Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. Johnleemk | Talk 08:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad

This is another attempt (see Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Johnubiprasad) to sing the praises of this scientist/doctor. Please see Talk:Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad where I've attempted to discover the facts and uncovered a tale of fraud and wild exaggeration. The user 202.138.112.252 (Contributions, talk) has made many related contributions that are probably similarly suspect (no citations). If I have a doubt over deleting it is that the article could be rewritten to contain the information currently on the talk page (in an encyclopedic form). That would serve two purposes:

1. If this guy's name reappears alongside some boast, then it can be corrected with reference to the page.
2. The presense of accurate information on the web about this person's history may be beneficial – see Saskatchewan Party Caucus News Release May 19, 2005.

If the page is deleted, then the various links should be deleted/ammended too. Colin 16:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC).

• Comment If this is the same page about the same person with a differnt page name, when it was 8 Delete comments to nil Keep comments, it does not seem you need to follow same process. But I'm not clear - are you proposing delete or keep? It seems you have investigated deeply. From what you say, and with this history, my thought is to keep with carefully checked factual information only, including the info you have on the Discussion page.Obina 17:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comment and time taken to consider. I'm really looking for advice from more experienced folk than me. Without the scandal, he's not notable enough IMO. If we delete then I think it is quite likely that the (mis)information will reappear, given Prasad's history. If we keep but with all the facts exposed then perhaps we will just end up with an edit war? --Colin 20:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete vanity, apparently from a known vanitarian. Madman 20:35, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Madman.
• Delete: I would have abstained – but creating pages with different names and almost similar contents are not a good idea to establish notability. NN. --Bhadani 11:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a different person.There are several people with this name.I think we should clarify.I looked up the scholar google and fouund him having conducted the research.(A.J.Prasad).There are several people with this name.The one you hav in mind is a psychiatrist from Ranchi.who is different from A.J.Prasad.Kedar Agarawal.(Psychiatrist,Delhi)

Indeed it is a different person.The one in Ranchi is Ashoka Prasad practicing in Bariatu Colony.This man A.J.Prasad has been in UP for over 15 years..Kedar Agarwal

I have been able to look up.The book is there in the NIMHANS,Bangalore Libraray(Boloical Basis of Neuroses0.I think it is a case of mistaken identity. Kedar Agarwal I deed AJ Prasad is am member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. it appears. Kedar Agarwal

• Comment Thank you for trying to clarify things but I'm pretty certain that the two are the same. However, I can't read the deleted Johnubiprasad article so don't know what it says. The AfD page contains a plea from a John Connolly that links Johnubi Prasad with Sodium Valproate, Biological Basis and TOP 1000 SCIENTISTS. The same link to all these was made by user 202.138.112.252 with Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad. Please see Talk:Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad for more details, where I've been careful not to assume all the AJ Prasads are the same person (though I suspect they are). What we do know is that 202.138.112.252 stated that Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad is the great granson of Rajendra Prasad (1st president of India). The ABC radio program mentioned on the AJP talk page also says AJP is the great grandson of India's first president.

Reading the ABC program transcript and the BMJ news report, you get a picture of someone who likes to have others think he is more important than he really is (Anna Monika Medal, Nobel Prize) and this fits with the exaggerated importance given to him re: sodium valproate and the biological basis of neuroses. Correcting this misinformation is one reason why I think it might be useful to keep this article but totally rewritten with the (unpleasant) facts.

If you still think we've got two people confused, can you cite some sources and full names saying exactly who is who. --Colin 10:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I think it may be worthwhile contacting Dr.V.Radharishnan of the Indian Psychiatric Association(Deputy Secretary).He seems to believe that there are two psychiatrists with this name.One is in Ranchi who has just returned from abroad and the other in Maharajganj.The Indian Medical Association also states that there are 8 people with this name on their membership rolls.I am trying to ascertain from them the wherabouts.Dr Rajendra Prasad was from Bihar which is where Ranchi used to be until rcently(now capital of Jharkhand).By the way on googling I came across. another doctor with this name in Farmington Michigan but I do not think he is a psychiatrist.I am the charman of psychiatry at Sfdarjung Delhi, the largest hospital here and I seem to remember a lecture by Dr.Jahnavi-Prasad( not Jonnubirprasad) as you mention on valproate a few years ago at teh Delhi Medical Association a few years ago but I do get the feeling that he was well settled in Maharajganj and remains there.Kedar Mal Agarwal.11th Jan.

I shall try and contact Dr.Radhakrishnan (his emial by the way is venkatradhakrishanan2000@yahoo.com)and write back.Kedar Mal Agarwal. -- 59.94.115.5 (talk · contribs) 11th Jan.2006

• Comment I have some information.The Indian Medical Association provided it.Ashoka Prasad is a graduate from Kanpur,1977.He trained in England.Ashok Jahnavi Kumar Prasad is a 1975 graduate from Patna.He spent some time in England then under Arvid Carlsson in Gothenberg and then some time at the NIH in Bethesda,MD USA before returning to India.There are therefore two psychiatrists with the same name.

My colleaugu looked at your comments and was interested to note the term Johnubiprasad.He pointed out that anyone ith any understanding of the Indian names would recognise this name to be phony.Jahnavi is a Sanskrit term meaning the Holy Ganges.It amy be spelt Janhavi but is never spelt Johnubi.On using the scholar google,I noticed a few articles by Ashoka Jahanavi Prasad but none by Johnubiprasad.The book(Biological Basis) is incidentally also in the All India Institute oif Medical Sciences Library just across the road and it is by Ashok Jahanavi Prasad and is dated 1988,much before the article on the ABC..The American Academy of Arts and Sciences also has a Foreign Honorary Member Ashoka Jahnavi Prasad.The article on the valproate appeared in Pharmatherepeutica as scholar google suggests and was by A.J.Prasad.I would tend to agree that it is an advance.All of us clinical psychiatrists had nothinmg but lithium for manic depression before that and it is toxic.We all use valproate now as a first choice.It may be worthwhile ascertaining from the Medical Council of England whteher there are two doctors with this name with these qualifications as they both worked in England.Also I have serious doubts about the charlaton's links with Dr.Rajendra.He in India is known as a thorough gentleman universally respected and next to Mahtma's family his is the family which has never to my knowledge abused their position,rare in India.It may be that someone is misusing the name. -- KMA -- 59.94.112.34 (talk · contribs) 12th January 2006.

• Comment I just came across the developments.Firstly,let me clarify that I use an Institutional internet connection and have written only the following articles(in addition to this one):

• Robert Evan Kendell:whose book Companion to Psychiatric Studies helped me enormously during my training
• Ian Brockington: whose book Motherhood and Mental illness I had consulted
• Ian Oswald:whose book Sleep I had again consulted during my training years.
• Sula Wolff: again whose book I had consulted(Children under stress)
• Solomon Halbert Snyder:whose work on endorp[hins formed the basis of mmy doctoral thesis.

Also your records would probably show that I had requested articles on Max Hamilton(whose scales are known to every psychiatric researcher),Sir Aubrey Lewis(doyen of British Psychiatry),Martin Roth and Felix Post(both eminent psychogeriatricians),Michael Rutter(father of child psychiatry) and Eliott Slater(father of psychiatric genetics)I believe that introduction of sodium valproate is a major advance as lithium was the only drug available for over twenty years.

I am certainly unaware oF Jounubbiprasad or whoever he is and apart from major chages in the Kendell artcle am unaware of any major corrections that have been instituted by your team.

Being a clinician of five years duration,I had included the entries of only those whose work I had relied upon in my research.I that makes me a "vanitarian",I am afraid my concept of vanity is slightly different.It may be prudent to suspend the right of people to write articles.But what I find hurtful is the sneering remark. -- Anil Kumar 202.138.112.252 (talk · contribs) 13th January,2006

I have just signed in. -- Anilkumar2006 (talk · contribs) 13th January,2006

• I've made my mind up and my vote is now: Delete. There may be a name confusion here. However an anonymous user who signs as John Connolly linked these names: "Ashoka Prasad (also known as Ashoka JOHNUBIPRASAD)". Perhaps Johnubiprasad is some kind of pet-name. Regardless, I think all the A J Prasads in this world would appear to be not notable enough for Wikipedia. Whilst sodium valproate may well be "a major advance", the role of A.J. Prasad in this advance (with the evidence available) would appear to be extremely minor. I repeat from the (soon to be deleted?) talk page:

According to the The History of Valproate in Clinical Neuroscience, PA Lambert is the first to use valproate to treat mania and had done so for a decade before publishing a paper in 1975. The papers PMID 5128637, PMID 1132367, PMID 6778456, PMID 6779508 all predate the one by A.J. Prasad:

• Prasad AJ (1984). "The role of sodium valproate as an anti-manic agent". Pharmatherapeutica 4 (1): 6-8. PMID 6438650. 

Prasad's article discusses just seven patients who were treated with sodium valproate and notes that five got better. This is not some large scale study, double-blind trial or even highly-cited paper. It is merely one of many small studies perfomed in the early 1980s (see "Psychiatry Update: Annual Review" by the American Psychiatric Association (ISBN 0880482427) page 138. This lists five other studies including another by Lambert in 1984 of 108 patients) Similarly, the comments regarding biological basis of neuroses are unsubstantiated. --Colin 09:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed you are right.This was not the first study.But let me take you back to lithium.JohnCade is credited with the discovery and it is known that he got himself unsuccessfully nominated for a knighthood(once by himself!).He did the study on the flimsiest of evidence and the inferences he drew were not supported by his results(frogs not dying on consuming urine of manics having taken lithium!).The adulation showered on him obscures the important fact-that it was Mogens Schou who conducted the first real trial using tested psychometric scales.Schou was a very unassuming man (he does not even have an article in the Wikipedia-I could not find enough details on the google as I did for all others including this)who was not given his due- and he never complained.I would advise you to look at the Emrich and lambert studies and note the psychometric tests employed.While Ashok Sir(he was with our medical college until his retirement in June 2005) has fully acknowledged in his paper that lambert and Emrich should be credited with the discovery(in the paper itself),all of this medical school believed he underplayed his role given that his was the first supported and sponsored clinical trial(by Sanofi).As far as the book goes,one has to read the preface by Professor Merton ,the then President of British Association of Psychopharmacology-"This is the first known effort to weave all the existing evidence of biological origins of neuroses and draw a meningful conclusion."As I have written the article,my vote would naturally be to retain it.RetainAnilkumar

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.