Talk:Terren Peizer

Remove "Major deals and financial transactions"

I suggest to remove the whole "Major deals and financial transactions" section, as it is very thinly sourced and contains mostly unverifiable fluff & promotions (e.g. "despite his modest surroundings, Peizer has been involved in some of the top U.S. financial transactions", "Peizer became a magnet for entertainment deals and financings", "Peizer surprised the financial markets", etc.).

The few facts that are in there are already covered in other sections.

147.253.22.70 (talk) 18:33, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Major rewrite

Since the whole page looks more like a resume than a wikipedia article (and I am currently researching the subject due to a different matter), I will be making some major changes to it.
Those changes will be documented below:

1. Intro: dubbed the "Zelig of Wall Street"
   Despite listing two references, only a single one actually called him that — which is probably not enough justify a place in the lede.
2. Intro: He has been called "One of Wall Street’s top players" (according to a Financial World article).
   The article actually starts with "HE HAS BEEN CALLED A STOOL PIGEON, A RAT, TERREN THE TERRIBLE AND A LOT OF OTHER things that are unprintable." (capitalization in the original). So, I guess it's best to remove that reference altogether... (original article)
3. Career section: After his purchase, the Racers won the CBA Championship and Peizer sold the team..
   He owned the team from 1989-1990, and they won in 1993. (source)
4. Career section: Peizer became the most profitable high yield bond trader [...] He was occasionally referred to as the "Michael Milken of the East Coast"
   I have not found any sources (other than WP, and sites quoting it) that actually state this. He claimed in one book (which I can't locate right now) that one customer called him that, but again, that statement only came out of his own mouth. So I'm removing it until somebody can provide a source.
5. Career section: Peizer's most notable work while at First Boston came in 1984 when Peizer led the restructuring and financing of Ted Turner's insolvent Turner Broadcasting Corporation...
   Again, unsourced. Turner had financial difficulties in 1986, after purchasing MGM, but by that time Peizer didn't even work at First Boston anymore.
6. Major deals and financial transactions section:
   I've removed all the deal-related content from the 'Career' section, and replaced the previous fluff ("colleagues started calling him Dr. Peizer", "Peizer surprised the financial markets", etc.) with brief, chronological data, with as many reputable references as I could find.

Frescard (talk) 16:54, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

COI edit requests

Hi! I've been hired by Ontrak to request some updates to this article. I'm pretty sure a lot of what's here doesn't meet WP:BLP, but starting with some obvious items:

Lead

• Delete "stock promoter" from first sentence – No external source uses this term to describe Peizer.

[F]: The very first reference provided talks about "veteran stock promoters Terren Peizer and Michael Wachs".

• Delete "Crede Capital Group" from second sentence – This is a subsidiary of Acuitas Group Holdings.

[F]: Since Peizer is doing business under a lot of names, we should list them as well (especially since Crede is currently being sued for stock price manipulations). I've added a section listing the ones I'm aware of (but feel free to add any I may have overlooked).

Career

• Delete "In 1983, Peizer was working at First Boston, where he worked as a high yield bond salesman." – I can't find this documented in any WP:RS.

[F]: From his own SEC filing: "Mr. Peizer held investment banking positions from 1981 to 1985 at [...] First Boston Corp.'s High Yield Securities Department.", and the book "Hit and Run": "A former salesman at First Boston"

• Delete "sometimes pretending to be him on the phone, and calling him "Dad"" – This feels WP:UNDUE to me.

[F]: Since it's not just him pretending to be Milken, and calling him "Dad", but also (via two sources: 1 & 2), sticking a childhood picture of himself onto Milken's family photo, I would think this is quite unique and remarkable. Especially, considering that soon after he would volunteer to help put Milken in jail.

Major deals and financial transactions

• Delete

From 1991-92 Peizer was a director at the shoe company Millfeld Trading, of which he owned $3.5M worth of stock.
He sold 90% of his shares one day before the management admitted it had underpaid its Customs duties for many years (after which the stock price plunged). Peizer was sued, along with the management, but the case against him was later dismissed.

This violates WP:NOR, and I couldn't find any secondary coverage.

[F]: Check the Financial World article "From Rats to Riches", which spends 5 paragraphs on the subject: "Eventually, Peizer wound up in court himself and came dangerously close to standing trial for fraud, and perhaps insider trading". And, of course, the cited court document.

• Update

From 1997 to '99 Peizer was president of Hollis-Eden, who was marketing an anti-AIDS drug.

to

From 1997 to 1999, Peizer was president of Hollis-Eden, a pharmaceutical company that was developing AIDS treatment medications.

[F]: Fine with me, so how about: "From 1997 to 1999, Peizer was president of Hollis-Eden, a pharmaceutical company that was developing a drug that would work against HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis & biowarfare.. This is according to their own material.

• Delete

In 2006 CT Holdings (Peizer's holding company), merged with Xcorporeal (another shell company owned by Peizer), and then attempted to merge with National Quality Care Inc., a developer of portable dialysis machines. According to NQCI (and the arbitrator), Xcorporeal was guilty of several contract breaches during the negotiations, and had to pay $1.8M in damages to NQCI, and merger talks were aborted.

Again, this is WP:OR and not documented in secondary sources.

[F]: The secondary source is right there in the reference: Biospace: "National Quality Care, Inc. Terminates Merger Agreement And License Agreement": "on the basis of Xcorporeal's [Peizer's vehicle] continuing, uncured and uncurable breaches of the Merger Agreement and its fraudulent and other wrongful conduct"

• Delete

In 2009 Peizer started a new investment vehicle, called Socius Capital Group, with Michael S. Wachs as an equal partner.

Wachs had been convicted of bank fraud in 1997, served a year in prison, and was barred from the banking and brokerage industries. Despite this, Wachs started a video production company, CEOcast, to promote penny stocksand was involved with Socius for several years.

Another of Socius’s employees was Richard Josephberg, who was sentenced to 42 months in prison for evading taxes in 2012. Josephberg sued Socius in 2013 for non-payment of $4.8 mio in sales commission.

I couldn't find any WP:RS coverage of any connection between Peizer and Wachs, and most of this is completely irrelevant to Peizer.

[F]: The source is right there in the referenced court document: "defendants Wachs and Peizer, equal partners in Socius". And, I would say, picking a partner for your investment company, who is a convicted felon, and who has been barred from the industry, is quite relevant for Peizer's profile.

• Delete

In 2012 Peizer invested $40M into Cell Therapeutics, who was marketing a cancer drug.

Even though the company had been fined $10M in 2007, for marketing & selling an unapproved drug, they were still in the cancer business. In 2015 FINRA convicted the company's broker, Halcyon, of securities violations during the transactions between Socius and CTIC, and barred Halcyon from trading.

I couldn't find any source for the first sentence, and the rest isn't germane to Peizer.

[F]: Ok, it isn't quite clear from the filings whether it was his own, or other peoples, money, so we could rephrase it as "Peizer arranged investment of $40 for Cell Therapeutics". Source: "Socius provided an aggregate $50,000,000 in financing to CTIC in January and February of 2011, from which Socius earned a fee of approximately $10,000,000." And, remember, "Socius" is Peizer & Wachs, so that's where the relevance comes from.

• Delete

In 2014 Peizer also started Neurmedix, which is a "virtual" company (without any production or research facilities) that markets drugs for Parkinson’s, migraine, Lou Gehrig's & Huntington's Disease, Alzheimer's and encephalitis, and that's awaiting its IPO.

More original research without a secondary source available.

[F]: Luckily, the SEC was very interested in the issue of a "virtual" company themselves, so they already asked all the questions for us... In his original prospectus Peizer only called it "virtual", without any further qualifiers. The SEC wasn't too happy about that, and asked him to "Please revise your disclosure [...] to explain the meaning and significance of your status as a "virtual" biotechnology company.". Upon which he clarified that "NeurMedix operates as a “virtual” company, meaning the company engages, on an as needed basis, research and development, product development, manufacturing, regulatory, legal, and clinical operations contractors, instead of securing facilities for these activities and hiring personnel to establish functional capacity in-house."

• Update

In 2018 Peizer founded BioVie, which markets treatments for liver cirrhosis. Even though the patent for their main product, BIV201, had been struck down in 2019, BioVie is still planning to go public.

to

In 2018, Peizer founded BioVie, a pharmaceutical company.

[F]: Since we have a good secondary source, and it is quite remarkable to take a company public whose main product just lost its patent, I don't know why you don't want to keep that in.

Prometa criticism

• Delete

Peizer was successful in getting Hythiam listed on the NASDAQ Global Market Exchange, using a technique Peizer has used many times before and has become Wall Street's leader in: the reverse merger or reverse public offering (RPO). Hythiam's treatment went on to help thousands of patients end their dependence and get better. Peizer and Hythiam caught the addiction industry's eye for not waiting until there was enough scientific "proof" that Hythiam's treatment was truly effective. In July 2010, Hythiam and Peizer gained their first heath plan customer (Health Plan of Nevada,Inc. ), joining Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers in its adoption of Hythiam's Catasys Integrated Substance Dependence Treatment Solution. Peizer still envisions Hythiam's treatment methodology being deployed throughout the nation.

For this whole paragraph, at least one of the three following conditions apply: No sources are available, the writing is not NPOV, and/or the information is not germane to an article on Peizer.

• Update

Other critics focused on the company's emphasis on sales over research that would establish the validity of Prometa, especially since the FDA restricts marketing of drugs to the purpose for which they have been approved. Peizer justified the company's approach in a 60 Minutes episode as providing information about the treatment protocol to physicians, since Hythiam does not market the medications directly to consumers. The physicians in the practice of medicine, then prescribe the medications to the patients in need.[11] The FDA allows physicians to prescribe all FDA approved medications off label in the practice of medicine. Addiction experts marveled that Peizer was exploiting a nuance and "loophole."

to

While the FDA restricts marketing of drugs for off-label use, Peizer noted on 60 Minutes that Hythiam only provided information about the treatment protocol to physicians, and did not market directly to consumers.

[F]: I haven't done too much research on Prometa, but will post an update soon.

It *is* quite funny though, that you say they "did not market directly to consumers", when they bought billboards all over LA, to do exactly that: https://www.jugularnyc.com/prometaoutdoor

P.S. I just realized there's actually a dedicated page for Prometa on WP, so I think we can drop the criticism section altogether, and just point to the other article.

References

I know this article needs a lot of general cleanup, and I'm planning to help with that as well, but hoping to start with these requests. Thank you for any help or feedback! Mary Gaulke (talk) 01:38, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

I am sure you would like to remove anything critical of Mr Peizer (as you're most likely getting paid by him), but before you make all kinds of accusations that sources are missing, I would suggest you read the ones provided.
Everything that I posted comes from the references supplied. e.g. the very first sentence, where you don't like the word "stock promoter" - well, if you had read the very first source (nasdaq.com: "22nd Century Group: A Lot Of Smoke, Not Enough Fire"), you would have found that it says "Crede is a partnership controlled by veteran stock promoters Terren Peizer and Michael Wachs".
The same applies to all the other statements. Frescard (talk) 22:19, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Since the talk page would get a bit too unwieldy if I quoted your whole post, added my comments and references, and then you would do the same, I've inserted my comments into your list, with a "[F]" tag in front.

Frescard (talk) 01:59, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Moved thread from User talk:DarthFlappy

Why did you remove the link to the Ontrak website? Since we want to have any many references as possible for this page, linking to the page that shows that he's the director should be useful.

Also, you are aware that the "COI" in the edit request stands for "Conflict of Interest"?
Mr. Peizer obviously hired some PR hack to whitewash his page, so we should be very careful in following her wishes.
He's using dozens of shell companies to hide his actions, and Crede is one of them (which as actually currently involved in a lawsuit re. stock price manipulation), so we should keep those names in public view (I've added a section with all his shell companies now).

Frescard (talk) 22:45, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

@Frescard: are you referring to this one were I removed the external link, or this one were I removed "and Crede Capital Group"? I'm ok with reverting the "and Crede Capital Group" edit if you want, but I don't think that we should keep the EL (anyway, when I open it it's dead). I stopped editing when how much it looked like a bad faith COI request sunk in. _{this sentence was toned down to (hopefully) comply witih WP:AGF.}  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 02:15, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I'm sincerely trying to make requests aligned with Wikipedia best practices, and specifically with WP:BLP. I believe a lot of the article, cited as it is to legal documents, press releases, and other primary sources, violates WP:NOR. (The various inline external links also contravene the MoS, as noted.) I've provided some thoughts on the most obvious issues, but I'm open to feedback as well. Frescard, I'm aware you've also responded on Talk:Terren Peizer, but I didn't want to miss responding here either. Mary Gaulke (talk) 03:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree, the article has a bunch of primary external links acting like sources. I'm not sure why Frescard readded the EL I removed or what's going on with the Financial Vehicles section. @Frescard:? I think that I'll work on the article some (no promises, live's busy!).

Now that I think about it, I should have worded my comment better, sorry about that. (I was angry with the "stock promoter" thing) I feel kind of bad for you because, of all the editors out there, the two editors who look at your COI request both have userpages complaining about POV pushing.

One more thing: I think we should close this thread, copy it the Talk:Terren Peizer page, and continue the conversation there, any objections?.  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 13:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree! Thanks for the response. Mary Gaulke (talk) 17:13, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Since the thread is still here, I'm gonna reply quickly:

It looks like there was a syntax error in the Ontrak link (to the board of directors). I've fixed that now, and it should work.

Re. Financial vehicles: Since anybody who's interested in Peizer will be interested mainly in his investments, we should list the names that he invests under (they're basically aliases). Unfortunately, he has a lot, but I think we need them all to give a complete picture.

Re. May Gaulke's bad faith edits: I don't see her *contributing* to the article. All I see are deletion requests, hiding behind technicalities like in-line links and primary sources. If one reads those respective guidelines neutrally — *without* looking for a loophole to remove unwanted content, then it's obvious that both are acceptable in the cases I used them.

Frescard (talk) 17:45, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I moved the article, I'll respond soon, but you know... life...  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 18:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Frescard: I removed all of the external links and the Financial Vehicles section, I know you edited back in 2010, but you might want to re-read WP:EL and WP:BLP.  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 17:00, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I will convert those links into references (because otherwise somebody like Mary Gaulke will complain that she can't find evidence of those statements anywhere).

But why did you remove the Financial Vehicles? These are all tools Peizer uses for his investments. There's nothing controversial about it.

Frescard (talk) 17:18, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I find saying "Look! Here are some of the shady shell companies that he has used over the years:" without any citations to be somewhat ummm... problematic. (mostly likely WP:OR also)

As for the external links, most of them are primary so don't add them all.  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 18:00, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I said nothing of "shady" shell companies... Those are the names he's doing business under, and if someone is interested in his investments, that's what he should be looking for. (He even lists some of them on his own site or his LinkedIn page, so it's not that these are secrets...)

But if you want sources for those associations, then you could've just asked for them (rather than deleting them outright).

As far as the primary sources are concerned, you do realize that they are appropriate when it comes to citing facts: WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD. When it comes to interpretation of those fact, then you need secondary ones, but when a court document states that "Peizer and Wachs are partners" then that's as good a source as you can get.

Frescard (talk) 18:56, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:BLPPRIMARY feels relevant here. Quoting from there: "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. [...] Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." Mary Gaulke (talk) 20:25, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@MaryGaulke: I'm not interested in discussing *anything* with you, until you explain how you can claim that Hythiam "did not market directly to consumers", when they bought big-ass billboards: https://www.jugularnyc.com/prometaoutdoor. Until you do that, I must assume that you're not interested in neutral content. Frescard (talk) 20:36, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

That text is already in the article; it is not one of my proposed edits. I proposed revising some of the subsequent text to reflect the 60 Minutes source cited. I am, of course, a biased editor, and do not pretend otherwise. However, I believe that my requests align with Wikipedia's guidelines, particularly given the sensitive nature of BLP. Mary Gaulke (talk) 20:53, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

If you're that biased that you cannot detect such an obvious falsehood (or choose to ignore it), then you should excuse yourself from editing this article (as you seem to be unable to overcome your COI). Frescard (talk) 21:50, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, I have not and will not be editing this article directly. I am fully committed to using the COI edit request process. Mary Gaulke (talk) 12:44, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@Frescard: Prehaps you would like to discuss it with me. While I agree with you that the COI edit request was white-washing, I also agree with MaryGaulke: we should not be using legal docs. Can you explain how the legal docs citations (law.justia.com, sec.report, justice.gov, finra.org, docketalarm.com) follows WP:BLPPRIMARY? Thanks  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 15:31, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm aware of the preference for secondary sources when it comes to analysis and interpretation of events, but when it comes to providing supporting evidence for simple facts, primary sources are acceptable on WP, according to the guidelines below:

WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD: "Primary" is not, and should not be, a bit of jargon used by Wikipedians to mean "bad" or "unreliable" or "unusable". While some primary sources are not fully independent, they can be authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control, and published by a reputable publisher.

Identifying and using primary sources: An article about a business: The organization's own website is an acceptable (although possibly incomplete) primary source for information about what the company says about itself and for most basic facts about its history, products, employees, finances, and facilities.

SEC submissions are written by the company itself (and are sometimes even published in parallel on their own site), so we should be able to treat it like any other self-published statement by the company (including the appropriate restrictions, i.e. leaving out any self-serving/promotional statements).

WP:PRIMARY: Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.

When I refer to court cases then only to support a simple statement of fact (without *any* interpretation), e.g. the statement that "person A and B are partners in a company" or the amount of a penalty, the length of a prison sentence, etc. None of these are interpreted in any form by me, or need any interpretation by the reader. They're just simple statements of fact.

Also, if you look at Martin Shkreli's page for comparison, you will find primary references to the FBI, the SEC, the US Government, the Los Angeles Government, Congress, the DOJ, as well as scientific papers. Considering that that page is much more popular than Peizer's, and has received much more scrutiny, but nevertheless not a single complaint about the use of primary sources has been made, I would say the use here is justified and within the rules of WP.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most of the posts are about Peizer's companies, and not his personal life. Since companies don't get the same protection as individuals do, WP:BLP doesn't really apply here.

Frescard (talk) 19:19, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining, I have a bad case of primary-is-bad-ism. I wonder how "Do not use public records that include personal details" fits in with all of this. And I disagree with the "Financial vehicles" section. However, I don't think that discussing much more will be helpful, or will effect outcome of the article. That being said, I would like to ask that we (me and Frescard) agree to 1) put any references in the <ref>[insert citation/reference/link here]</ref> format, and 2) we both leave furture COI edit request to another editor. Thanks!

A word of advice to @MaryGaulke: I know I'm comming back to this, and I don't know what your work envirement at Porter Novelli is, but try not to remove content that's obviously in the citations. Before this article, the few COI request I have seen you make looked execellent. Now I've lost the trust that your edit request will not be spam (is that the right word?). (I know, I know, the article needs better citations, but after the "stock promoter" it was very hard for me to read the rest of the edit request)

Anyway: Frescard, you are welcome to have the last word!  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 23:25, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding! WP rules are somewhat contradictory at times, so I appreciate that we didn't end up "wikilawyering" endlessly... ;)

I will convert those new links into references soon; I just didn't have the time yet. (And I just wanted to throw them up there asap, to give you an idea of what to expect.)

BTW - are you ok with me removing the Prometa Criticism section, and just linking to the Prometa page? (If there's anything missing -like the advertising- I will add it on the other page.)

I just noticed you didn't like cite#11... That's just there to confirm his position as CEO & president. The rest (bicycle tires, unprofitable, bankrupcy) comes from cite#12 (Forbes).

Frescard (talk) 00:33, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

(Other then Primary-is-bad-ism and Legal-docs-are-bad-ism) My consern with cite #11 is that it has a lot of personal info. (address, IRS number, phone number, how much each investor got, and I'm sure more that I missed) However, unless an another editor weighs in it's not worth arguing about.

As for the "Prometa criticism" section, let's put a paragraph or two about it along with a {{main}} article hatnote.  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 12:39, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Re. "personal info": The stuff in the SEC forms is not his personal info. It's the business address & phone number (which are normally office suites). Frescard (talk) 13:58, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Prometa Criticism

I would suggest to move the bulk of the criticism section to Prometa, and just leave this stub here:

The Prometa program was using a combination of existing drugs in an off-label manner, without controlled studies of its safety or efficiency, and marketed it directly to consumers.

While some open-label trials had been started in 2005, the first controlled study was only done in 2009 , but a massive marketing campaign had already been initiated in 2007. .

The results of the first study were positive, but another study, done in 2011 by UCLA, determined that "The PROMETA protocol [...] appears to be no more effective than placebo".

Frescard (talk) 20:21, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be any opposition to this change, I have implemented the section as suggested above. Frescard (talk) 19:46, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I've removed much of this again. The 60 Minutes and Dallas Morning News sources are reliable sources and they criticize Peizer personally, so they're fine. But I've updated the section to summarize what the sources actually say about Peizer. As far as I could see, the rest of the sources are critical of Prometa and not Peizer himself, so they're not appropriate for this article. Woodroar (talk) 23:54, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Rewrites

As per the discussion on BLP/N I will go through each of the paragraphs (or sources) removed recently, and re-submit them here, with any prohibited sources removed.

Old:

From 1991 to '92 Peizer was a director at the shoe company Millfeld Trading, of which he owned $3.5M worth of stock. He sold 90% of his shares one day before the management admitted it had underpaid its Customs duties for many years.

New:

In 1991 Peizer invested over $4 million into the shoe company Millfeld Trading, and became its chairman. When, after a few months, it transpired that the company (which was already losing money) was owing $1.6 million in customs duties, he sold his shares at a loss, and was sued by a shareholder group for insider trading. The suit was dismissed, as Peizer was not deemed to be "in control" of the company.

Old:

Between 1991 and '95 Peizer was also Chairman & CEO of Urethane Technologies, which was producing bicycle tires.

The company had been making losses since its inception in 1985, and went bankrupt in 1997.

New:

Between 1991 and '95 Peizer was also Chairman & CEO of Urethane Technologies, which was developing puncture-proof bicycle tires.

The company had been making losses since its inception in 1985, and went bankrupt in 1997.

I've removed the link to the SEC filing, as it wasn't really needed. While the company may seem insignificant, I've included it since Peizer was the CEO there, and it was covered in at least four different publications:

Financial World: "in early 1991, he made a savvy initial investment in UTI Chemicals, now called Urethane Technologies"

MSNBC: "he invested in a company called Urethane Technologies, which made extravagant claims about a no-flat tire it was developing for the vast bicycle market in China."

Forbes: "There was Urethane Technologies, a company that peddled a solid-urethane bicycle tire that supposedly wouldn't go flat."

NYT: "others, like Urethane Technologies, a tire company, have gone bust."

I will stop with submissions for now, until I get some feedback, whether the new edits are ok.

Frescard (talk) 15:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Rats to Riches has been removed from Scribd, so I can't evaluate it. MSNBC falls short of blaming Peizer because it's all phrased as "Peizer invested in [Company], and [Company] did [thing]". That's ultimately criticism of the company, not Peizer, so it doesn't belong in this article. Forbes mentions plenty of rumors and insinuations, but doesn't come out and say much of anything. Like that paragraph about Urethane Technologies and Advanced Promotion Technologies say that Peizer got out before the business went under, but what they don't say is that he had anything to do with that. The New York Times also avoids saying much of anything or criticizing Peizer personally. To support critical statements about Peizer, we need sources that directly criticize Peizer himself, as 60 Minutes and The Dallas Morning News do above. Woodroar (talk) 23:54, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This is not gonna go anywhere...

With nitpicking like that we will spend the next year fighting over every word, and I have better things to do with my life.

Go ahead and help Peizer and his PR hack whitewash his profile. I'm out of here.

Frescard (talk) 02:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

new COI edit requests

Hi, me again, the COI editor representing Ontrak. Thank you to everyone who helped review my concerns about this article and WP:BLP. While my previous requests were more rushed than I prefer, I’ve now taken the time to dig into the sources and context and would like to propose some new updates to this article. I've mocked up all my proposed edits here. Here's a mockup with all the changes from the current article highlighted/struck through so you can see at a glance what I changed.

Here's a rundown of my requests:

• Tweaking the lead to contextualize that Peizer hasn't worked in bond trading since the 1980s. I also removed the term "stock promoter" from the first sentence. One Nasdaq source, which appears to be contributed content, used the term "stock promoter". Barron's described Peizer as "promoting stocks" in one 2005 article, so I added that at the relevant juncture in the "Career" section.
• Breaking the "Career" section into subsections, and making "Prometa" a subsection of "Career". Replacing the "Major deals and financial transactions" header with less generic sub-headers.
• Adding refs throughout "Career" section and adjusting the details included throughout to reflect the available refs.
• Adding post-2007 career activity.
• Taking out the "Financial vehicles" section. I looked through a lot of other bios of financiers and such and couldn't find anything comparable as precedent. Honestly, I don't see how this list is encyclopedic, although it's certainly possible I'm wrong.
• Updating article categories to reflect its contents.

Due to my COI, I will as ever not be editing the article directly. I really worked to keep these requests NPOV and fact-oriented; I hope that shows. Thanks in advance for any help or feedback. Also happy to reformat these requests however is helpful – I worried that itemizing every individual edit would be too unwieldy, but I know not everyone is a fan of the mockup approach. Mary Gaulke (talk) 23:59, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@Woodroar, DarthFlappy, and Zaereth: Pinging you since you've all been involved in the article recently, in case any of you would like to take a look. Thanks! Mary Gaulke (talk) 22:29, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Frescard: (be careful about canvassing)
I won't be implementing the request per my flamewar above, (again, sorry about my incivility) although the edit request looks for the most part execelent. You might find the compare pages tool useful.  Darth Flappy ^«Talk» 23:52, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi! To be clear, the only reason I didn't ping Frescard is because they previously announced an intention to quit Wikipedia that they appear to have honored, but happy to have them weigh in if they're around. Thanks for your feedback! Mary Gaulke (talk) 13:02, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi @MaryGaulke:, thank you for using the request edit template and being patient with waiting for a reply. I have reviewed your request and posted some thoughts below.

1. I cannot add that he is the founder of Ontrak because the reference is to Ontrak's website, which is not a secondary source. Please verify this information from a reliable source. For his status regarding Acuitas, the article you cited from S&P states that Acuitas is "Peizer's personal investment vehicle" and a Google search did not determine if Acuitas was founded by Peizer, so I agree to remove his "founder" designation until and unless a better reference can be found.

2. Newer LA Times articles are behind a paywall so I cannot verify the information. I have left the two statements that use LA Time as a reference out of the article. If you submit a new edit request another editor (with access to LA Times) can decide if they want to add the statements.

3. I removed the high-yield description of his time at First Boston because it is not supported by the references.

4. "...and calling him 'dad'" is supported by the reference and I think shows the closeness of their relationship, so I have kept it in.

5. I can't add information about Peizer selling the Racers. The Financial World is not a reliable source and the Omaha World-Herald implies that someone bought the team in 1990 but doesn't mention Peizer. Wikipedia can't make assumptions so we cannot add that information until a source states explicitly that Peizer sold the team.

6. Wall Street Journal is also behind a paywall for me, so I can't add any information from that site to the article. If you post another edit request below, another editor who can access the site can decide to add it.

7. Regarding UTI/Urathane: Neither one of these companies has a Wikipedia article I can use to verify that UTI became Urathane and the "Jim Oraface replaces Peizer" article from the Los Angeles Times doesn't specify that. I did not include information about Peizer stepping down, but if the name change can be verified we can use the reference to add in that information.

8. LA Business Journal is also behind a paywall, so I cannot verify the information but I kept it the same because I am WP:AGF of previous editors.

9. I agree that Financial Vehicles should be deleted, and have done so.

10. I did not add information about the company name changes because unless Peizer had direct involvement with the name change (advocated for it, suggested it himself) it does not belong in his biography.

Those are my notes. If you have any questions, please post them below. I have closed this edit request so if you would like to propose additional changes please follow the instructions on Template:Request edit/Instructions. Happy editing! Z1720 (talk) 01:43, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Z1720: Thanks for your reply!

1. Here's a secondary source indicating Peizer's role at Ontrak: Hackett, Mallory (3 November 2020). "Ontrak deepens its behavioral health platform with LifeDojo acquisition". MobiHealthNews. Retrieved 25 November 2020.

2. If I email you PDF copies of the paywalled articles, would you be able to evaluate? I really don't want to have to wait another three months for another reply from the edit request queue.

6. Again, happy to share a PDF copy of the WSJ article if you're willing to take a look.

10. If nothing else, the reference to Catasys in the article lead should be updated to Ontrak, no?

11. One other thing – by the same logic in item 10, shouldn't the Prometa section be updated to focus specifically on Peizer's involvement? Also, wouldn't it make more sense as a subsection of "Career" than as a top-level section?

Thanks again. Mary Gaulke (talk) 15:50, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi @MaryGaulke:

1.  Done

2. Yes, email them to me and I will take a look. I would not want to wait three months for a reply either.

10.  Done Catasys changed their name per the Reuters source provided in your sandbox.

11. I kept that information because the articles specifically criticise (and name) Peizer for his involvement in this scandal. I am in favour of adding more information about his involvement if you have suggestions for prose. I am going to move it to Career section because I believe it belongs there.

When I receive the articles I will update the information accordingly. Happy editing! Z1720 (talk) 16:19, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Z1720: Thanks for the quick reply! I've shared the PDFs over email. For 11, I do think at least basic context on Hythiam may be helpful. I propose the wording from the first paragraph of that subsection in my sandbox draft. I hope that's helpful. Thanks again. Mary Gaulke (talk) 17:08, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@MaryGaulke: I have received the pdfs and went through the edits. My responses are listed below:

1. In your sandbox, reference 21 is used to verify the statement: Peizer founded Hythiam, an addiction treatment company, in 2004 That source doesn't explicitly say that. Instead, the source mentions that Peizer founded Catasys 14 years previous to the article being written. I know you have a source later saying Hythiam changed their name to Catasys, but sources should be explicit on what they are verifying, so I did not add in this information. You also use the source to verify info about his brother's health condition, but the source doesn't mention his brother.
2. Reference 16 has been added
3. Reference 18 was added in a previous edit (Only some articles from LA Times were behind a paywall.)
4. Reference 14 doesn't verify Following his departure from Drexel Burnham Lambert, Peizer took on leadership roles at a series of medical and technology companies and promoted their stocks. Also, the information is so general that I don't think we need it in the article. For the information about Hythiam I have added some information from the article. However, the third page of your pdf is blank and I need to see that page to verify more information. Please send me the complete article as soon as possible.
5. Reference 15 was added in a previous edit
6. Reference 6 verifies that Beachwood is his hometown, not that he was born there. Information is added to the article that reflects this. It also confirms his age but not what year he was born, so I have not added that information. I did not add although he (Peizer) was not specifically the subject of the investigation. because the source doesn't verify that information. I added other information from that source that I thought was pertinent.
7. I added info from reference 20 and used the source to add prose to the article.

Let me know if you have any questions. Z1720 (talk) 18:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Z1720: Hi!

1. Source 21 ("Catasys Thrives on Data Dives") states: "Catasys – originally launched as Hythiam Inc. in 2004" and "Peizer, spurred by a half-brother’s struggle with addiction, launched Hythiam in order to market a drug cocktail to treat substance abuse." Are those quotes sufficient?

4. I intended this purely as an introductory sentence, so happy to omit. I double checked and the article actually ends somewhat abruptly, which looked weird in the PDF export. I dropped a screenshot from the web version of the article into the folder so you can confirm that's the end of it.

8. One more thing – I'd like to request that the term "stock promoter" be removed from the first sentence. One Nasdaq source, which appears to be contributed content, used the term "stock promoter". The Barron's/WSJ article described Peizer as "promoting stocks", which is part of why I noted it in the "career" section of my sandbox draft. However, that reference is 15 years old and in my opinion doesn't warrant the term's prominent placement in the article. There are no other sources I could find that link Peizer to that description.

Thank you again! Mary Gaulke (talk) 17:28, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@MaryGaulke:

1. Whoops, looks like I missed that quote when I read the source. I catagorised it as a pharmaceutical because a treatment company implies that they run drug addiction facilities, in my opinion, while Hythiam/Catasys provided pharmaceutical medicine to treat the addiction. If you disagree, let me know below.

8. I agree that the sources provided don't describe him as a "stock promoter" anymore. I replaced it with "company executive" to try to describe that he's the CEO of numerous companies.

That's it. Let me know if you have any questions/concerns. Z1720 (talk) 22:28, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@Z1720: Hi! Last thing, I promise: Where you wrote He stepped back down as chairman in 2000 because of the company's concerns that Peizer could not obtain a security clearance from the United States Department of Defense to transfer Cray's classified business from Silicon Graphics. in "Career" – could we add "on a rapid turnaround" in there? Per the source: "In a press release, the Seattle supercomputer company said Mr. Peizer, as chairman, would have been required to have a security clearance from the Department of Defense in order for Cray to transfer its government classified business from Silicon Graphics Inc. by the end of the 2000. Cray didn't expect the clearance process to be completed before late 2001. If the transfer of the government classified business wasn't completed this year, Cray would have been required pay 'significant' penalties to Silicon Graphics." I think it's useful to clarify that this was a logistical, time-oriented decision rather than because Peizer was incapable of obtaining clearance at all. Thanks again. Mary Gaulke (talk) 20:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@MaryGaulke:  Done but I reworded it to He stepped back down as chairman in 2000 because the company was concerned that Peizer would not obtain a security clearance from the United States Department of Defense by June 2001 to transfer Cray's classified business from Silicon Graphics, causing Cray Research to pay a penalty fee to Silicon Graphics. I think this explains with more clarity the reason why the company was concerned about the security clearance. Please post below if there are any questions or concerns. Z1720 (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Z1720: OK, two quick things! (Sorry!)

1. In the lead, "technology and biotech companies such as Goldman Sachs, First Boston," – think it should be "Goldman Sachs and First Boston", just so it doesn't imply Drexel Burnham Lambert is also a tech/biotech company.

2. If I'm reading the WSJ source on Cray correctly, the deadline for the transfer was the "end of 2000" – so five days after the article's publication – not June 2001.

Thanks again! Mary Gaulke (talk) 02:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

1.  Done. I've reworded slightly to separate the two companies.

2.  Done You are correct, I misread the source. Thanks for pointing that out. Please post below if there are any other concerns. Z1720 (talk) 03:01, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposed tweak: He has held senior executive positions within technology and biotech companies, such as at Goldman Sachs and First Boston, and at as a bond salesman at Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Just so we're not implying Goldman and First Boston are tech/biotech. Sorry, I misread this before. Mary Gaulke (talk) 14:22, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done Z1720 (talk) 04:05, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Relevant WikiProjects

How is WikiProject AIDS relevant to this article? As far as I can tell, there appears to be no connection between the subject of the article and the scope of that WikiProject, or HIV/AIDS. I could understand adding banners for WikiProject Pharmacology, or even WikiProject Medicine, but this seems to be over-bannering as the connection is not explained in the article. See WP:PROJSCOPE for guidelines. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Lead section rewrite

I tagged the lead section of this article as needing a rewrite because the most notable event in this person's life appears to be his conviction for insider trading. This should be mentioned in the first sentence of the lead section, which should be a summary overview of this person's life. The details currently in the lead section are best set out in detail and explained in the body of the article. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 23:07, 22 June 2024 (UTC)