Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:30, 23 October 2008

Medicine C‑class Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine.MedicineWikipedia:WikiProject MedicineTemplate:WikiProject Medicinemedicine C This article has been rated as C-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Can

Can someone actually involved in or knowledgable about medicine/HIV actually add to this. It seems to be currently being used as a vehicle to support AIDS reappraisal conspiracy theories.--Jersey Devil 19:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to expand it and make it a little more medically relevant/useful. The bottom line is that ICL is extremely rare and there's just not much literature about it, but I've tried to cite what there is. You're correct in that the AIDS-reappraisal crowd points to ICL as some kind of "fatal flaw" in the HIV/AIDS paradigm. It's analogous to saying, "Look, there are people who turn yellow and develop liver failure without evidence of Hep B infection... therefore hepatitis B virus is harmless." In other words, a complete fallacy. MastCell 00:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Does that meant that their view needs to be expunged from the encyclopedia? --Striver 14:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course not. It means that their view needs to be presented accurately, as a minority viewpoint considered thoroughly debunked by the scientific mainstream, in accordance with the NPOV FAQ sections on equal validity and minority scientific theories. There are several pages dedicated to this view (see AIDS reappraisal for a starting point). Their view is hardly being "expunged"; on the other hand, it doesn't need to be plastered on every remotely related article either. MastCell 16:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so you view that their view is not relevant to this article, even tough they view this as one of their more important arguments? --Striver 21:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

No. My view is that AIDS reappraisal arguments should be discussed, in the proper NPOV context, on the AIDS reappraisal page. MastCell 22:49, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

AIDS denialism category

There's been a bit of back-and-forth as to whether this article should be placed in Category:AIDS denialism. I believe it should not. This is a medical condition. Yes, it has been appropriated by a small fringe group to further their claims about the harmlessness or non-existence of HIV, but that seems not particularly central to this condition. AIDS denialists cite a wide body of medical concepts (generally incorrectly) - for example, Koch's postulates, ELISA, passenger virus, etc... it would be giving undue weight to this tiny-minority view to categorize all of these mainstream concepts as being affiliated with "AIDS denialism". Such is my opinion. Thoughts? MastCell  17:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The use of fringe is an ad hominem attack and makes me question MastCell's objectivity in these matters. There are scientists (even one who has won a Nobel Prize who have made plausible scietific criticisms of current HIV/AIDS thinking. Such scientists have been labeled Category:AIDS denialism by the medical community and wikipedia editors. Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia is a scientifically plausible counter-example and should be included for that in reason in what I admit is a very strange category ( Category:AIDS denialism). --Firefly322 (talk) 18:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Categorizing a viewpoint as "fringe" is not ad hominem. It's a reflection of the fact that a viewpoint has little or no mainstream acceptance. We'll have to agree to disagree about the plausibility of AIDS-denialist claims, some of which should strike anyone with a college-level biology course under their belt as fallacious. Reliable sources and experts in the field unanimously reject these claims as wrongheaded, including those about ICL. But that's actually neither here nor there. I'm talking specifically about the use of Category:AIDS denialism on this article. I contend that it gives undue weight to the appropriation of this condition by a tiny fringe group. MastCell  18:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Several these so-called aids denialists are established members of Academia. Category:AIDS denialism category is highly problematic, it in itself is ad hominem attack (Henry H. Bauer has written that about the term as applied to him and other prominent scientists with critical views of aids). Nevertheless, Category:AIDS denialism is the term and category being used and so it should be used as objectively as humanly possible. The article already mentions and wiki-links to AIDS denialism in its lede, so I don't see how one can objectively claim that adding Category:AIDS denialism to the bottom is WP:UNDUE --Firefly322 (talk) 20:24, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think the passing mention of AIDS denialism in the article is also undue weight, but haven't tackled that issue. The naming of the category, or its application to living people, are topics for discussion elsewhere. MastCell  20:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Please use the talk page

Hi. Would you care to comment at Talk:Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia in between reverts? I'm not going to revert further, and I'm sure you're also aware of the three-revert rule (if not, please take a look). I'd appreciate an explanation of your position based on Misplaced Pages policy rather than a "gotcha" from another article, which smacks of disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point. Thanks. MastCell  17:58, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should take this WP:3? Can we agree to something civilized like that? --Firefly322 (talk) 17:59, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

That would be fine with me. I also left a talkpage comment, so we could wait a bit to see if anyone else chimes in. Up to you. MastCell  18:00, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:3 is usually a good way. --Firefly322 (talk) 18:01, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

• Some points:

1. The condition is described as idiopathic. This means that the cause is unknown.
2. The effect is quite similar to that described by the term AIDS.
3. Since it is usually emphasised that HIV and AIDS are distinct - one being a cause and the other an effect, it follows that AIDS might have other causes. It is not clear to me why this condition is not or should not be described as AIDS too.

It therefore seems reasonable that the article should make some mention of AIDS and its common characteristics. The focus should be on the medical similarities rather than HIV denialism, which seems a peripheral matter. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with CW and MC, so I've removed the category AIDS Denialism as it hasn't been shown to be warranted as yet. Verbal chat 18:46, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Removing that cat now under the facts of the matter is simply WP:tendtious editing. --Firefly322 (talk) 20:30, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

• C-Class medicine articles
• Mid-importance medicine articles
• All WikiProject Medicine pages