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Template talk:COVID-19 treatments (current consensus)

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trialsitenews.com

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A search shows that this website has been promoted on talk pages in relation to Ivermectin and other dubious treatments, often along other sources already listed here. The website's advisor's list shows various figures who are notable for promoting misinformation. It also features articles that instil fear of vaccination. I suggest it as a potential candidate on the examples list. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 02:23, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I could get behind this. It's definitely part of the Pierre Kory and Didier Raoult-o-sphere — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 02:48, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Incorrect description of WP:MEDRS: Academic Journals

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This template refers to

recommendations of professional organizations and government bodies

but I think the best sources we want to quote are systematic reviews in medical journals. Neither their authors, nor the journals themselves are professional or government bodies. Can we get the word academic journals into this? Or have we suddenly decided that wikipedia now follows edicts rather WP:Scholarship for COVID-19? Talpedia (talk) 19:08, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I understand your intent here, but this is the text from WP:MEDSCI that those words are based on:

Wikipedia policies on the neutral point of view and not publishing original research demand that we present prevailing medical or scientific consensus, which can be found in recent, authoritative review articles, in statements and practice guidelines issued by major professional medical or scientific societies (for example, the European Society of Cardiology or the Infectious Disease Society of America) and widely respected governmental and quasi-governmental health authorities (for example, AHRQ, USPSTF, NICE, and WHO), in textbooks, or in scholarly monographs.

Whereas I think your statement is based on WP:MEDASSESS. The difference is that we are looking for consensus statements, not just evidence. Policy and professional orgs and govt bodies distill the science evaluated in those systematic review articles, and make recommendations based upon them. We don't follow edicts. We follow what is said most often amongst a variety of these different organizations. This allows us to take a more distant, encyclopedic view of ongoing issues without getting bogged down in the weeds of momentary discrepancies among individual studies, individual reviews, etc.
You've also left out the most important part of the sentence you're quoting from our template: we must rely on the highest quality secondary sources and... The part I've bolded already succinctly encompasses exactly what you'd like to be added.— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 21:36, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the value of secondary sources, my focus here is on "authoritative review articles" which are often produced by academics and published in academic journals which have nothing to do with professional organizations or governmental bodies.
The problem is that professional and governmental bodies often deal with policy rather than fact. To give an example, reviews on psychosis suggest that delaying discontinuation of antipsychotics has no effect on relapse. Guidance from NICE (UK's best practice body) is that antipsychotics should be continued for at least a year (which then gets turned into "you can't stop without permission, when the time is right after at least a year we will let you" in guidance directed at patients rather than professionals). The guidance "patients should take antipsychotics for at least a year" implies a truth that is at odds with the facts presented in reviews that "patients can stop when they like legally, if you ever stop there are risks, there is no evidence that the risks of discontinuation will ever reduce no matter how long you keep on taking drugs". My opinion is that the guidance here is more to do with avoiding social and legal responsibility, and ensuring compliance by patients than facts and actively misleads.
This disconnect between professional guidance and fact shows up whenever the individuals interests are misaligned with a health bodies. My fear is that WP:MEDRS subtly shifts over time from "say what is true" to "say what people tell us to do".
A more topical example might be COVID vaccination of children, or vaccination of those who have been infected. "Patients should be vaccinated" (because testing is hard, and a consistent policy improves compliance and prevents fear of side effects) is quite different from "The odds ratio of survival foollowing vaccination after infection versus infection is between 0.99 and 1.01" (made up). Talpedia (talk) 22:32, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
is your issue that you would prefer "authoritative review articles" instead of "highest quality secondary sources?" Those two things appear to be synonymous in my mind. Or rather, the former appears more narrow and less useful for these purposes than the latter. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:27, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Talpedia: It seems as though you may have an issue with MEDRS rather than this template. You may want to bring this up on the talk page of that guideline: WT:MEDRS. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:25, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ivermectin

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Dr Campbell hasn't suggested, and studies do not support ivermectin as a treatment for covid. Observers do suggest ivermectin may be effective as a preventative. Early in the pandemic, observers noted that places who use ivermectin for malaria prevention were having fewer problems with covid. This paper from Brazil is extremely interesting on the topic. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35070575/ A city in Brazil offered residents, who wanted to participate, free ivermectin to try as a prophylactic to reduce covid infection and disease. People there use ivermectin regularly to prevent malaria. The study describes ivermectin as having a "known safety profile." This was 2020 before vaccines were available. Researchers heard about the plan and set up an observation study to see what would happen. Participants chose for themselves whether they took ivermectin or not. Researchers tracked the results after selecting appropriate members of each group to include in their study. (Read the study's methods for more details) Researchers observed 44% fewer infections in the ivermectin group and a 68% reduction in mortality in the ivermectin group. The paper does not mention long covid rates sadly.

Just because uneducated people drink aquarium treatments is not a reason to stymie adult conversation and areas of legitimate medical research. It's unethical. Quercitin (talk) 02:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34513523/ Here's another. Its a retrospective observation.

It has a small sample size of 271 in both ivermectinnandncontrol group and a short 28 day window of observation. But the participants were medical workers during the Delta wave in July 2020. Researchers observed a 74% risk reduction for covid infection. The paper concludes, "These results suggest that compassionate use of weekly ivermectin could be an option as a preventive method in healthcare workers and as an adjunct to immunizations, while further well-designed randomized controlled trials are developed to facilitate scientific consensus." Quercitin (talk) 02:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Confused the Template last-update id with transcluding user's id

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I'd like to address anopportunity for alleviating a minor case of confusion, that could easily be dealt with. I was the confusee, and here's what happened:

In an edit at Talk:Ivermectin#Covid effectiveness, I mistook a transclusion at the top of this page, as a post (or transclusion) added by User:ToBeFree, when in fact it was posted there by someone else, and simply included TBF's name with the transcluded text, because he happened to the "last update by" author on the template.

What I would propose, is to embed the "last updated" message in <noinclude> tags, so that it only renders the user responsible for the template edit, when viewing the template page. Alternatively, a combination of <noinclude> and <includeonly> could generate "last updated by FOO" here, as usual, and something else (perhaps, "information above was transcluded from .... and last updated by FOO", or some such) when transcluded at a Talk page.

This is not a huge deal, but it's such an easy fix I thought it was worthwhile mentioning (and perhaps there are other templates in the project that could benefit from similar treatment?). If there is consensus for this, then if someone can suggest the appropriate wording, I'll be happy to update the template. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:24, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The current state (probably intentionally) quickly shows if someone has edited the template recently, potentially misrepresenting consensus. I have no opinion on whether that's really needed and would be fine with removal, though. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What I would propose, is to embed the "last updated" message in noinclude tags, so that it only renders the user responsible for the template edit, when viewing the template page. Alternatively, a combination of noinclude and includeonly could generate "last updated by FOO" here, as usual, and something else (perhaps, "information above was transcluded from .... and last updated by FOO", or some such) when transcluded at a Talk page.
The reason for the "last updated by" is to help everybody keep an eye on the template and make sure it actually represents consensus and hasn't been vandalized (mostly by only being edited a while ago and not like 2 minutes ago). There were early on problems with POV IPs and other editors making it say what they wanted it to say and not citing their sources or insufficient quality sources. I think that benefit would be eliminated almost entirely if it only appeared on the template page itself.
In your suggested includeonly, would it be essentially identical it would just add where its transcluded from? It's transcluded from a template specific page, so that would basically just be "I am a transcluded template". Which is fine with me.
Would it be better if it was regular size text? I'm not wed to the smalltext, it's only that way to be less obtrusive. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 17:43, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So just to clarify, if we're just discussing adding a note that it's a transcluded template with some html wizardry to have it only say that on other pages (and not truly removing anything, I would fully support that. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:03, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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