non-human) animals are discussed in the article, and that the section deals with the second kind. I think we should stick to the simple, common-sense, plain language and usage-based "Animals" to designate non-human animals in obeyance of the following two rules of WP:MEDMOS: "Write for the average reader and a general audience—not professionals or patients." and "Use plain English".
- Dessources (talk) 19:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Can you provide the exact text that supports this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- See box entitled "This page in a nutshell" at top of the MEDMOS page ().
- See also under Common pitfalls on the same page () the following points:
- "Misplaced Pages is written for the general reader. ... Although healthcare professionals and patients may find much of interest, they are not the target audience."
- (Example of pitfalls:) "You use jargon when there are suitable plain English words" - Here, assuming that the word animal includes humans while virtually all readers will interpret the word as meaning non-human animals is taking the word with its technical jargon meaning.
- The Misplaced Pages article on Animal states that "In everyday colloquial usage, the word (animal) usually refers to non-human animals." This is the way the word is understood by the general reader. This understanding is acknowledged throughout Misplaced Pages in the articles I mentioned above (Animal rights, Animal testing, Animals and tobacco smoke). But the list could be extended with a lot of other entries, such as Animal law, Animal testing regulations, Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, Cruelty to animals, Animal welfare, Animal-liberation movement, etc. All these articles refer, without ambiguity, to non-human animals. I contend that the use of the title "In animals" in the body of the passive smoking article is similarly void of ambiguity, while, on the other hand, replacing this title with "In other animals" would puzzled most readers and create an ambiguity, thus achieving the exact ipposite effect than what was sought.
- Dessources (talk) 23:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- You could propose making this change to the guideline on the talk page their if you wish.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- What change? Please explain.
- Dessources (talk) 00:03, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Here it states "In other animals" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) We have an established consensus documented at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Diseases or disorders or syndromes which gives suggestions for section headings, and it is normal to use those headings for medical articles. In this case the suggestion is In other animals as is used in many other articles falling under the scope of WikiProject Medicine. The section headings are not compulsory, but using different ones from the Manual of Style will always beg the question, "Why should this article be different?". James is pointing out the (cogent) argument you make above is not to make this article an exception, but to challenge the general recommendation, and therefore ought to be made at the talk page Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles. If it is accepted as valid, then it would apply to all our "Diseases or disorders or syndromes" articles. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 00:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- You could propose making this change to the guideline on the talk page their if you wish.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks! It does help.
- Dessources (talk) 00:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Having looked at the examples at , I understand the motivation for a well structured list of sections, with standard section headings. However, I think the Passive smoking article does not belong to such category. If one had an article entitled "Health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke", I would probably consider the article sufficiently medically focused to put it in such a category. However, the Passive smoking article is of much more general nature, and deals with a lot of issues - even the majority of issues - which are not medical, but social, sociological, economic and political. The article should therefore be considered to be aimed at a much larger audience, and I think it is not correct to subject it to strict rules that act as a straight jacket and make its reading less natural to this general audience. This means that for me, the rule "Misplaced Pages is written for the general reader" takes precedence over the internal Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Diseases or disorders or syndromes convention. I don't think it necessary to make an exception to the convention: I simply think the convention is not fully applicable in the case of this article. I still plead for "In animals" in the context of the Passive smoking article.
- Do you have other examples of actual articles where this "In other animals" title is used?
- Dessources (talk) 01:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- A Google search for 'site:en.wikipedia.org "In other animals" ' gives 6,900 hits. Not all of those will be section titles, but those hits which read 'Jump to In other animals:' are showing the navigation link to a section with that title. Of the first 20 hits, 16 match that, so I'd guess perhaps 5,000 or so articles have In other animals as a section header. By no means all of them are diseases or conditions, but just about all of them are medical/anatomical. It is worth pointing out that it is difficult for a medical article to become a Featured article without complying with the Manual of Style (MOS), as that is one of the FA criteria. Most Good medical articles would also be very likely to conform to the MOS. I understand your argument above, but it's not convincing me that it's making a case for having this article as an exception to what is very common practice here. On the other hand, it's pretty small beer in the grand scheme of things. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 01:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Dessources (talk) 01:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Note, however, something interesting. A Google search for 'site:en.wikipedia.org "In animals" gives access to a lot of Misplaced Pages articles which have, in their title, "in animals" (while you get none which have "in other animals" in their title. And checking the first batch, one can see that "animal" means for the majority of them "in non human animals". So there will be an inconsistency between the usage of the word "animal" in article titles and section titles. Something that will have to be fixed.
- Dessources (talk) 01:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. The title of the article (Passive smoking) is already in violation of the first WP:MEDMOS rules, which states that "The article title should be the scientific or recognised medical name that is most commonly used in recent, high-quality, English-language medical sources, rather than a lay term." Clearly, passive smoking is not the recognized medical term that is most commonly used in recent medical sources. "Exposure to tobacco smoke," "exposure to secondhand smoke" or "environmental tobacco smoke" are much more frequently found in the medical litterature than "passive smoking".
- As per the change of the section title from "In animals" to "In other animals", the anomaly with such a change is that it is an isolated application of a larger principle in a context where this larger primciple does not apply or is not applied (the larger principle being here the WP:MEDMOS rules). It would therefore be wiser to stick to the advice contained in WP:MEDMOS at : "The following lists of suggested sections are intended to help structure a new article or when an existing article requires a substantial rewrite. Changing an established article simply to fit these guidelines might not be welcomed by other editors." So I suggest that the change be postponed until the article is completely rewritten to fit the WP:MEDMOS guidelines.
- Dessources (talk) 01:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
- I vote the name of the section is titled Animals other than humans and tobacco smoke or Non-humans and tobacco smoke or even maybe Marsupials and tobacco smoke, and in reply to the straw-man argument about the title of the article, passive smoking is the accepted terminology, though you may hear people say second-hand smoke, the term is officially passive smoking.
Secondhand smoke claims
The section addressing secondhand smoke causing harm in non-smokers is bias. It makes its claims as conclusive fact; instead of citing it being opinion. Only 19% of overall studies show a connection between secondhand smoke causing illness in non-smokers. There is no scientific basis to claim this section a fact. It is the author's opinion. Citing 'scientific concensus' is also an opinion. It does not cite many secondhand smoke studies as having been funded by prohibitionist health organizations and drug makers--yet other articles liberally cite tobacco industry funded studies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smace05 (talk • contribs) 15:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
- Your opinions are only your opinions. We need reliable sources. Jesanj (talk) 15:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
- This has bee thoroughly discussed with one or more users under several user names (see above). We report what reliable sources have to say about the matter. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
- Similar problems from the same editor at List of smoking bans in the United States have provided some useful sources, after a good bit of clean up. - SummerPhD (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Skeptical views of Prof. Philippe Even, ("world-renowned pulmonologist")?
Is this guy credible?
http://smokingoutthetruth.com/philippe-even/
http://fr.wikipedia.org/Philippe_Even (He doesn't appear in English Misplaced Pages)
I expected to see him mentioned in this article.
Thanks! Glueball (talk) 10:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
- A blog that likes what he has to say (and labels him a "world-renowned pulmonologist") is not a reliable source. WP:MEDRS applies to this article. If the professor has something published in peer-reviewed journals on the subject, we might have something to include. For someone "world-renowned, it's surprising I find nothing he's published. - SummerPhD (talk) 04:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
To know more about Philippe Even, read the article about him in the French Misplaced Pages article. If he deserves the qualification of being "world-renowned" it's not for his scientific achievement (he has virtually zero publication in peer-rewiewed journals). In October 1985, he, and two other of his colleagues, organized a press conference in a rush, in the presence of the French Minister of Health, at which they announced that they had discovered a cure for AIDS. They had a few days before administered ciclosporin, an immunosuppressant drug, to two AIDS patients, without their informed consent, and bypassing the ethics committee; they rushed the announcement because they wanted to "get a head start on the Americans". Philippe Even and his colleagues had no evidence whatsoever that the drug, which they obtained illegally, would work - they based their decision to use it on speculations from an unpublished PhD thesis, in which the author said that ciclosporin could be used to study AIDS in vitro. The two patients died within days of the administration of the "miracle" drug. The whole affair caused a huge scandal that threw a great deal of international discredit on French science. All the above information is simply the Englsih translation of information found in section "Le scandale de la ciclosporine" in the French Misplaced Pages article, which is fully sourced - in particular the story appeared in scientific magazine Science et Vie, No. 820, January 1986 (see ). See also article in Time Magazine, Nov. 11, 1985 Medicine: Furor Over an AIDS Announcement. Since this event, Philippe Even has become kind of a disgruntled contrarian scientist. Dessources (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
- Huh, that's a surprisingly dramatic story. Anyone else thinks he deserves a write up on English Misplaced Pages? I think it would be useful, since a lot of mentions on English pages / blogs / comments, are from second-hand smoke skeptics. Oh, and I don't know French. Glueball (talk) 08:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Move?
 | It has been proposed in this section that Passive smoking be renamed and moved to Second-hand smoke. A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil. Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly. Links: current log • target log • direct move |
Passive smoking → Second-hand smoke –
- 'Passive smoking' is a colloquialism which is best dealt with by a redirect. The most widely-used technical term is 'second-hand smoke', as used in the majority of the scientific literature and indeed the current text of the article. An old redirect exists from an incorrectly-punctuate page named 'second hand smoke' (missing the hyphen) which prevents a straightforward page move with a new redirect, and administrator assistance will therefore apparently be required. However, there is no evidence that such a move will prove controversial. 13:19, 15 February 2012 (UTC)Hypocaustic (talk)
- Support; clear WP:COMMONNAME. Powers 02:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose, for several reasons:
- "Passive smoking" is not merely a colloquialism as the nominator suggests, but an accepted scientific description. Google Scholar results for "passive smoking" are obtained from The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The Journal of the American Medical Association, etc.
- WP:COMMONNAME. In terms of comparative quantity, a search of Google Scholar reveals 15,000 hits for "second-hand smoke" vs 45,000 for "passive smoking". Likewise, a Google Books search reveals 41,300 hits for "second-hand smoke" vs 155,000 for "passive smoking".
- The nominator asserts that the article currently uses "second-hand smoke", but he has edited the page several times this year to remove 17 occurrences of "passive smoking", and restructured the lede where it was previously the first-used term. (As a side issue, he also changed from US to British English with that edit, which may have violated WP:ENGVAR.)
- Even if the page move goes ahead, I believe the article should be edited to undo many of the recent changes implying that "passive smoking" is only a colloquialism. All evidence points to the contrary, and I think this is actually merely a stylistic preference by the user who made the move request. Cross porpoises (talk) 14:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- You should probably add in 70k+ results for "secondhand smoke". Powers 15:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose per User:Cross porpoises. Most of the foreign language wiki articles down the left hand side of the page seem to translate to passive smoking, but I don't know if that counts for anything, except maybe common use? Callmederek (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Adlkofer F (2001). "Lung cancer due to passive smoking--a review". Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 74 (4): 231–41. PMID 11401014.