Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Baby Gender Mentor

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 06:16, 31 January 2007.

[edit] Baby Gender Mentor

Self-nomination This is an article about a blood test for early determination of an unborn baby's gender. I originally started this article in September 2005 as a stub under the title Acu-Gen Biolab (the maker of the test). As a result of the first peer review the article improved greatly, including a move to its current name. As the article evolved, it successfull became a good article in July 2006 and has been selected by the Medicine portal as one of Wikipedia's best articles related to Medicine. After additional improvements and a second peer review I am now confident the article meets FA standards. It is comprehensive and well-sourced, and I believe it is well written as well. It is stable and not prone to vandalism or edit warring. My one regret is I have not been able to produce a free image; but the article does make appropriate limited use of fair use images. Thanks in advance for your input. Johntex\^talk 01:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment. This sentence is a bit absurd: "If the twin is reabsorbed with no evidence it existed, then there is no evidence to support whether the twin existed or not." You may want to fix that. Kaldari 05:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, thanks. That sentence was clumsy. I have now replaced it with a more complete explanation. Please let me know if the new version is clear. Johntex\^talk 06:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The first image uses the wrong tag. A picture of a box isn't a logo, it's a promotional picture, and the tag should be {{Promotional}}. —ExplorerCDT 20:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC) Adequately addressed. —ExplorerCDT 22:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I changed the tag to {Promotional}}. Best, Johntex\^talk 05:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you, and with that being addressed, I give my support to this article's inclusion as an FA. —ExplorerCDT 22:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comments I like this article - it's an interesting if distinct odd subject - but there's a few prose and clarity issues. The thing that stands out most is the repeated introduction of different commentators on the subject; it reads in places like a news article with all the 'person x says this', '"blah blah", says person y', etc.
  • First paragraph of the lead - "biotech" should be "biotechnology", last three sentences are rather choppy.
  • Last paragraph of the lead: "unethical practices such as gender selection" contains an implicit value judgment about the practice.
  • I'm not clear on what the last sentence of the lead is trying to say. What other uses of the test would there be? Are these anecdotal reports really reliable?
  • The text says accuracy increases up to eight weeks; can the test still be used later in the pregnancy?
  • I'm confused; the 'test methodology' section says the accuracy claim comes from 20,000 live births, but the 'acclaim' section has Bonelli citing 2,000. Is one of them a typo, or do they get their own figures mixed up, or are these two different 'studies'?
  • Is Bonelli associated with Acu-Gen itself, or only with the reseller?
  • "With Acu-Gen so-far choosing not to publish proof of its claims, anecdotal evidence of several women receiving conflicting predictions worries doctors such as Diana Bianchi." - you should introduce Bianchi's qualifications before this sentence; otherwise we're left wondering why anyone cares what she thinks. (Similar examples of this 'news article' style come up later with the introduction of Carson and Bortz.) Also, it's not clear what "conflicting" predictions are; did the company predict both genders? Or do you mean incorrect predictions?
  • All the talk about vanishing twins makes me wonder what the test reports in a normal case of fraternal twins.
  • Slightly concerned about the number of BBB reports; are they coming in fast enough that this is likely to get old quickly?
  • "In China, gender selection has led to there being about 20% more men than women." - eek, 'led to there being' is awkward prose.
  • Why do we care about the title of the class Mutcherson teaches? If she's a legitimate expert, mention her academic qualifications, not what she put in the course catalog.
  • The test has been 'reported' available overseas - how did these people get it? Did the online retailer send it to overseas addresses?
  • "Acu-Gen is creating new requirements..." - 'is creating' suggests this is an ongoing event. But it sounds, from the end of that section, like the test is no longer available.
  • What happened with the trisomy 18 woman? (I got a chuckle at Wang's quote that the baby will 'cease to exist'.)
  • The company's location and offices are really baffling. NPR found a different biotech company and a Hindu temple, but WFTS found offices and labs at the same location? Did the reporters visit at different times? What is 'AmpliSensor' technology?
  • Why was there none of this controversy or coverage of the Paragon test? Opabinia regalis 01:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply - Hello Opabina regalis, thank you very much for reading the article and making a detailed reveiw. I will happily work to address each of your points.
    • Quotations - 'person x says this', '"blah blah", says person y', etc. - the reason for this is that many of these quotes are about controversial aspects of the test. I wanted to make it clear to the reader who claims what, and what their credentials are. I don't know how to do this other than the way I have done it. As you suggest later, I am swapping the order to introduce the speaker first and then provide their quote. Please let me know if this does not address your concern.
    • "biotech" should be "biotechnology", last three sentences are rather choppy - I fixed the redirect and re-wrote the last three sentences.
    • "unethical practices such as gender selection" - I struck "unethical"
    • not clear on the last sentence - what other uses? - I think this should be more clear now. They have allegedly used the test to offer medical advice in ways that would fall under regulation by the FDA. This is described futher in the section "Beyond gender testing". I have rewritten the lead and I have retitled "Beyond gender testing" to "Alleged use for medical diagnoses" in order to make the linkage more clear.
    • The text says accuracy increases up to eight weeks; can the test still be used later in the pregnancy? - Yes, the test can be used later in pregnancy. However, at 10 weeks, the test is apparently as accurate as it is going to get. In other words, it is just as accurate at 10 weeks as it is at 12 weeks, but it is more accurate at 10 weeks than at 8 weeks. Also, further into pregnancy, other techniques such as ultrasound become possible, so the Baby Gender Mentor loses some of its competitive advantage.
    • 20,000 vs 2,000 - In my opinion, the sources available are not conclusive enough to definitively answer your question. The 20,000 number comes form Acu-Gen, the 2,000 number comes from the president of PregnancyStore.com. It is possible one of them made a mistake, or it is possible they are talking about 2 different studies. I don't think there is any way at this point to know the answer, so I think we have to cite both numbers with the references and allow the reader to consider the possibilities.
      • Can you point out the difference in the text somewhere? Otherwise I'm afraid other readers will assume what I did, that there was a typo, and 'fix' one or the other. Opabinia regalis 03:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Is Bonelli associated with Acu-Gen itself, or only with the reseller? - I am not aware of any direct link between Bonelli and Acu-Gen beyond that of reseller-to-manufacturer. Bonelli is the president of PreganancyStore.com which is a reseller of the test. As far as I can tell, they are the only company that has ever been a reseller of the test. They have billed themselves as the "exclusive reseller" of the test. However, they do not currently have the test avaialable for sale on their website. Bonelli is also the president of MommysThinkin.com, which sells similar products very similar to those offered by PreganancyStore.com. In one source, Mommy's Thinkin' was said to do the "marketing" for the Baby Gender Mentor while PregnancyStore.com did the sales. This has not been claimed by any other source. I have never seen a mention of the Baby Gender Mentor at MommysThinkin.com.
    • Bianchi - introduce first before quoting - I confess I am a little surprised by this advice. Her credentials came in the very next sentence so it seems clear enough to me. However, I am OK with doing it the way you suggest so I have reversed the order. I have also switched the order for Carson and Bortz. Also, I changed "conflicting" to "inaccurate".
      • Maybe my own stylistic bias, but the previous order made it read like a news article. Unfortunately I don't think just swapping the sentence order is optimale either, as we're now left wondering why, eg, Bianchi's credentials are coming up so abruptly. Maybe the more general issue is the newslike reporting of quotations rather than paraphrases. (Just saying 'Diana Bianchi, one of the scientists whose work was cited by Acu-Gen, has expressed skepticism about the test.' wouldn't lose much, really.) This is something that Tony might give better advice on; he's usually the prose guy. Opabinia regalis 03:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • All the talk about vanishing twins makes me wonder what the test reports in a normal case of fraternal twins. - The way the test works is it is not really detecting the gender of the baby per say. It is either detecting fragments of a Y chromosome or it is not. If it detects a Y chromosome, the result is said to be male. If it detects no Y chromosome, then the result is said to be female. There are several things the test cannot tell. One of them is whether the woman is even pregnant or not. If the woman is not pregnant at all, then the test will fail to detect a Y chromosome, and it will report that she is pregnant with a girl. Likewise, the test cannot tell the difference between 1 baby girl and 2 or 3 baby girls. It cannot tell the difference between 1 baby boy and 2 or 3 baby boys. Finally, if there is a mixed-gender set of fraternal twins (or triplets or more) only the male(s) DNA will be detected. The twin will just predict a male birth. I don't think any source comes right out and specifically says this in plain English, but that is the way the molecular biology technique being used here would work.
      • • So the company doesn't actually say in their marketing anywhere that it can't detect twins? (I don't know if identical twins result in more fetal genetic material in the blood - I imagine it would - but if the trisomy 18 thing really happened, surely they can tell there's too much for one boy in a boy/girl fraternal pair.) Opabinia regalis 03:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Slightly concerned about the number of BBB reports; are they coming in fast enough that this is likely to get old quickly? - I will check this frequently and keep it up to date. Per the MoS, I have dated this checkpoint on their records. If I get hit by a bus and I'm no longer updating the article, anyone who reads it will be able to see if the data is out of date and update it accordingly. Since PregnancyStore.com is apparently not offering the test for sale at the moment, my prediction is that sales will decline and complainst to the BBB will show a corresponding decline.
    • "In China, gender selection has led to there being about 20% more men than women." - akward - I reworded to "In China, gender selection has led to men outnumbering women 55 to 45."
    • Why do we care about the title of the class Mutcherson teaches? - without this information, we only know that she is an assistant professor at the law school. We wouldn't know if she does maritime law or bioech law or real estate law or... The source states that she is an assistant professor in the law school and that this is the name of one of her classes. The source does not explain other qualifications/certifications that she may have. I think that the title of the class is relevant to her credentials to speak on this class. If you still disagree, I will take it out.
      • Well, if she doesn't have any expertise in the topic other than deciding to teach an elective, is her opinion that important? Opabinia regalis 03:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The test has been 'reported' available overseas - how did these people get it? Did the online retailer send it to overseas addresses? - presumably so, but no source specifically addresses this.
    • "Acu-Gen is creating new requirements..." - 'is creating' suggests this is an ongoing event. But it sounds, from the end of that section, like the test is no longer available. - I have changed this to "has created new requirements".
    • What happened with the trisomy 18 woman? - she delivered a healthy baby. I will add this to the article.
    • The company's location and offices are really baffling. NPR found a different biotech company and a Hindu temple, but WFTS found offices and labs at the same location? Did the reporters visit at different times? What is 'AmpliSensor' technology? - NPR found a biotech company called BioTronics. Wang is the president of both BioTronics and Acu-Gen. The AmpliSensor technology is explained on the BioTronics article. It is very similar (perhaps identical) to the technology behing Baby Mentor Gender. Wang is on the patents for the AmpliSensor technology. My explanation is; Wang founded BioTronics and invented AmpliSensor. (or perhaps he invented AmpliSensor and then founded BioTronics around his invention). AmpliSensor is a legitamately validated scientific method for detecting trace DNA (such as from a pathogen like Hepatitis) circulating in the human blood. Most of the references listed for Baby Gender Mentor are really references for AmpliSensor technology being applied to searching for Hepatitis or Megaloviris. They have nothing to do with pregnancy or gender detection. At some point, Wang decided he could use his AmpliSensor invention for this new market. For whatever reason, he decided to form a new company, Acu-Gen for the new business model. He didn't need more space, so he just operated Acu-Gen out of the same office space he already used for BioTronics. WFTS found labs and office space because they belong to BioTronics. WFTS either didn't bother to report that detail, or maybe Wang put up a second sign. I don't know. Unfortunately, I don't know if I can explain this any better in the article without veering off into original research. If you have suggestions about this I am all ears.
      • At least wikilink AmpliSensor? Maybe just noting the dates at which the two visits occurred would be useful. Currently one would assume that they shared space, but is it possible there was enough of a gap between the two visits for Acu-Gen to have acquired its own little space, or were the both visits around the same time? Opabinia regalis 03:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Why was there none of this controversy or coverage of the Paragon test? - The sources do not specifically answer this question. At this point, I can provide two alternative explanations. One is that Paragon never made it onto the Today show. Since they never got as famous, they never received the backlash either. The other explanation is that their test could be more accurate since they don't offer it until 10 weeks and since they require fresh blood drawn at a laboratory instead of dried blood placed onto a card by the customer in her home. I have encountered some complaints about Paragon. In general though, less good has been said about them, and less bad has been said about them. They are just not really on the radar screen in the same way Acu-Gen is. I am still doing some research to see if I can come up with enough informaiton to write an article on Paragon.
  • Thank you again. Please see if I have answered some of your points with the above explanations. I am making the changes I describe abovve and I will post back here to let you know when I think I am done. Johntex\^talk 08:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, I have made several changes to the article and I think I have now addressed all of the concerns, either by changes to the article and/or through explanations in my above reply to you. Please let me know if any problems remain. Thanks once again for your review. Johntex\^talk 09:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Pending the resolution of the prose issue, provisional support for this article. Opabinia regalis 03:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Reply - Thanks for staying with me as I work to address all your concerns and suggestions. Here is what I have done:
        • 2,000 vs 20,000 - as you suggested, I have now specifically mentioned in the text that the 2 people gave different figures.
        • Bianchi quotation - I think I found a solution to the Bianchi problem. The text now does a better job of introducing her by saying, "Among the scientific evidence cited by Acu-Gen's web site is a paper co-authored by Diana Bianchi, who is an expert on fetal DNA at Tufts University." Then I say what she said about the test.
        • Quotations generally - you have suggested to paraphrase quotations instead of directly quoting these experts. I have now done that for most of the people mentioned in the article. There are now only six experts that are still quoted. All the rest are paraphrased. I even removed one name comletely and paraphrased his quote as coming on behalf of his organization. There few remaining quotes are the ones that I feel are particularly instructive and therefore I am reluctant to remove them. Please look at the remaining quotes and see if you agree that they add a certain preciseness to the article. I did make substantial changes to the lead ins to them also. Finally, except for the woman on the Today show, I have not quoted any consumers nor used their names at all. Taking those names out simplified the prose a bit. The quotes remaining are from the people associated with the various companies and the various scientists that have been interviewed by the media as experts on the subject.
        • Detection of twins - I double-checked and I see that I was partially in error. The company does claim to be able to tell the difference between 1 girl and 1boy/1girl twins. They do not claim to be able to tell the differnce between 1 boy and 2 or 3 boys; or between 1 girl and 2 or 3 girls. I have added a new paragraph and a new reference into the article to explain this.
        • Mutcherson - I found a new source (he bio at the Camden Law school) that explains her creditials and area of focus, so I took out the name of her class, re-worded the part about her, and provided the additional reference.
        • Wikilink "AmpliSensor" - done.
      • I look forward to your thoughts. Johntex\^talk 18:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Looks good, one remaining question: if they do claim to be able to identify boy/girl fraternal twins as twins, then how do they claim inaccurate results as a consequence of 'vanishing twins'? Shouldn't they have reported the original pregnancy as a fraternal twin pair? (Related question: don't know if you know the statistics, but if their vanishing-twin explanation worked, shouldn't most of the errors have been females tested as males?) Opabinia regalis 02:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
          • I know - I had the same question. Here is what I can tell you:
            • The Acu-Gen website does not say much at all about how the test works. They really only have one sentence on the molecular workings of this test: "Acu-Gen Biolab employs AmpliSensor qPCR technique for the quantitative detection of the presence of the DYZ-1 DNA, a highly repetitive Y chromosome sequence, which can be detected in the peripheral blood of pregnant woman."
            • This source claims they are just looking for Y chromosome and if they don't find any Y chromosome, then they rule the pregnancy a girl.
            • Acu-Gen includes two pregnancy tests with the Baby Gender Mentor. To me, this implies that their own test cannot tell the difference between pregnant and non-pregnant and that they are only looking for presence or absence of Y chromosome.
            • Acu-Gen instructs the customer not to allow an adult male to handle the kit. This again implies to me that they are not detecting anything special about fetal DNA vs adult DNA. If they could tell the difference, then what would it matter if a man handles the kit? If they can't tell the difference, they how can they tell the difference between a boy and a boy/girl twin? The girl should be detected only as a lack of a boy if they can't tell the difference between the fetal DNA and the mother's DNA.
            • I have not come accross a single instance where Acu-Gen predicted twins.
          • Because of all the above, I initially thought they could not predict boy/girl twins. Then I found the portion of their web page where they claim the can detect boy/girl twins.
          • Concerning the probabilities, yes, I think you are right about what one would expect. Unfortunately, I don't have enough data to analyze given that I don't know what happened in very many of the alleged incorrect predictions.
          • If I had ~$600 to spend, and assuming they are still processing samples - I would love to send in two samples to Acu-Gen: One from an adult male and the other from a non-pregnant adult female. I suspect the results they would issue woulbe be "pregnant with boy" and "pregnant with girl", respectively.
          • In short, I recognize the inconsistency, but the inconsistencies seem to lie in the Acu-Gen claims. Until they publish more information then there is no way for anyone outside Acu-Gen to resolve the discrepency. I'd love to just say that in the article, but I was worried that could be construed as original research. None of the sources I have found have specifically mentioned this apparent discrepency in the Acu-Gen claims. The sources have all focused on the empirical evidence of the women who claimed to have received incorrect results - they have not delved into the apparent logical contradictions. Johntex\^talk 03:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
            • Hmmm, investigative reporting at its best. What do you think of just noting in the 'vanishing twin' paragraph that this is at odds with their claim of detecting fraternal twins? I don't think that qualifies as original research, falling into the 'obvious deduction' category. Opabinia regalis 06:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
              • OK, you are probably right. I added it into the vanishing twin section. Thanks, Johntex\^talk 07:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support and sorry for generating such a long thread ;) Opabinia regalis 02:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It's OK - thank you - the article is better because of it and that is great. Johntex\^talk 03:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support. A thorough, well written, well-cited article. I support following once the changes mentioned above are made (which I am assuming will be done).--NMajdan•talk 22:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support as above commentary has been taken care of and my review of it was clean. Great stuff getting obscure topics like this featured! — Scm83x ^{hook 'em} 07:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support Good work.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comments

:*In the "Test methodology" section, the statements of the company are treated as factual, ie "After eight weeks, accuracy is consistent through-out the pregnancy..." and "The test works by detecting fetal cells..." These are claims with no independent substantiation and should be qualified as such. :*The section entitled "Acclaim for the test" does not only contain acclaim, this section should be reworded to be more neutral, such as "Public discussion" :*Reference 31 for "with other studies reporting as little as 3%" needs to cite the PubMed abstracts of the papers themselves, not a list of paper titles on a third-party website. :*"In India, a recent report found that for every 1,000 boys born in 2004..." This reference need to cite the original report.

Overall well-written and comprehensive. TimVickers 18:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tim, thank you very much for reviwing the article.

• I re-phrased those sentences to make clear these are claims coming from the company.
• I retitled that section to "Initial media attention" to be more neutral.
• I updated Ref 31 with the PMID feature as well as the {{cite journal}} template.
• Unfortunately, the Boston Globe does not cite their primary source for the study on births in India, so I have to stick with just citing the secondary source. Fortunately, it is a reputable source, so I don't think it is ia problem.

Thanks again, Johntex\^talk 19:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You could try George SM. "Millions of missing girls: from fetal sexing to high technology sex selection in India." Prenat Diagn. 2006 Jul;26(7):604-9. PMID 16856224 If you want the Pdf, e-mail me through my user page. TimVickers 19:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for e-mailing me the PDF. That is a very interesting paper. It does not contain the exact same fact reported by the Boston Globe. Therefore, I re-worked that little section to use the over-all figures for India based upon the Prenat Diagn paper and provided the citation. Then, I still cite the fact reported by the Boston Globe as a secondary fact. The advantage to the Boston Globe article is that the full text is available on-line to check, while the Prenat Diagn paper is not. The abstract is available at PubMed, but the abstract does not mention the specific fact. Look OK? Johntex\^talk 21:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Support. All my comments have been addressed. TimVickers 21:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I think it just about meets the criteria. The use of "claim" (I removed some myself) is in words to avoid and shouldn't really be used outside of legal matters. Occasionally, too, the article might go into a little too much detail (like the information about India's boy/girl ratio). But these are minor quibbles; the article is comprehensive, well-referenced and well-written. Trebor 15:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.