Talk:Gay bowel syndrome

Obsolete

This term is obsolete. It was never widely used in the medical literature, as a brief search of the relevant databases will confirm. More to the point, it has virtually disappeared from use in the last few decades. The McGraw-Hill Handbook of Colorectal Surgery and the article from J Homosexuality both make clear that this term is obsolete. I don't think that the publication date of a Medscape blurb can be held up to negate these reliable sources.

Further, the handling of the topic is inappropriate. Since the term is obsolete and (per expert opinion) best understood with reference to more specific underlying diagnoses, we should do the same. This article should briefly (given the paucity of sources) recap the history of the term, while medical detail should be deferred to articles which are more appropriate, such as proctitis, LGBT issues in medicine, or Homosexuality#Health. MastCell ^Talk 21:12, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, the article as reverted by Thisglad (talk · contribs) contains numerous misstatements and inaccuracies. For example, looking only at the lead paragraph:

• The lead paragraph makes no mention of the well-documented obsolescence of the term, leaving a reader unaware of a key aspect of the topic (a problem with WP:LEAD).
• Thisglad's version cites a "2004 study by the John Hopkins school of medicine with gay men". There is no such study. The source in question is a Medscape blurb written by a physician at Hopkins. The actual study, PMID 14699467, was conducted by researchers in the San Francisco Dept of Public Health - and, incidentally, does not use the term "gay bowel syndrome" anywhere. So no, it's not "used in the medical literature" in 2004, as most people don't consider Medscape to be part of the scholarly medical literature, but rather an informational website.
• Of course, even the Medscape source held up as evidence of currency explicitly notes that the term is obsolete ("There were multiple studies of the newly recognized "gay bowel syndrome" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, subsequent attention and study has been sparse.") This is basic misuse of a source to advance an editor's viewpoint, as the source is being used to argue a point that the source itself explicitly rebuts.

I'm not going to revert further at this point, since I don't want to contribute to an edit war, but I would encourage both outside opinions as well as input here from Thisglad (talk · contribs) regarding these edits, which appear to me to be both inaccurate and an inappropriate use of sources. MastCell ^Talk 21:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

For the curious, and for reference: it appears that the Canadian Association of Gastroenterologists ceased using this term in 2004, after an activist complained:

"Gay bowel syndrome" is an outdated term from the 1980's that appeared accidentally in the textbook, First Principles of Gastroenterology: The Basis of Disease and An Approach to Management, according to a CAG official. "It slipped into this [edition] purely by accident," said Dr. Eldon Shaffer, head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Calgary and the textbook's co-author. "I didn't even know it was still in there; I had to find it. It's gone." [1]

According to the Washington Blade, there was a bit of an issue when the group from Hopkins used the term loosely in 2005 ([2]). The CDC got involved, and said that the term had little meaning and had long since fallen out of use at the CDC. Even the physician in question, from Hopkins, stated: "It [Gay Bowel Syndrome] almost disappeared after the early 1980s because of safer sex practices." The point being, again, that this is an obsolete, unused, and largely meaningless term. MastCell ^Talk 22:03, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

MastCell the full quote by the noted HIV/AIDS specialist John G. Bartlett, M.D. (Johns Hopkins medical researcher/professor) from the Medscape article A New Look at "Gay Bowel Syndrome" is: "There were multiple studies of the newly recognized "gay bowel syndrome" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, subsequent attention and study has been sparse, in part attributed to reduced frequency thought to reflect changing practices by gay men in response to the HIV epidemic. This study clearly indicates that it is still an issue since the cases were studied in 2001-02. Also, the etiology is about the same as previously, although HSV is newly recognized as an important component. This finding not only effects management, but also has HIV prevention implications. The authors note that 2/3 of the participants were HIV negative and that proctitis increases the risk of HIV by up to nine fold (Craib, K Genitourinary Medicine 1995;71:150; Schwarcz, S J Infect Dis 2002;186:1019)." (Bolding added for emphasis. The Johns Hopkins HIV Guide article is essentially a copy of the Medscape article.[3] Bartlett is one of the preeminent HIV/AIDS experts in the world.

So the argument that the term gay bowel syndrome is a completely obsolete term falls flat.

Furthermore, as far as Medscape: "In 1999, George D. Lundberg became the editor-in-chief of Medscape. For seventeen years before joining Medscape he had served as Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association." Medscape is a high quality resource for the medical community.Knox490 (talk) 07:22, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand why a term's obsolescence would be of relevance. An encyclopedia should be an historical record, whether the record was right or wrong.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink Bull (talk • contribs) 15:57, June 23, 2009

Typically, we re-direct a term if another one replaces it or it can be best placed under the umbrella of another condition. FloNight♥♥♥ 23:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, wikipedia is not a history book, or a place to post random, out of date information.Fuzbaby (talk) 00:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Flonight if the term was renamed. I disagree with Fuzbaby's premise, however. Random information is what an encyclopedia is all about. What is random to one person is cool to another and interesting to another. If the information is out of date it should be updated. There is nothing unencyclopedic about an article that relates information about a medical diagnosis that is now understand to be wrong, provided of course that the article makes clear that the diagnosis is wrong. I'm not that familiar with the subject; I happened here by accident, so this discussion can be academic if we are only dealing with a replaced term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink Bull (talk • contribs)

To be clear, I'm open to maintaining a standalone article here as opposed to a redirect. My concern is that the standalone article should accurately represent this topic. Personally, I think that this version is significantly more useful, readable, interesting, encyclopedic, you-name-it than the alternative. This is a term with virtually no medical currency; therefore, this article is not the place for a lengthy disquisition about the causes of proctitis. It's a place to explain the historical usage of this term, and the reasons why it has fallen from favor. Medical detail belongs in the appropriate medical articles, predominantly proctitis. MastCell ^Talk 04:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, a stand alone article might be doable but it needs to make it clear that it is an antiquated or obsolete word. See Vapors for an example of an outdated medical concept. My concern is the Gay Bowel Syndrome was not every really an idea that was well accepted by the medical community as a disorder and so the term has the two problems. It is obsolete and also not something that should be presented as ever being a well defined and established medical diagnosis. That is the reason that I would not argue against a redirect or complain if one was done. But if the article is kept as a stand alone entry then it needs to be extremely short and focus on the historical development of the term similar to the Vapors article. FloNight♥♥♥ 10:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The are references in medical literature to GBS. The Illustrated Dictionary of Immunology (2009), Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary (2009), and the Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine (2006) contain information related to GBS and make no reference to the term being obsolete. Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Epidemiology, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment (1997) contains quite a bit of detail on GBS. I think it is noteworthy to have an article provided, of course, current information from reliable sources is included in the article. Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 23:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• GRIBS - GBS is commonly abbreviated online in BBS to "gribs" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.127.151.119 (talk) 07:06, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Stub and re-write

• My preferance is to stub the article and re-write each line on this talk page to make sure that there is accuracy with each detail of the content.

• Having inaccurate or outdated material about medial conditions absolutely needs to be avoided. So, we need to review the content to make sure that it accurately reflects the sources. FloNight♥♥♥ 22:07, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• For the moment I have restored MastCell's version of the first paragraph, since the other one simply couldn't be taken seriously. It's worth noting that the serious regression of the first paragraph happened as part of a wholesale revert, with an edit summary that had nothing to do with the most noticeable effect. [4] [5] Hans Adler 23:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

article needs improvement

This article seems to be about how the term is obsolete and those health care people are bad for using it. There is just one sentence about what it is! This needs to be expanded. User F203 (talk) 14:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

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2014 medical journal uses the term

The 2014 medical journal article 'Gay bowel syndrome': relic or real (and returning) phenomenon? published in the medical journal Current Opinion In Infectious Diseases indicates:

This article aims to review the term 'gay bowel syndrome', including the recent research looking at increased rates of bowel infections in men who have sex with men (MSM), particularly in light of the recent Shigella outbreaks in MSM in London and New York, and considers whether 'gay bowel syndrome' is a syndrome that really exists and is worthy of further research and specific treatment, or whether the term continues to be obsolete and not useful...

Little or no recent research exists around the concept of a specific syndrome affecting the bowels of MSM. Rather, there seems to be a clustering of diseases in certain high-risk groups, especially those in urban areas with multiple sexual partners, recreational drug use, and possible concomitant HIV infection...

All healthcare practitioners (including non-sexual health/HIV specialists) need to consider careful and thorough history taking (including sexual history) to identify those at risk."[6]Knox490 (talk)

@Knox490: I guess it is valid for inclusion since it is a secondary source review? It would be useful if we can gain access to it (it's paywalled) so that we can check what their methodology was. Amusing side note, upon googling this paper I notice Conservapedia has cited that it but removed the part that says "Little or no recent research exists around the concept of a specific syndrome affecting the bowels of MSM". Hahaha. --Sxologist (talk) 08:46, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Page could be further expanded

The usage section could be tidied up. It does not read in order of the history, for example it opens with a 2008 textbook, and then refers to a 2014 review, and then back to a 1997 article. The history could be put in order with the changes in use of the definition. It's probably best to have a section dedicated to why the term was abandoned to make things clearer. --Sxologist (talk) 00:07, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I noticed you removed the 2014 article with this edit. I'm curious as to why, since the review basically examined the literature and concludes that there is no such a thing as 'gay bowel syndrome'. The use of it in the article could have certainly been shortened to make that clearer? --Sxologist (talk) 03:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Frozen: would it be okay if I made some adjustments to put the criticisms in order? E.g. starting in 1985 with Gut, then 1997 article criticism, and then the withdrawals by Canadian Association of Gastroenterologists and CDC? Everything is a little out of order. The heading should probably be something like 'criticism and decline in use' or something to that effect? --Sxologist (talk) 07:29, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Chronoloigial order is, of course, fine. No need to ping me, by the way, since this article is on my watchlist. Your suggested heading is also fine. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 07:50, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks I have done some changes which could be checked. I also wondered about this 2014 paper which re-examined the concept, it was removed by a previous edit. I'm not sure about the the journal but the conclusions seem only logical? --Sxologist (talk) 08:38, 26 April 2020 (UTC)