Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information

Disease / pandemic origins

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Moved from WP:ANI § Related discussion at Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information

There have been massive running discussions across multiple parts of Wikipedia where people argue whether or not the origins of COVID-19 are biomedical information and therefore fall under WP:MEDRS. Would it be useful to clarify that here in one way or the other - ie. adding the original origins of a disease or pandemic to either the "what is" or "what is not" sections? Obviously any full discussion leading to actually changing the page would require a ton of notifications to all the existing discussions, I'm just curious whether regulars here feel that it would be valuable to pursue - even if the other discussions eventually reach a conclusion on COVID-19, this could easily come up again in other forms, and I think the size and length of discussions, plus the degree of disagreements between experienced editors, shows that it's worth having a clear answer here if possible. To be clear, I'm not (yet) asking which section it should be added to, which is going to require a lot more discussion, just whether it's worth considering adding it at all. --Aquillion (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm wary of editing this page (which remember is not a WP:PAG) just in response to the current stramash. Sometimes the origin of a disease is (now) a largely historical matter - see Mary Mallon. This is, however, the second time during the pandemic that the WP:WLish argument has been made that because something happened at some point before today, it is "history" ... so eventually something may be needed to stop that silliness, though I'm not sure what. Maybe we could say that something can be considered history if it has unambiguously historical treatment in RS - appearing in textbooks of medical history, for example? Alexbrn (talk) 16:33, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Aquillion, I have been quite involved in a few of the discussions on the origins of Covid-19 and on how it may (or may not) constitute biomedical information.

There have been a number of discussions going back many years as to what constitutes biomedical information, and this post from 2015 seems to make it quite clear that a "cause" of a disease should be considered biomedical information, and that's why you'll see a lot of good MEDRS sources describing the origins of HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and SARS.

Where it gets tricky with SARS-COV-2, is that unlike with SARS-COV-1, where the Chinese government cooperated with the international community and apologized for its early slowness, the current Chinese government is being anything but cooperative with the international community, and is tightly controlling any information that comes out of local academia (as described in this AP article). Without a transparent scientific investigation or forensic evidence of some sort, it is impossible for the origins of Covid-19 to be traced, and while scientists may come up with hypotheses weighing the plausibility of different scenarios, they really aren't proof of anything. In the first few months of 2019, the plausibility of a Zoonotic jump from animals to humans at a wet market seemed quite high, but no intermediate host was found, and the Chinese CDC ruled it out (source). Now, other scenarios are being considered, and their plausibility has been given more weight, due in part to a few inconsistencies with a paper (Zhou et al) that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (which was known to be creating chimeric SARS-like coronaviruses as part of its research funded by a USAID program called PREDICT) sent to Nature introducing a virus called RaTG13 (without any mention of a cleavage site), and another a paper (Jiang et al) they also put out introducing a cleavage site of another virus called RmYN02, and some supposedly crazy people are supposing a link between them. So in the dearth of evidence that there is for any scenario, I am not sure how much WP:MEDRS and WP:Biomedical information can apply.

ScrupulousScribe (talk) 02:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

As it turned out, there was good MEDRS[1] on the question of the virus' origin. In my understanding the move to de-classify that question as biomedical is because some editors just didn't like what the MEDRS said. Alexbrn (talk) 03:08, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I have been involved in some of these discussions, so I don't think it would be helpful to repeat any of that here.

What I do want to say, in the vein of remembering that Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard, is that whatever is written should probably make it possible to avoid MEDRS (especially WP:MEDDATE) for uncontroversial claims of prehistoric evolution. Also, I don't think we have had this level of dispute in the past. If you look back, e.g., at Ebola, there were plenty of stories going around, but few editors were bound and determined that Wikipedia state that it was possible that the virus might have been previously present in a particular lab. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:50, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Aquillion: Probably belated reply but I think it was enough time to simply discuss WP:MEDRS/WP:BMI misapplication, abuse and bigotry. I think community who directly or indirectly met biomedical information challenges must opt to making concrete proposals on respective talk pages instead of wasting time on useless discussions which get us nowhere. There is tons of disseminated talks throughout Wikipedia and yet there is no changes. I propose to close this discussion as fruitless.--AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:44, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I propose we expand the section Wikipedia:Biomedical_information#What_is_biomedical_information? to include this: Outbreak investigation. The paragraph could mention that the following are considered biomedical:

• Diagnosis related to outbreaks
• Geographical spread of outbreaks
• Hypothesis of what appears to be causing an outbreak

An implication of this expansion is that some articles need to up their reliable sources to MEDRS level: for example, edits about the geographical spread of a disease should resort to secondary reviews in epidemiological journals, not just a popular press source (e.g. NY Times). In other cases, an edit that proposes to include information on an hypothesis of what appears to be causing an outbreak, should elevate its rigor to MEDRS, specifically epidemiological MEDRS. In the case of COVID-19, what I found odd is that Chinese epidemologists publish so little on the forensic evidence side related to the origin of the virus. Why is that? International epidemiologists also are silent because have no jurisdiction to perform the necessary field work in Hubei. In my opinion, this void of MEDRS either lets the Wikipedia information be too general (despite almost 1.5 years since the start of the pandemic), or encourage editors (myself included) to propose edits based on non-MEDRS RS. Forich (talk) 17:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: Sorry, but I'm going to oppose proposals of any provisions that might try to project origin of any disease onto a human health somehow. There is no direct implications of any pandemic/disease origin on human health whatsoever. Stop trying to push WP:MEDRS/WP:BMI beyond its legitimate boundaries. Where the viruses/bacteria come from won't influence the ways humans are treated much. WP:MEDRS is well enough in protecting from spreading primary research and speculations. There is no more need to allow to abuse its application further. I'm going to close this discussion if nobody minds.--AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:29, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Alexander_Davronov. Your judgment is in line with User:Normchou here, User:The Four Deuces here, User:Feynstein here, and User:Aquillion here. Editors who notably are generally opposing this view are User:Thucydides411 here, and User: Alexbrn here.Forich (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for heads up. Don't get me wrong: I oppose any attempts to make up a general rule that can easily be abused. In fact, WP:MEDRS was abused virtually since the day it was adopted (as my investigation revealed in Wikipedia talk:MEDRS#Intermediate note) so this makes a point.
On the rest: well, there is plenty of policies that govern the way epidemics' origins are handled, namely WP:NOTNEWS, WP:SECONDARY, WP:OR, WP:CONSENSUS etc.. All of them should be carefully applied on case-by-case basis with full respect to WP:RSCONTEXT. No need to pile on guideline or use leap logic to invent instruments preventing others from being bold.
If you are going to make proposals to WP:BMI I encourage you to take it to WP:VPPOL for more general consensus. Cheers. --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 17:48, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not a doctor or anything, but I am pretty strongly opposed to expanding the scope of a guideline supplement based entirely around winning a specific political argument -- even if it is a political argument that's been getting thrown back and forth for about six months over talk pages, user talk pages, MfDs of userspace essays(!) and just about every noticeboard under the sun. My understanding is that MEDRS exists due to the outsized risk of harm (i.e. actual, physical hazards to people's health) that arise from Wikipedia being used as a reference for treatment of disease.

For example, it would cause someone actual harm if they came away from Wikipedia article thinking that eating bat shit cured strep throat, since eating bat shit is bad for you, and it could end up taking the place of other medical treatments. This doesn't seem to be the case with the origin of a disease: the precautions someone takes to survive, treat, or avoid contracting a disease do not seem affected in any way by where it came from. Certainly, the prevalence and distribution of a disease is relevant -- again, it would pose an actual hazard to someone's health if they thought Belgians were immune to chlamydia, or that you could only get anthrax if you lived in Argentina. However, it does not really matter what the ultimate origin of the infectious agent was. It could very well be the case that antibiotic-resistant Streptococcus was created by medicine, that some random outbreak of anthrax was created in a lab, or that chlamydia was brought to our planet in ancient times by little green men in an attempt to prevent the Ancient Egyptians from launching a space program. None of these things affect what you, the reader, should do about these diseases. While disagreeing about politics has often been bad for people's health, it is not a biomedical issue. jp×g 05:14, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

@JPxG, maybe this sounds idealistic, but I think the reason we wrote MEDRS is because we wanted to help people write high-quality articles. The way to do that is to start with the best sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

If that were the only issue at hand, and there really were no tradeoffs, it would have just been a project-wide revision of WP:RS. It wasn't, because MEDRS introduces a number of cumbersome inconveniences to the process of writing articles that are only justified under extreme circumstances. jp×g 02:02, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

No comment about origin, but I would note that the three bullet points you mention (diagnosis of a disease or condition, geographical distribution of a disease or condition, and causes of a disease or condition) are already unambiguously included in the general case. There isn't any difference just because they happen in the context of an outbreak. The idea that biomedical information must relate to treatment, as suggested in one of the the previous responses, is a misconception - rather, it refers to any information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health, as illustrated by the list of examples given on the page. That said, discussing geographical distribution (prevalence) doesn't mean we need to use reviews, as that sort of information can also be cited to the various health agencies that keep track of such things. Sunrise (talk) 05:46, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

@Sunrise: ... it refers to any information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health ... And that's why it so disastrous to expand the guideline even more: the bounds are so loose so it virtually explodes into an endless number of disputes every time someone comes up with WP:MEDRS. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 19:20, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Conclusions

The question of the origin of an epidemic is currently not explicitely included in WP:BMI. Some editors have reasonably interpreted WP:BMI as either excluding origin because it does not serve as medical advice that can potentially harm readers, or excluding it because it can be seen to belong to the history of the disease (and history is explicitely excluded from BMI). However other editors have reasonably interpreted that the question of origin is included in WP:BMI per being part of "Population data and epidemiology" or indirectly because of the "relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health" part of the definition, which is a broad categorization that indeed could cover origin. Some editors vote on having the question of origin binding on WP:MEDRS because that would provide tools for editors to automatically have very reliable sources, which can come handy at controversial topics where pro-fringe editing happens. This would be an err on the side of having the strongest sources. In my opinion, this is a second-best solution after the best, which is: not err and follow what WP:BMI explicitely says.

The three paths of action that I see come from this discussion are:

1. Agree on disease origin requiring MEDRS-level sourcing + modifying WP:BMI to avoid ambiguity in that regard (fixing the history loophole, and explicitely adding the word origin, so that it is not left as part of epidemiology or "causes" (e.g. causes could mean only the causative agent and exclude all the other details)).
2. Agree on disease origin requiring very good sources but not necessarily MEDRS-level. Details about how the virus enters the cells to cause the disease, or how a virus mutates from ancestor to direct progenitor are BMI and thus require MEDRS. Details about who were the index cases, when did the initial outbreak started, what animal species were found to be the zoonotic source of the spillover, and where was the place of the first infections detected, would require high level RS, not necesarily MEDRS-level. Citing summaries of the origin that encompass both the BMI and non-BMI aspects just listed, would require MEDRS-level, because a reliable scientist is capable of commenting on both aspects, but a reliable journalist is not.
3. Disagree on disease origin requiring any sources other than run-of-the-mill RS + modifying WP:BMI so that it explicitely excludes disease origins other than direct references to the identity of the causative agent (e.g. "COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2" would be BMI but "SARS-CoV-2 comes from bats" would not). Forich (talk) 05:07, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

That isn't the conclusion. As Sunrise notes, "diagnosis of a disease or condition, geographical distribution of a disease or condition, and causes of a disease or condition" are explicitly covered. As has been noted there are both biomedical and non-biomedical aspects to the question of a disease origin, so lumping the whole concept together is reductive and unhelpful. Whatever, we should not be rewriting PAGs in response to a one-off running controversy. Wrt the "lab leak" origin specifically, other applicable PAGs are WP:FRINGE and WP:EXCEPTIONAL. In general, my experience is always that the way to solve knotty content problems on Wikipedia is to increase source quality. Alexbrn (talk) 06:28, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Totally agree with Alexbrn. We don't need to change MEDRS unnecessarily. And there clearly isn't consensus to do so. We already have many other policies in place to ensure proper sourcing. MEDRS is not meant for this. I think this monster discussion should be closed at this point. I don't see new viewpoints emerging at this stage. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 11:30, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@Forich: Sources on origins of the COVID-19 should NOT be covered by WP:MEDRS. It's outside of the scope of this guideline. It's purely speculative political issue that should directly fall under WP:SECONDARY/WP:TERTIARY. I propose to put this page on watch just in order to keep application of the guideline and those who "enforce" it - in check.
…modifying WP:BMI so that it explicitely excludes disease origins … I propose to exclude this topic explicitly just to ensure WP:MEDRS isn't misused. Feel free to open WP:RFC on WP:VPP. See RfC on Disease_/_pandemic_origins AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 13:42, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Another example of Alexander Davronov playing games. The RfC concluded saying that certain aspects of the origin were indeed WP:BMI, and others certainly not. This was in accord with the position taken by pretty much every experienced medical editor all along. Attempting to relitigate/deny this outcome is purely disruptive. Alexbrn (talk) 13:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

OMG. I just repeat the same very point : keep COVID-19 origin outside of the WP:MEDRS scope. It's a politcal issue, not a medical.
…Alexander Davronov playing games.…
Alright. Here is the deal:

1. lets' we ask some third-party (impartial) to start an WP:RFC on the WP:VPP and honestly, without all that partisan-stuff-appeals ask experienced, independent folks whether to cover COVID-19 origin by WP:MEDRS or not
2. You and I will abstain from opining and will just observe

Deal? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

We already had that RfC.[2] Abide by the consensus, is what I say. Alexbrn (talk) 14:14, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Alright I missed that. The summary just says that "the opposers have it." ^{[14:23, July 3, 2021]} (and I'm one of those opposers), meaning that WP:BMI shouldn't be broadened to cover COVID-19 origin sources.. What are you asking me to abide to? Let's we don't continue this discussion. If you got sources to discuss, feel free to bring them into relevant discussion on relevant pages. I propose to close this one and put an RfC link on top of it. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:57, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The summary just says that "the opposers have it." ← obvious trolling is obvious. Alexbrn (talk) 15:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Facepalm AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:03, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Historical content

Adoring nanny I don't understand this[3] reversion. How is this inconsistent with MEDRS? The goal here is to stop some of the "well, it was published last year so it's historical and MEDRS doesn't apply" wikilawyering that has happened over the last few months. Alexbrn (talk) 10:32, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The opening paragraph of WP:MEDRS starts off as follows. I've omitted the ref:

Wikipedia's articles are not meant to provide medical advice. Nevertheless, they are widely used among those seeking health information. For this reason, all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge.

I get why we have the above policy as walking into a doctor's office here (USA) generally costs at least a hundred dollars. Therefore, I frequently refer to Wikipedia to decide if I need to see a doctor about this or that. But the origin of Covid, which is where this all came from, has no relevance one way or the other to such decisions.

I would add that I have been a source of what is referred to above as "Wikilawyering". To me it doesn't look that way. One might just as easily look at it the other way around.

Furthermore, It does not make sense to me that recent history would be biomedical information while less-recent history would not. The implication is that the passage of time somehow causes biomedical information to become non-biomedical. That doesn't make sense. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Okay, that's fine but that doesn't seem to have any relevance to the edit. The point here is to clarify what "historical" means for medical sources with greater clarity than currently, so that it's clear when WP:MEDRS does not apply. Material that appears in a book such as this for example, is historical. But a paper that was published a few years ago (e.g. PMID:26828006) is still subject to MEDRS because it is relays biological information which is not "historical" just because it's from 2016. Confusion over this has been a bit of a time sink in recent months. How would you propose to clarify the distinction between historical content and content that just happens to be in the past? Alexbrn (talk) 10:59, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the policy as it stands. As the policy says, its purpose is to make sure Wikipedia doesn't give medical misinformation that causes people to make bad decisions. It does that quite effectively. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Huh? This is not about the policy: Wikipedia doesn't give medical advice of any kind. This page is a supplement specifically about "biomedical information". One particular purpose of this supplement is to say what is, and what is not "biomedical information". Truly historical information is not biomedical information - so for example you do not need a WP:MEDRS source to explain what doctors did in Renaissance Venice. But we have had problems - one which springs to mind is an editor trying to claim that COVID-19 was widespread in California in 2019, and since this was about "the past", MEDRS did not apply and we could use any source. They did not prevail, of course, but the arguments wasted time. The task at hand is to clarify this guidance to make clear what is, and is not, "historical". Alexbrn (talk) 12:05, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't a party to that particular controversy. My take on it is that the assertion "COVID-19 was widespread in California in 2019" is insane, but WP:MEDRS is the wrong way to shoot it down. For example, if one goes to the first paragraph of COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, the sources are the NYT and the New Yorker, which are obviously not WP:MEDRS. Similarly, the first paragraph of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy currently cites eight sources, seven of which are definitely not WP:MEDRS. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The task is not to "shoot down" such "insane" ideas about 2019, but to head off the tiresome argument that this supplement actually permits them with its "history" exemption. Hopefully my new attempt to clarify this is prosaic enough to be unobjectionable. Alexbrn (talk) 13:00, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree with your new approach, either, for the same reasons as above, but thanks for trying something different. I'm also not much into revert wars, so I'll leave it for now. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:29, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I think that the main difference between history and medical information is that history is exclusively about the who–what–when–where stuff: Alice Expert said something on this date; Bob Business did something on that date.

But it is a bit more complicated, isn't it? Because "This disease was [properly] diagnosed in this patient" isn't exclusively history or exclusively biomedical. In non-COVID contexts, I think that editors have generally taken these two approaches:

• If it's about an individual ("Chris Celebrity is a cancer survivor"), then it's not biomedical content.
• If it's about something that is completely in the past, then it's not biomedical content. This permits, e.g., primary sources for posthumous diagnoses, for seminal research, and for pre-modern medical practices.

Using these approaches, then the ideal sources might be:

• "Chris Celebrity was diagnosed with COVID-19": any reliable source
• "As of <last month>, COVID-19 cases were declining in Lake Wobegon": MEDRS now, but could be any reliable source at some future point (i.e., when the pandemic begins to feel like it belongs entirely to the past, which may be decades from now).

Does that feel like what you'd expect to see in an article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:51, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Biomedicine is broader than medicine

Medicine strictly speaking is the science and art of diagnosing and treating diseases. Doing this effectively also require s a knowledge of related subject, and these subject are accordingly taught to physicians, but they are biology, not medicine. To illustrate, I've a doctorate in molecular biology, and I've according taught the subject to pre-meds (and could have to med students similarly). I am however not qualified to make use of molecular biology in actual diagnosis and treatment with any real patient, because no matter how well I understand it, I lack the clinical skills and training to apply it. If I were instead a pharmacologist, i would know how drugs are metabolized and work well enough to teach this to physicians, but it still would not qualify to diagnose or treat patients, because they are many practical clinical factors I would not understand. Similarly for biochemistry , or microbiology, or statistics, or toxicology, or public health, or epidemiology. Many people do research and practical work in all these fields who are not physicians. Some are physicians and if they have maintained their clinical skills are also qualified to diagnose and treat disease as to do research, but one can do just as effective research in these subject without medical training, and just as effectively criticize and evaluate the work of others in the field, whether or not those others have medical degrees.

Nooe of the specific MEDRS requirements apply to these sciences. the requirement for reliable sources does, but they can be much wider: one does not find the same sort of evaluative reviews in these sciences. Therefore the guideline must treat

Attributes of a disease or condition

the molecular or cellular basis of a disease.

Attributes of a treatment or drug.

human health as affected by a particular substance, etc.

Number of people who have a condition, mortality rates, transmission rates, rates of diagnosis (or misdiagnosis), etc.

different from the field which is purely and exclusively medicine:

How a condition is identified, tested for, or diagnosed; how useful or effective those methods are; what the standard of care is, and whether a specific treatment, practice, or decision meets the standard of care; results or expected results of a medical decision; what constitutes a medical error and whether a medical error occurred.

There are intermediate fields--some aspects of the following are purely medical, some are basic sciences:

How a treatment works etc. much of this is pharmacology, not clinical medicine

how a disease progresses is caught or transmitted; --much of this is public health, as well as clinical medicine

Biomedical research and the evaluation of biomedical research-- most of this is statistics or sociology or politics, not clinical medicine. DGG ( talk ) 22:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

DGG, Yes I thought it was quite intentional that WP:BMI includes more than just medical information.

I do not think it would be an effective remedy to require MEDRS for only "medical information" as medical information is intrinsically linked to the broader BMI. You're right there is a difference, as someone who is living in both of these worlds at the moment, but many people make that little jump on their own. If we were to allow non-medical sourcing for, say "Attributes of a disease or condition," then we might have to allow, for example, proponents of the chronic Lyme disease hypothesis (of which many forms are not supported by the literature) to add many symptoms and components to our discussion of lyme disease which are not supported by the medical literature. Simply because they are discussed in regular WP:RSes. Or we may have anti-vaccine RSes discussing the implications of mercury in certain conditions. Simply because these are "human health as affected by a particular substance."

I firmly think it would be a really bad idea to lower sourcing requirements for things that are "biomedical" but not "medical." I'm not completely sure if that's what you're suggesting, but if so, I think it would be a really bad idea. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:59, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not advocating lower, but changed to meet the circumstances of each field.. The only thing I really think MEDRS should strictly apply to is the diagnosis and treatment of a disease, interpreted to include the use of X in thediagnosis and treatment of a disease. Symptoms arguably comes within diagnosis. . DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

DGG, I don't think it is at all helpful to reopen that discussion, to propose the very recent and very odd idea that MEDRS only applies (or should only apply) to "the diagnosis and treatment of a disease" or the simpler form: "medical advice". That brain fart came out of the huge RFC about pandemic origins, and it was thoroughly contaminated with "How does this affect what I can write about Covid conspiracy / therapies / vaccines / face masks / etc". Since all those debates are still very much ongoing, I fail to see why discussing it again would produce any wisdom at this time. All this "what is the scope of MEDRS" type of discussion produces is game playing by editors who want to write something or want to block editors writing something. It is a meta issue and a distraction from writing an encyclopaedia. We just end up getting votes and opinions by editors who have never written a medical or health article, never done a PubMed search for reviews, never bought or ordered or downloaded a professional biomedical textbook, but who have read about covid origins or have a view on wearing facemasks, and so on. -- Colin°^Talk 09:02, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

@DGG, I don't think that biomedicine is broader than medicine. I think it is overlapping with medicine. There is quite a lot about medical practices that have basically nothing to do with biology (e.g., how to share bad news, how to get people to trust you, electronic medical records, licensing laws...) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I think overlapping is indeed probably the better word. I think this is like all WP rules on sources or anything else--there is a clear central area, and areas altogether outside, with some in the middle that can be seen either way. The difficulties that have arisen here on practical questions of sourcing and editing is the reluctance to accept that some things are ambiguous. We are neither gods nor oracle. DGG ( talk ) 06:10, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Some years ago, there were discussions about whether MEDRS applies to "health" – a much broader concept, and one for which reputable scholars and other authorities have produced unworkable definitions (e.g., the WHO's previous definition, which defined every human as being unhealthy at all times). I see the shift to "biomedical information" as significantly addressing that problem. Stats (to use your example) is used in medicine and biomedicine, but it is not exclusively biomedical. A statistics discussion of how to measure GDP is not biomedical information. Therefore, the content we expect to find in articles such as Statistics or Student's t-test or Gross domestic product are not covered by MEDRS. However, a claim that you will be more healthy if you follow a diet of only unprocessed raw foods plus large amounts of ultraprocessed supplements sold by the diet's promoter – that should be covered by MEDRS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Is this biomedical information? Clarification requested.

I have been involved in a conflict on Cannabis_(drug) (see this talk section) over the following paragraph that I added (important factual information). The source I used was quite legitimate for a standard Wikipedia reference (cowritten by a psychology professor at Columbia), but does not meet the stricter WP:MEDRS criteria. However, the paragraph (in my opinion) does not qualify as "biomedical information" by the description in WP:BMI (e.g., it has no direct relation to "human health"). Can folks here provide some detail/opinions about whether this classifies as WP:BMI or not, and whether WP:BMI should be clarified to address this?

"Smoking or vaporizing cannabis leads to a rapid onset of psychoactive effects, which allows experienced users to titrate the effects. Consuming cannabis orally (e.g., edibles or capsules) takes much longer to have an effect (peak effects occur about 1 1/2 hours after ingestion), making titration much more difficult. Inexperienced users may choose to ingest more because of the lack of any initial effect, sometimes leading to an unpleasant experience.".

Thanks. Tagging User:Alexbrn. Finney1234 (talk) 13:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

The stuff about how the drug affects the body is biomedical. See under "Attributes of a treatment or drug". Alexbrn (talk) 16:04, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

X drug has Y effect on people is plainly biomedical information. The part that is Inexperienced users may choose to ingest more because of the lack of any initial effect seems fine with a non-MEDRS source; I would say that describing human behavior like this is something that could honestly fall within the realm of economics. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:17, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes except the invocation of "lack of any initial effect" embeds a biomedical claim, so is tricky to tease out cleanly. Alexbrn (talk) 17:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Nice catch. If that part (lack of initial effect) can be established by MEDRS, then I would see no issue with the “inexperienced users may choose to ingest more” being cited to an RS that is non-MEDRS. But you are absolutely correct on the “lack of initial effect” part. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

One significant problem with the biomedical requirement, when applied to illegal (or recently illegal) recreational drugs, is that research meeting WP:MEDRS standards is very rare, so it potentially rules out *any* useful information on the drug effects. There's lots of documented psychological or casual-but-careful group reports on such drug effects (e.g., the 1972 report by the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse), but it's not going to appear in medical journals (yes, I understand the issue of primary versus secondary sources). There are now some decent studies on cannabis that would meet WP:MEDRS standards, but it's still very difficult to do *human* research in that area (contrasted with caffeine or aspirin, or SSRI's, which are much less problematic).

Which suggests to me that "drugs" in this page (which require biomedical reference standards) should be specified to refer to prescription drugs, or legal drugs, or something along those lines. "Drugs" without further specification is (IMO) too generalized to require biomedical research standards. Just my opionion, of course :-). Finney1234 (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see sourcing on recreational drugs as a problem; there's often ample. For cannabis, there is a metric shit-ton of it. Alexbrn (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

There are a large number of animal and in-vitro studies on cannabis, and a lot of human questionaire studies and meta-analyses (often NIDA-funded and necessarily negatively focused). It is much more difficult to find a WP:MEDRS-qualifying study that would describe the effects of being "stoned", which is something that needs to be added to the Cannabis_(drug) article. User:Alexbrn, could you provide 2 or 3 examples of WP:MEDRS-appropriate studies for this? For instance, I'm not sure that the Mitch Earlywine (psychology professor at University of Albany) book "Understanding Marijuana" would qualify under WP:MEDRS (but it would qualify, IMO, under WP:Verifiability) Finney1234 (talk) 18:02, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

The "effect of being stoned" is in some senses just boring stoners' anecdotes, but as to measurable effects there's a load of stuff: we have an entire article on Cannabis and impaired driving for example. And of course there's lots of stuff on adverse health effects which are certainly "real". Alexbrn (talk) 18:19, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, I've found one (probably) WP:MEDRS-qualifying review study cited in Effects of cannabis. But it will be interesting to see what its primary sources are (probably *not* WP:MEDRS-qualifying). Interesting issue :-). Finney1234 (talk) 18:22, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd actually say that useful information on the drug effects is exactly what biomedical information is meant to apply to, from WP:BMI How a treatment works; whether a treatment works, and to what degree; factors that affect whether a treatment works; dosage and timing information; side effects, benefits, and disadvantages. Particularly with the implication that 'useful' means some level of dosage guidelines that a reader would come looking to WP for guidance on, that we have reliable sourcing is extra important.

That said, cannabis isn't illegal everywhere, and MEDRS isn't limited to medical journals. I don't think these kinds of statements will be that difficult to source with MEDRS sourcing. In this case, I'd suggest looking for 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 nations with legalized recreational cannabis. This will be more easily verifiable as the current accepted knowledge than a paper written by a few individuals, which is what MEDRS is really about. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: WP:BMI doesn't apply relative to the originally disputed contribution [21:05, December 1, 2021] as the diff didn't say a word about treatment, health or whatever. Please, don't ignore the context.

Attributes of a treatment or drug.
… How a treatment works; whether a treatment works, and to what degree; factors that affect whether a treatment works; dosage and timing information

AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:23, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

As the title says "treatment or drug", and "drug" is obviously implicit in the following text mentioning treatments. Frankly, anybody who thinks the effect a drug has on the human body is not in the realm of biomedicine, probably needs to be TBANned from medical topics for lack of competence. Alexbrn (talk) 09:26, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

It's more importantly what WP:RSCONTEXT says here. Honestly, the WP:MEDRS isn't even a WP:PAG. Stretching out it because of the "drug" in the title? This is highly questionable. Opining on WP:CIR here? Wtf? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:43, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

It not "stretching it out", it's reading English with understanding. I'll fix it to make it explicit. Contrary to what you say, WP:MEDRS is a WP:PAG - specifically, it's a guideline. Alexbrn (talk) 09:46, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I imagine that Effects of cannabis (to the extent that it involves health/bodily effects, rather than financial, relational, reputational, criminal, etc. effects) would ideally have the same type/quality of sourcing that we would (in an ideal world) have at Health effects of alcohol, Health effects of chocolate, Health effects of wine, Health effects of tea, Health effects of caffeine, Health effects of tobacco, etc.

Does that sound about right to everyone else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I will put it much simpler:

1. harmless psychoactive effects (relative to h. health and if) proven by WP:SECONDARY to onset and onset quickly - doesn't require any specific WP:MEDRS application.
   I stand against any ill-intended attempt to apply WP:MEDRS to wider topics (sources) than it is relevant to.
2. the effects claimed to follow by psychoactive effects of cannabis on the human health are subject to WP:MEDRS for assement. WP:MEDRS is about sources, not the content itself.

AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

So in this model:

• I eat chocolate, I instantly feel happy: "Eating chocolate makes people feel happy" can be sourced to any secondary source, e.g., a book written by a Chocolatier.
• Someone smokes a cigarette, they instantly feel calmer: "Smoking tobacco makes people feel relaxed" can be sourced to any secondary source, e.g., a magazine article in Cigar Aficionado.

Is that the standard that you recommend to Wikipedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

We got WP:EXCEPTIONAL for that. What I would definitely recommend is to narrow down the meaning of the broadly termed phrase Health effects which means virtually everything. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 21:29, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you think that "He smokes cannabis, he instantly feels an effect" is also an exceptional claim? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Alexander Davronov: I stand against any ill-intended attempt to apply WP:MEDRS to wider topics (sources) than it is relevant to. You seem to have misinterpreted it, both as not being a guideline (which it is) and not applying to "drug... dosage and timing". Perhaps I've misinterpreted what you've said and you're now acknowledging MEDRS PAG status, and are instead claiming that cannabis doesn't count as a "drug" when discussing "titrating its psychoactive effects" because it's "harmless". Harmless would need to be cited, and the original text above indicates an "unpleasant experience", which not only sounds like harm to me, but my readings of BMI and MEDRS don't include any application criteria that depends on harm apart from lawsuit information. BMI is BMI, whether harmful, beneficial, or purely descriptive of human physiology. Did I miss anything? Bakkster Man (talk) 20:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  […] but my readings of BMI and MEDRS don't include any application criteria that depends on harm apart from lawsuit information …
  And that's the problem with WP:BMI. See my reply on Health effects above.
  […] cannabis doesn't count as a "drug" unless it's claiming as having theurapetic effects ("treatment") or somehow linking it to a human disease, something that may require non-primary sourcing in full accordance with WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:MEDRS#Biomedical v. general information example. You can't request WP:MEDRS-sources for every sentence or whenever cannabis is mentioned. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:12, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  There are multiple definitions of "drug". One of the definitions is that any substance that (a) is put in the body, (b) isn't food, and (c) has some [non-nutritional, non-mechanical] effect on the body is "a drug". Under this definition, cannabis, tobacco, and Valerian (herb) are definitely drugs, coffee and tea are probably drugs, chocolate probably isn't a drug, and sugar definitely isn't a drug. A substance can be a drug even if it is not used with therapeutic intent and even if it is not connected to a human disease. See also those detective stories in which someone always seems to get "drugged" by the villains: no therapeutic intent, no human disease, and we still use the word "drug" to describe the substance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:22, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• I'd clarify that caffeine is a drug, and that coffee, tea, and chocolate all contain that drug in varying amounts. The proportion of caffeine in each determines whether consumption is for the purposes of experiencing the effect of the drug or not. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  A pharmaceutical company would agree with you, especially if their focus is on small molecules. A person downing a cup of lousy coffee for the sole purpose of getting rid of a caffeine-withdrawal headache would not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Alexander Davronov: I'm not suggesting MEDRS is required whenever cannabis is mentioned, I'm saying the specific cases above of timing of psychoactive effect onset and resulting titration of dosing are unambiguously BMI and should remain so. Especially since this shouldn't be difficult to find MEDRS-compliant sources for (surely some independent group in a country with legal recreational use has dosage guidelines for ingestion versus inhalation). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man: In the WP:BMI version that was before Alexbrn changes drugs aren't covereved explicitly. Whether titrated or not, I disagree that the sources on drugs titration should be covered by WP:BMI outside of context of treatment. And the Recreational drug use isn't governed strictly, it's a special case that should be decided by consensus. --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:25, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

drugs aren't covereved explicitly ← they were covered implicitly. I just spelled it out. It's sometimes necessary to do this, especially for non-native English speakers who have trouble with implicit meaning (as a sometime editor of ISO Standards, believe me I know this!). Alexbrn (talk) 15:31, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Alexander Davronov: In the WP:BMI version that was before Alexbrn changes drugs aren't covereved explicitly. I disagree, as the header is Attributes of a treatment or drug. Alex's edit seems to be a useful clarification to the existing text, are you seeking consensus to change the heading to only read Attributes of a treatment? Bakkster Man (talk) 15:38, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I propose to explicitly restrict scope of the WP:BMI on the drugs, treatment, and conditions to medical ones: drugs in context of treatment, treatment of human health, and conditions of health of humans. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:40, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure just reading that proposal is enough to give the aphrodisiac POV-pushers a hard-on! Biomedical content of all types need to continue to be covered, as it is today. Alexbrn (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree to cover this in a separate portion of the WP:BMI. I'm perfectly fine with preventing misinformation. And I think WP:EXCEPTIONAL/WP:POVPUSH/WP:UNDUE should also already cover this. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:45, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I do not agree that it is reasonable for drug titration or onset of action content to be held to a lower, non-MEDRS standard. I do not agree that this is a good idea, regardless of whether we are talking about human or non-human drugs; regulated pharmaceutical drugs or non-regulated "alternative" or "traditional" drugs; prescription, over-the-counter, or street drugs; biologics or small-molecule drugs; drugs that aren't meant to be drugs (e.g., accidental poisoning); or any other category. If it's any kind of drug, with any kind of pharmacological effect (i.e., excluding nutritional, corrosive, or mechanical effects), then the content about that drug should be adhering to MEDRS standards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you want to turn the WP:MEDRS into a wannabe-policy for-all-the-cases on the wikipedia? I already imagine how alexbrn will jumpt from article to article "cleaning up" "unreliable" sources, wreacking a havoc, and drawing ire on his way just because some drugs were mentioned. There will be no end for this mess … Any substance can be named as a "drug" potentially. Even water. There must be limits for the god sake. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:46, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Alexander, if you have a problem with any specific edit you should take it to the appropriate forum. In my view WP:MEDRS is in reasonably good shape as-is, so need need for radical change. Alexbrn (talk) 19:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

A wannabe-policy for-all-the-cases? No, I want MEDRS to be what it already is, and I want editors to continue to apply MEDRS appropriately, including by saying that it's weird to require MEDRS sources to talk about the effects that some drugs have on human bodies but not other drugs. All the drugs should be treated the same. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I'd think that reasonable--there are also aspects that do not fall under biomedicine at all, such as legal matters, discussions of a spiritual or mystical aspects, treatments in literature--to the extent directly medical matters are mentioned, the sources have to meet Medrs; but other aspects do not. (And need I mention that over the years there has been considerable disagreement about the actual biomedical effect of this and similar substances. And it has been quite possible for a MD with a strong bias about the safety of their use to publish what they would like to think are the medical facts even in reputable journals. Not all publications by scientists are scientific publications. (the classic example is early 20th century statements on the safety of tobacco). We properly present these as historical now; it would be astoundingly unlikely that all of our present certainties will still be regarded as certainties 20 or 50 or 100 years from now. DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC) �

There are multiple issues here (just my opinion, of course):

* Illegal drugs have limited MEDRS qualifying sources. But there are lots of worthwhile and useful non-MEDRS primary and secondary sources providing reliable descriptions of the effects of these drugs. E.g, for cannabis, Charles Tart's "On Being Stoned" (a 1971 questionaire-based study by an established academic). This would be useful as a primary source in the cannabis article (properly adhering to WP:Primary and WP:How_to_use_primary_sources_(biological_sciences)), with the article text saying what the book's careful questionaire studies state about cannabis effects. No one is going to medically suffer from that use of the source.

* Wikipedia drug articles are typically structured to describe the physical and health-oriented (not psychological or recreationally-desired) effects of medical drugs, including an "Adverse effects" section. However, recreational drugs such as cannabis are used for other and more widely-ranging reasons, some of which are not covered by MEDRS. You don't need a clinical MEDRS study to establish that N% of cannabis users (whether medical or recreational) state that it causes relaxation or euphoria (psychological effects not easily measured by medical instruments). And the current structure of Cannabis_(drug) provides *no* section for describing non-adverse MEDRS-documented effects that apply to *any* cannabis user (medical, spiritual, recreational), such as increase in pulse rate and appetite.

Again, just my opinion in this discussion. I appreciate the goals of MEDRS, something that (as an editor of cannabis) I had never heard of 10 days ago. Hence this discussion :-) Finney1234 (talk) 04:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

• MEDRS's goals have basically nothing to do with whether someone "is going to medically suffer from that use of the source." It's about making sure that biomedical information (e.g., effects caused in humans when they ingest a non-food product) is accurately represented, with primacy given to recent scholarly views. Speaking of which: do you know what's happened to marijuana during the half-century(!) since Charles Tart published that? Enough to make his "careful" surveys utterly unrepresentative of current experience.
• MEDRS doesn't prescribe any order of sections. And you do need MEDRS-style studies to establish what users experience, because How to Lie with Statistics is an artform in billion-dollar industries, especially when their marketing methods are constrained by inconvenient laws.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• WP:MEDMOS doesn't prescribe any order of sections either, despite what one or two editors think. -- Colin°^Talk 14:12, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Condition & Drugs

09:47, December 4, 2021 - «‎What is biomedical information?: while I'm at it»
09:47, December 4, 2021 - «‎What is biomedical information?: since it seems everything needs to be WP:WL-proofed these days»

@Alexbrn: Not that fast. This is certainly result of the discussion that took place here recently. I strongly disagree with any attempt to widen this supplement with any non-medical mentions of any "conditions" or "drugs". I propose you either explicitly specify that WP:BMI applies only in the contexts of medical condition or drug administration significant for the treatment of human diseases or wellbeing of human health generally or drop this altogether. --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

No, because that would be wrong. WP:MEDRS applies to biomedical information anywhere in article space, much as WP:BLP applies to any biographical information in article space. Alexbrn (talk) 09:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I inform you once again that WP:MEDRS applies to sources that are attributed to biomedical information. And by biomedical information I (personally) understand anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such. The WP:BMI (as I understand) intended to clarify the difference and I will stick to what I just said above and here. Agree or disagree. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:02, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

We get it. You don't like MEDRS and are going to fuck around with WP:POINTy game playing until the community loses patience and sanctions you. Hasten the day, I say. Alexbrn (talk) 10:09, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Whatever. I stand by what I just said above. You can't ignore the fact that misapplication of WP:MEDRS in conjunction with WP:BMI already caused a decent amount of endless discussions that lead nowhere. This will simply clear the way for more. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:21, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

"endless discussion that lead nowhere" seem to me to stem more from game-playing editors who are not interested in building the encyclopedia. I have mentioned your edit at WT:MED. Alexbrn (talk) 10:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Your interpretation is at odds with the consensus from this recent RfC, which removed a sentence in the lead that some editors had been invoking to restrict BMI to statements that directly covered human health (e.g., "anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such"); this RfC also shot down the claim that the guideline was solely or even partly intended to prevent negative health consequences that might arise from misinformation on WP. JoelleJay (talk) 18:27, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

… also shot down the claim that the guideline …. That RfC explicitly restricted WP:MEDRS to WP:BMI. The rest is a gross misinterpretation of the RfC outcome. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:37, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Can you point to where and how "MEDRS exists to help editors find reliable sources in the fraught landscape of biomedicine literature, popular writings, et al. and is not intended to support those seeking health information per se" and the rejection of "concern that removing the "medical advice" bit represents an unwarranted expansion of MEDRS' scope" explicitly restricts MEDRS to BMI? And how "is not intended to support those seeking health information per se" doesn't contradict your interpretation that MEDRS should only apply to "anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such"? JoelleJay (talk) 08:26, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

…anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such
That's just my opinion expressed above and It shouldn't be understood as my interpretation of the WP:BMI in general. The RfC clearly ended in preference of the Option 2, NOT in the preference of the summary of the closer. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 11:08, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

The interpretation of Mr. Axonov here would exclude alcohol intoxication and its effects on the human body as a medical matter. It would make "alcohol is good for you, emotionally" a citable claim to any number of non-medical secondary sources. A plainly irresponsible claim. We must not forget the reasons why MEDRS is so important. The effect of writing about medical claims (and I include health effects on the human body of any substance in that category) is wide-ranging and of paramount importance. We cannot allow Wikipedia to become a place where misinformation about dangerous substances (and actually helpful treatments) spreads any further. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:27, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

… interpretation of Mr. Axonov … Interpretation of what and where? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

For the record. All the following three discussions were caused by misuse of WP:MEDRS: [4][5][6] AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 23:12, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

"Misuse", or "use that prevents me from adding the content I want to an article"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, the WP:MEDRS serves the purpose of identifying sources (attributed to biomedical information), not the content.… AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 19:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

But if you don't have the sources, you can't add the content that you want to add. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate that everyone here is discussing in good faith. But this entire conversation has an increasing WP:IDHT vibe. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:50, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a case of #Failure or refusal to "get the point". I think it is more likely to be a case of utter astonishment at discovering that other editors not only understand what you believe would be best for an encyclopedia article but also actually, truly, genuinely don't want you to do that seemingly reasonable thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Responding to Alexbrn's request that I clarify the original intent of the text. Yes, the intent was to include these cases, and I think that is inherently implied - the titles wouldn't make sense, otherwise. The repetition was only left out in order to avoid awkward wording. One of the central concepts here is that MEDRS does not require the specific context of "treatment" or "disease" in order to apply. Sunrise (talk) 12:30, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@Sunrise: To be clear, should your words be interpreted as supportive for changes made by Alexbrn at [09:59], [09:47], and [09:47, December 4, 2021] ? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 12:50, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@Sunrise: I clarify the original intent of the text.
Doubtful. You made only a minor change to the pre-existing text introduced long before you: [04:52, July 31, 2015];
@Sunrise: […] MEDRS does not require the specific context of "treatment" or "disease"
Not the case either. Here is your edit for example: [05:13, July 31, 2015]. The words that dominate that diff are: medical, human health, treatment, disease. And all of sudden you tell us that …MEDRS does not require ... context.^{[12:30, DEC 5, 2021]} By what I judge, you engaged in establishing the same context you now see as "not required". This is highly contradictive. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 13:46, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I support Alexbrn's changes. I think that they improve clarity wrt non-medical substances. Also, for the record, this concept also applies to "drug candidates", just in case any pharma person ever reads this. (For the pharma industry, "drug" is often synonymous with "product that already has FDA marketing authorization". What normal people call "an experimental drug" is not "a drug" in the industry jargon). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I support Alexbrn's changes. They add clarity to the text which is warranted and clearly in line with the original and lasting consensus about MEDRS. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:29, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, the edits add clarity and are good changes. It shouldn't be controversial, given it's just referencing both topics of each section's header in the body, but here we are. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn's edit seems fine. As an aside, since MEDRS is the application of policy to a specific subject area, it may be possible to shift the argument away from "Does MEDRS apply" to demonstrating failure against WP:WEIGHT or WP:V even. The recent RFC did not redefine the scope of MEDRS (wider or tighter), and very much has to be viewed in the context of editors warring over Covid origins. I can understand why an editor who views a guideline as "highly controversial, contentious, and seriously flawed" wants to limit its scope, but the community sentiment towards that guideline is quite the opposite, and the above efforts to seem to be heading in the admin sanctions direction. -- Colin°^Talk 08:55, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Alexbrn’s edits are fine. Axonov, it seems you’re still under the same misapprehensions that you held when I last encountered you. I also find that the way you have quoted and framed my words in your most recent reply to be misleading. Sunrise (talk) 16:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support Alexbrn's edits. As I understand it, this stems from people trying to argue that this is not biomedical information because the effects of cannabis are not a "treatment." Plainly it is; it's highly specific, highly technical claims about the medical impact a drug has on human biology - and more generally, the entire purpose of a drug is to have a biomedical effect on the human body. If that's causing confusion because people think the word "treatment" means that MEDRS doesn't apply to recreational drug use, then we need to tweak the text to make it clear that it does. (I think that even without the change in wording, self-medication for recreational effects is still a "treatment" and therefore it is unambiguously biomedical information under the current text; but it is worthwhile to clarify the text here so there is absolutely no room for anyone to be confused.) --Aquillion (talk) 22:19, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Aquillion: I see little reason to cover non-treatment (outside of medical context) administration of cannabis, caffein etc by strict WP:MEDRS sourcing requirements. May be you can enlighten me on that by a couple of links? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:28, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  WP:MEDRS says "Biomedical information requires sourcing that complies with this guideline". The effect of a substance on the body is a phenomenon in the realm of biomedicine. Therefore the effect of cannabis on the human body is subject to WP:MEDRS sourcing. This reasoning cannot be reasonably contradicted. I am beginning to wonder whether there is a language problem here? Alexbrn (talk) 09:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  Recreational drug use is a special case that is left at the discretion of the community as it may or may not require WP:MEDRS compliant sourcing. This is per WP:BMI as I read. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 11:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  You read wrong. Material about recreational drug use may be biomedical or not. That determination is based on ... whether the material is biomedical or not. That cannabis comes can be consumed in edibles or smoked, is (for example) not biomedical information. The effects on ingestion on the body are biomedical information. How is this not obvious? You seem to be under the impression that Wikipedia can craft "rules" which warp reality. Alexbrn (talk) 11:38, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  Alexander, it may disappoint you to learn that WP:BMI is a WP:SUPPLEMENTAL page (such pages "have a limited status, and can reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting."). The purpose of BMI is to help explain to editors what is biomedical information as far as the scope of MEDRS is concerned. It is not a guideline or policy page with community consensus for the definition of what is the scope of a policy or guideline. This page has been relatively undebated until the recent dispute over Covid19 pandemic origins. If this page is unclear, then editors will try to make it clearer. But please don't start wikilawyering about it. Particularly when it is obvious your of stated opinions on MEDRS scope are very much fringe on the project. -- Colin°^Talk 13:05, 9 December 2021 (UTC)