Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Cardioretinometry

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was delete. – ABCD 01:02, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cardioretinometry

Very new if not original research; neologism. All references were produced by the author of the article. Moreover, this article published recently outlines how important people in the world are trying to destroy cardioretinometry via virus and trojan attacks. Is this the kind of dangerous material we want in the encyclopedia? Delete barring refereed references. +sj + 05:37, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I find 60 unique google hits for "CardioRetinometry". Many of them refer to an alleged virus attack that targeted the term. Every hit that I scanned (including the "warning messages" about the attack) was authored by Sydney J Bush PhD. DOpt. (IOSc. London) who also signed this article. Searching for several key phrases does not find an obvious duplicate so I do not believe this to be a copyvio. He claims that this concept has been published in British Medical Journal but I can find no evidence of either CardioRetinometry or even of S Bush as an author. I believe that this falls afoul of our No original research rules. An identical article was cut-and-pasted in at CardioRetinometry by the same anon contributor. (That article is now also tagged with VfD and points to this discussion.) Delete both versions. Rossami (talk) 22:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I think I've found the "British Medical Journal" publication: it appears to be a letter to the editor [1] --Carnildo 19:25, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Appears to be original research. I don't get what you mean by "dangerous material". --Carnildo 22:49, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, if the "Global PharMafia" and/or the cartel of "Organised Medicine" are indeed behind a [virus and Trojan attack] on cardioretinometry, why, surely it would be far too dangerous for Wikipedia to host this article! After all, we all know how dangerous that Russian origin website ".ru" is. Delete, BTW. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:11, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Real science has been done in this field, with interesting results. The article at present is a bit of a puff piece, hopelessly POV, densely written and often rather bizarre, but that's no reason for deletion. It just needs cleanup and removal of the original research. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • It may be real, but I can't find any evidence of it online. A Google search results in about 110 hits: 20 on the use of "cardioretinometry" as a virus/trojan horse target keyword, 70 hits from "vitamin C as a panacea" sites, which are worthless as the basis for a scientific article, two sites that don't exist, VfD discussions on three Wikipedia mirrors, a few press releases, one "letter to the editor" in the BMJ, and two sites listing that Dr. Sidney Bush has an honorary doctorate. What part of this could I use to write an article? --Carnildo 19:25, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking of this study finding a possible link between narrowed retinal arterioles and long term risk of hypertension. One could write up an article explaining how this may or may not be evidence to support the cardioretinometry hypothesis. One could document the trojan stuff. NPOV is very powerful, we could produce an article that would enable people to make sense of the claims and understand their basis (or the lack of it). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:05, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've modified the article to remove all material that is unverifiable, irrelevant, POV, or original research. The BMJ article you mentioned doesn't seem to be relevant -- it's for a fairly conventional diagnostic technique, while cardioretinometry seems to be about measuring pixel-level differences in digital images of the retina. The article is now a substub, and barely more than a dicdef. --Carnildo 23:58, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This research IS completely new and original: I would like to delete the entry CardioRetinometry (with a Capital 'R')as it was submitted prematurely. I am happy with the other entry 'Cardioretinometry' (small r ). I am a practising Optometrist with many articles published in our optometric journals over the last 50 years. This new technique is one which scares the Global PharMafia. The GOOGLE search went up to over 2,200 before they regained control and deleted most of the malicious websites. This 'snowstorming' of Cardioretinometry so that it could not be found in the blizzard of 'results' must be significant? I had no control once my Press Release "Cardioretinometry Attacked" was issued to tell the world what was happening and to warn people not to 'CLICK' on to .ru Russian malicious websites. I am now being criticise for this? Cardioretinometry was featured at the top of the Bolen Report for 3 days twice! Prof Hickey and Dr Roberts mention it or me by name 14 times in Ridiculous Dietary Allowance.: with 100 scientific objections to the RDA. See also their "Ascorbate - the Science of Vitamin C" The new definitive textbook. They say "the RDA is not science - it is politics." Around half the USA adults take either beta-blockers or statins. This market is seriously threatened if optometrists measure people's vessels, prescribe harmless antioxidants and monitor them to keep them in good health. My medical colleagues are split. I have some on my medical panel. One was threatened and had to leave. I was subject to a scurrilous attack via the General Optical Council alleging I had published his name without permission. This gives the measure of Medical and Pharmaceutical dirty tricks of which I was warned by the vitamincfoundation website. They are not frightened of the Global PharMafia. I find no words to describe people who would suppress the truth and harm tens of millions of people than risk offending the PharMafia or Western Palliative Allopathic Medicine. Have these people consciences? If they have links with medicine or pharmacy they should declare themselves incompetent. Naturally, I wish to claim credit for the discovery following £80,000 worth of unfunded private investment on parallel glaucoma research leading accidentally to this discovery. I am currently preparing a paper for submission to "Medical Hypotheses." The BMJ challenge by Wong came before I was ready. my replies are to be found in Replies to Wong in the Rapid Responses July 23rd, Nov 26th. 04. There are so many links to the BMJ Rapid Responses that the critics compromise their own image who insist they cannot find them. Positive criticism please? Sydney J Bush

By positive criticism, do you mean meaningful criticism aimed at content, or do you just want encouraging comments? My immediate reaction was negative, based on the following:

1. The topic suggests this is a new diagnostic procedure by which cardiovascular health can be assessed by visualizaton of the retinal vessels. Appropriate coverage of a new diagnostic test is to compare its sensitivity and specificity to established techniques for assessing the same thing. If something this basic has not been done and published, then this procedure is not ready for prime time so to speak. It is certainly simple, but I see no references to proof of value.
2. The discussion of this new diagnostic procedure is mixed up with advocacy of extra vitamin C for vascular health. It is simply a separate topic, and both the diagnostic value of cardioretinometry and the therapeutic value of vitamin C need to be proven independently of this tangled mess.
3. Credibility is lowered to near zero by preposterous and overblown claims: that this is a "new science", that it is under attack by the Pharma Mafia, that it will put cardiologists out of work, etc. No cardiologist is worried. The medical literature is full of reports of relatively simple measures of health (e.g., finger contractures as a subtle sign of prolonged poor glucose control), and no one is suppressing the "secrets" of healthy living. Vegetables, vitamins, and exercise don't put anyone out of business and no one suppresses them. Why is this different?
4. Anything that Tim Bolen is touting is likely quackery, like Hulda Clark. You really don't want to be associated with him.
5. Your website doesn't seem to understand that Medical Hypotheses is a journal that publishes pure unproven speculation (for a page charge too?). When you cite it in a way as to suggest it enhances the credibility of the technique, you make me think you are either extremely naive or downright dishonest.

I am not quite positively sure this is quackery, but I'm pretty close. Is that positive enough for you? alteripse 02:50, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

AUTHOR'S FURTHER REPLY: Thank you for your considered comments: 30,000 NLM papers mentioning vitamin C since 1950! FIVE PAPERS! on 'CHD and ascorbate.' I should rest my case for a conspiracy against vitamin C? Optometrists in N. America, an eye doctor in Los Angeles (met at a dinner given in my honour) and optometrists in the UK are now starting Cardioretinometry. They understand the 'before' and 'after' images (some of medical patients) there for everyone to study. My paper in 'Medical Hypotheses' (if they publish it, for no major medical journal will be allowed by the Global PharMafia to publish it) will mention a virtual forty year absence from the literature of coronary heart disease (CHD) papers (5 YES FIVE PAPERS! if you search for 'CHD and ascorbate' and the five since 1995!)There have been over 30,000 papers mentioning vitamin C in this time but trivial and trivia on CHD. It is as if the literature has been swept clean! All CHD and ascorbate papers vacuumed out! I estimate that between 5,000 and 10,000 papers on heart disease and vitamin C are missing. Are you aware of anybody benefiting from the research mentioning vitamin C in the 30,000 papers? How many receive advice to take more vitamin C from physicians? Yet when I was a medical student we were trained in it to know better! That vitamin C impacts on the cardiovascular system and scurvy kills this way needs no further proofs. There has been a serious distortion of the literature. Prof Hickey and Dr Roberts mention the word 'genocide' in their works. Dr Mark Levine (RDA committee) no longer answers correspondence. Cardioretinometry, by direct observation of impacts on retinal arteries reveals this and will expose the fraud. My friend Prof Denham Harman, Emeritus prof. of cardiovascular research, Nebraska, brought antioxidants and arteries to our notice in Nov 57 with the Free radical Theory of ageing and Disease. That was another new science. My closest medical contacts admit the suppression privately and also agree that Western Medicine is run like the Nazi Party. The half life of vitamin C in the plasma is 30 mins! Pharmacologically indefensible 'Milligram once/day medical madness' is killing the majority before their time who do not have a good vitamin C 6th gene. View the images yourselves. The best images, showing hypertension reversed are saved for my coming textbook and lecture to the Univ. of California Berkeley Campus Macula Group when I return to the USA. Spend some time please, looking at the 'before' and 'after' images and begin to understand their significance. They cannot be faked. I have hundreds like them but to Prof Elliott, Head of Dept at Bradford, it is not worth the bus fare to come to Hull to see them. (Sorry David but you know it is true) It is not easy at first sight, even for some optometrists to immediately realise what they are looking at. But the better Ophthalmologists do! Go see an optometrist and study your own arteries before and after four months of 1 gram qds pure asocbate powder. Look for cholesterol disappearing from the arterial bifurcations. Ask the optometrist to send the images to me if you wish on cardioretinometry@hotmail.co.uk (2Gb to handle them so practical to consult me anywhere in the world) and e-mail me on sydneybush@hotmail.com Thank you. Sydney Bush

Dr. Bush, whether cardioretinometry is quackery, or whether it's a jaw-dropping medical breakthrough that isn't being published in any major medical journal because "Western Medicine" and the "Global PharMafia" are controlling all the major medical journals, doesn't really change the answer we have for you: Wikipedia is here to reflect notability, not to create it. Arguing to us about how great and wonderful cardioretinometry is won't change that; our policies prohibit unpublished research. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

REFUTATION NOT ABUSE An account of Cardioretinometry was published as a BMJ rapid response on July 23, 2004. The response can be found here: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/329/7457/79 The term Cardioretinometry describes a series of observations on the vasculature of the eye and its response to high doses of ascorbate (vitamin C). These observations, if independently replicated, could have substantive implications for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease and other conditions.

Currently, Cardioretinometry refers to a hypothesis with some supporting clinical observations. Like any new observation, it requires replication. Moreover, the reported observations can easily be replicated. The experiments necessary are extremely low cost, take only a week or two and can be conducted by any competent optometrist.

Dr Hilary Roberts and I included a description of Cardioretinometry in our recent book "Ridiculous Dietary Allowance" (see www.amazon.com). Notably, the book issued an open scientific challenge to the RDA for vitamin C and other recommendations for low doses. The RDA book was reviewed before publication by a scientific representative of the UK Institute for Optimum Nutrition. It was then submitted in draft form to both the NIH and the US Institute of Medicine who were asked to provide a rebuttal. Finally, over two thousand copies of the RDA book were made available as a free internet download for open review. Readers were asked to reply providing details of any significant errors in the text. No such errors were reported. Since this was a most exacting "peer review" process, I suggest Cardioretinometry should remain until refuted scientifically. Dr Steve Hickey

Sorry, but the conspiracy theory is silly and as soon as you start comparing your opponents to Nazis, (see Godwin's law) you have further reduced your credibility. Now if I ignore the preposterous, you are making 2 separate rational, testable, scientific claims:

1. That your retinal photographs are a valid assessment tool for cardiovascular health (i.e., risk of stroke or heart attack I assume), and that changes in the retinal vessels reflect real change in risk of these events. It sounds very much like a technique that one might compare to carotid doppler ultrasound. Look at the studies that established carotid doppler ultrasound or some similar techniques for assessing risk short of coronary angiograms. How did they get proven or rejected? The same way every other diagnostic test gets confirmed useful or rejected-- by demonstrating its actual predictive association with cardiovascular events, or by demonstrating a close correlation with an accepted and proven test that predicts such event. Why not simply do that instead of crying conspiracy and suppression? This technique might be a valid method of testing vascular health even if the vitamin c claim is not.
2. The assertion that extra vitamin C will lower risk of cardiovascular events should be provable or refutable by other techniques besides cardioretinometry. Why can't it be independently true or false? It shouldn't make any difference which valid measure of blood vessel health or cardiovascular risk you use, if the benefit is that striking, it should be demonstrable. I am not a cardiologist or an expert in the relationship between diet and heart disease, but I suspect there have already been some studies attempting to demonstrate a relationship between cardiovascular health and vitamin C use. What have they shown? The vitamin C claim might be true even if the retinometry technique proves worthless.

In other words, the road to establishing your claims is clear, if not easy. You have offered no proof of this hypothesis and it should not be presented as established fact in an encyclopedia. If you are quick to bring in nazis, claims of suppression and conspiracy, and claims to other people to disprove it, our decision heuristics will categorize you as someone who is too illogical to take seriously. Sorry, these are just the rules that we all play by. alteripse 01:08, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

AUTHORS REPLY. I most certainly have offered proof. Enough proof to convince many optometrists and one ophthalmologist; enough proof to worry Official Western Medicine. The proof is first time ever demonstrated reversal of arterial disease (and that means heart disease) by an adequate number of fundus images published on the Internet.

I have not offered proof that the arterial improvements are due to vitamin C. That is my hypothesis. But seventy years of literature is strongly supportive of arterial benefits with no refutation to be found whatever, of mmegadose vitamin C (over 10 grams/day) failing to produce benefits, except my own comments on a single patient. Not a single article claims it is harmful to arteries. Apart from these basic, elemntary considerations Cardioretinometry was the new technique that revealed these microscopic improvements and as such the technique cannot legitimately be excluded from the encylopaedia. I hypothesise that had my practice not been the only one in the UK to dispense vitamin C in 200 gram pots of pure powder, I would not have had the opportunity to discover them. CardioRetinometry, starting as a diagnostic technique for glaucoma, happened to be the right tool in the right place at the right time to reveal changes never before demonstrated.

CardioRetinometry is a here to stay fact of life seen by hundreds of my patients who return for it.

How can the images be denied as proof? I am grateful for Prof Hickey's comment. I have a duty to report evidence as I find it in my clinical work. The evidence for conspiracy against vitamin C is a second issue. It is building. If I am able with the help of other optometrists to prove conclusively that vitamin C redverses retinal atheroma, and this after 70 yrs of Official Medicine, will it not finally prove the physicians to be charlatans?

(1) Allegations against me by Official Medicine rejected by the General Optical Council. (2) direct atacks on Cardioretinometry by Global PharMafia - (the title sounds right for the Internet Attacks) Why should they spend so much except to protect beta blockers and statins a $50Bn ? (my guess) market. (3) MRSA provides more evidence: My first eBMJ letter drew no reply to the challenge. My second letter stopped the correspondence. (4) The 'skewed' entirely disproportionate resarch 30,000 vitamin C papers on relative trivia. Below is an analysis to prove the point: (5) The RDA book with 100 valid scientific objections to the fictitious RDA and not contested by Official Medicine is damning evidence. This is not the place for a review of this subject, It is a pity that it is being used to criticise CardioRetinometry. CardioRetinometry is a new tool to assess ther impact on arteries of diverse nutrients like, magnesium lecithin, Vitamin B6, GLA and a vast range of others for their relevance to individual arterial health, in a totally direct and non-invasive manner with microscopic accuracy, never before possible.

CardioRetinometry will save millions from early death whether by identifying a vitamin C deficiency or any of a dozen other factors positive or negative.

EVIDENCE:

Total Vitamin C Papers NLM EntrezPubMed database.

Vit C = 29,884 Ascorbic Acid = 30,287 Ascorbate = 8483

  "Coronary heart disease AND vitamin C"     search produces

1961 to 1967 not one paper

1974 to 1979 NONE (until Emil Ginter's "Decline of CHD mortality with VC")

1960 to 1978 21 pprs.

Past 12 months 16 pprs

and the year before 26 pprs!

Regarding the vitamin C suppression, four years ago a Prof. of Medicine told me "Things are getting better." (his exact words)

Interestingly?

Vit C AND Deficiency 2,892 pprs

Vit B .. .. .. .. .. .. 14,844

Vit D .. .. .. .. . 7,897

Vit E .. ... .. .. 4,426

Vit K .. .. .. .. . 2,139

CALCIUM .. . .. .. 11,447

Sodium .. .. .. .. ..6,073

Potassium .. .. .. .. ..4,427

Magnesium .. .. .. .. 4,857

People obviously feel safe doing Calcium and Vit B research, not upsetting anybody. I myself have been asked by many ophthalmologists not to find a cure for cataract.

No BMJ copyright can be claimed for reproducing my own letters below. Since I am accused of "silly" support for my allegation of a vitamin C conspiracy I add this to the mass of suppressive material e.g. the "CardioRetinometry Attacked" evidence. How does one offer evidence other than a statistical analysis of literature pointing to the distortions due to omissions? One has to be more perceptive to see something that is NOT there especially if one trusts the medical profession and is not looking for fraud. That is the problem.

My Letters to e-BMJ 29th Nov. 2004 Re Reducing MRSA on orthopaedic wards are now reproduced below. Make up your own minds as to whether or not vitamin C is being suppressed at the cost of lives to presereve medical incomes. Even Dr John Reid's own mother died of an MRSA infection. Klenner WROTE "Physicians would rather the patient die than adnmit the power of vitamin C beyond the range of a vitamion!" He was not the first.

[edit] ==

Editor BMJ, 30th July 2004 From Dr. Sydney J Bush PhD. DOpt. (IOSc. London)

Sir, "It is increasingly widely known that concentrated ascorbate, especially at plasma levels that can be safely achieved by intravenous application, has successfully overcome conditions formerly regarded as incurable.

Nakanishi (1992 and 1993) reported that application of ascorbate topically to bedsores was able to remarkably enhance the bacteria killing effect of antibiotics. Nakanishi also noted that Staph. aureus which had been antibiotic resistant prior to this treament, 'disappeared from the area.' (Thomas E.Levy.MD. JD. "Vitamin C, Infections and Toxins. Curing the incurable" 2002 XLibris Corp. ISBN 1-4010 6964-9)

References: Nakanishi T. (1992) "A report on a clnical experience of which has successfully made several antibiotic resistant bacteria (MRSA etc) negative on a bedsore" Article in Japanese Igaku Kenkyu. Acta Medica 62(1):31-37

Nakanishi T. (1993) "A report on the therapeutical experiences which have made several antibiotics resistant bacteria (MRSA etc.) negative on bedsores and respiratory organs." Article in Japanese. Igaku Kenkyu. Acta Medica 63(3):95-100.

Klenner Fred. MD. FCCP. Too many to list in J. of Southern Medicine and Surgery and Tristate Medical Journal.1949 onwards.

Cathcart R. (1981) VITAMIN C, TITRATING TO BOWEL TOLERANCE, ANASCORBEMIA, AND ACUTE INDUCED SCURVY Medical Hypotheses, 7:1359-1376, 1981"

Sydney J Bush

Competing interests: None

[edit] ==

Editor BMJ, 29th Nov. 2004 From Dr. Sydney J Bush PhD. DOpt. (IOSc. London)

Sir "I am unable to understand why, after publication of the evidence I submitted on 30th July quoting the two papers on the efficacy of ascorbate in killing MRSA in Japanese research by Nakanishi T. and available on Entrez PubMed, no interest at all has been shown.

Could it not be the case that non-toxic IV ascorbate would provide an instant solution to these infections and many others, and may one ask why it has not been done? There is not even a negative paper to be found in the literature on the subject of multigram doses of ascorbate IV - only many successes and positively beneficial sequelae. The prompt resolution of many bacterial and viral infections by ascorbate IV have been reported by Klenner F and others from 1949 onwards.

If the public has to wait much longer as the death rate mounts, might not MRSA patients start discharging themselves from hospitals in order to start injecting themselves?

I would."

Sydney J Bush PhD. DOpt. (IOSc. London)

Competing interests: None

OK, you have convinced me. This is nonsense and I vote for deletion as well. Do you really not understand the difference between proving your point as I described above (items 1 & 2) and your approach which is making bold claims with little evidence and then claiming conspiracy and suppression when no one is convinced? You could be dooming the best treatment idea anyone has had in decades by this approach. If your method and treatment are valid it will have to wait for someone else willing to do the work to prove it and get the credit for it. You have chosen the "crank-martyr" role and intelligent people will continue to ignore and dismiss you. Sorry. alteripse 12:10, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

CARDIORETINOMETRY IS ONLY A HYPOTHESIS Sydney Bush may be doing himself no favours in his replies. However, his observations and hypothesis are interesting and potentially important. Alteripse (above) rightly points out that the danger is we could loose a beneficial treatment. Perhaps someone could rewrite the entry in a more acceptable format. That is, resubmit "Cardioretinometry" as a hypothesis, with case study support, awaiting replication. This is the current scientific position of these observations. Steve Hickey

The world will hardly lose cardioretinometry if Wikipedia declines to have an article on it at the current time. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:13, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

MANY THANKS Congratulations to whoever took the trouble to rewrite this entry. Its presence in Wikipedia may help stimulate another optometrist to replicate/refute these claims. Steve Hickey

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.