Talk:Hair analysis (alternative medicine)

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on December 9, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.
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[edit] New article

Looks like a POV fork to me--TheNautilus 09:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It separates the subject into its extremely different elements. Right now the hair analysis article is a disambiguation page that causes confusion. The current content here should be removed from the other article, with only a mention and a link to this one left in place. -- Fyslee 10:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Done. Now this article can concentrate on one aspect without any confusion. -- Fyslee 10:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you should try to participate in writing a technically coherent hair analysis article before running off with a negative POV fork in an unfamiliar subject area. Then it will be less confusing.--TheNautilus 12:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quackery

This discussion is copied here from the Hair analysis article. -- Fyslee 10:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The quackery category could perhaps be applied to a theoretical hair analysis service article, but since the science supporting the validity of hair analysis in general is pretty much taken for granted, there's no reason to apply it to this article. In fact, the only criticism of hair analysis services is from over 20 years ago. --Lee Hunter 20:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, this article only covers the subject very briefly, including the legitimate and illegitimate aspects, and doesn't focus exclusively on the current misuse of hair analysis (so the disputed categories stay off), which hasn't changed much in the last 20 years, except for getting more sofisticated and widespread. It is misused even more now, and in many situations.
Here are a few links with plenty of information:
The above policy is based on the following references:
  1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). Hair analysis -- not covered. Medicare Coverage Issues Manual §50-24. Baltimore, MD: HCFA; 2000.
  2. Lazar P. Hair analysis: What does it tell us? JAMA. 1974;229:1908-1909.
  3. Hambidge KM. Hair analyses: Worthless for vitamins, limited for minerals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1983;36:943-949.
  4. Klevay LM, Bistrian BR, Fleming CR, Neumann CG. Hair analysis in clinical and experimental medicine. Am J Clin Nutr. 1987;46(2):233-236.
  5. Barrett S. Commercial hair analysis: Science or scam? JAMA. 1985;254:1041-1045.
  6. Filipek PA, Accardo PJ, Ashwal S, et al. Practice parameter: Screening and diagnosis of autism. Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and the Child Neurology Society. Neurology. 2000;55(4):468-479.
  7. Kruse-Jarres JD. Limited usefulness of essential trace element analyses in hair. Am Clin Lab. 2000;19(5):8-10.
  8. Hu H. Exposure to metals. Prim Care. 2000;27(4):983-996.
  9. Hindmarsh JT. Caveats in hair analysis in chronic arsenic poisoning. Clin Biochem. 2002;35(1):1-11.
  10. Niggemann B, Gruber C. Unproven diagnostic procedures in IgE-mediated allergic diseases. Allergy. 2004;59(8):806-808.
  11. Tsatsakis A, Tutudaki M. Progress in pesticide and POPs hair analysis for the assessment of exposure. Forensic Sci Int. 2004;145(2-3):195-199.
  12. Dolan K, Rouen D, Kimber J. An overview of the use of urine, hair, sweat and saliva to detect drug use. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2004;23(2):213-217.
  13. Passalacqua G, Compalati E, Schiappoli M, Senna G. Complementary and alternative medicine for the treatment and diagnosis of asthma and allergic diseases. Monaldi Arch Chest Dis. 2005;63(1):47-54.
  14. Savvopoulos MA, Pallis E, Tzatzarakis MN, et al. Legal issues of addiction assessment: The experience with hair testing in Greece. J Appl Toxicol. 2005;25(2):143-152.
  15. Gambelunghe C, Rossi R, Ferranti C, et al. Hair analysis by GC/MS/MS to verify abuse of drugs. J Appl Toxicol. 2005;25(3):205-211.
-- Fyslee 20:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Well you've certainly dumped a lot of information here. None of it, as far as I've waded through it, supports the category of "quackery" with the exception of the ubiquitous Mr. Barrett who runs a business based on describing EVERYTHING as quackery. The AETNA link says they cover it for certain things and not for others (well, duh). Filipek et al doesn't look at hair analysis specifically (aside from one brief comment), Kruse-Jarres says the usefulness is "limited" (a far cry from quackery). Hu says "the major long-term storage site for arsenic is keratin-rich tissues, such as skin, hair, and nails---making the measurement of arsenic in these biological specimens useful for estimating total arsenic burden and long-term exposure under certain circumstances." I'm not going to bother going through the rest as it's obvious you've just dumped a whole pile of crap you haven't read in the hopes that it will look impressive. --Lee Hunter 21:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
A better reference to start from, including discussions about sampling, processing, analytical methods and some uses HAIR ANALYSIS PANEL DISCUSSION: EXPLORING THE STATE OF THE SCIENCE; June 12—13, 2001. This meeting brought together anti- and labs in a very controlled format *to start* to address issues & reconcile them. Must have been fun.--TheNautilus 01:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. That is much better. Especially this page [1] I think the main point is that hair analysis is of some benefit in certain situations and not in others. Calling it quackery is not at all accurate or helpful to the reader. --Lee Hunter 02:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Also Hair analysis (alternative medicine) looks like a dubious POV fork to me--TheNautilus 09:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
This is standard practice with disambiguation pages. This article is confusing because it contains widely different elements. Now the aspects related to alternative medicine practices are collected in one article and can be examined there. -- Fyslee 10:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
How eagar. This new article appears to pile a POV fork upon obsolete misinformation. This sounds more like a theory of convenience, I have seen you advocate precisely the opposite for much more divergent topics in the merge and delete tactics on altmed. Some of Barrett's, etc less meritous points were gently addressed in 2001 ATSDR report at CDC. I really suggest you pick through it before you go any further. Alternative medicine's use of hair analysis may have had some economic problems like a number of conventional medical procedures that have been determined to be 50-90% unnecessary or even ca 100% retrospectively; interlab variations may be nonstandardized but still useful, and some labs/practitioners may have had problems, but all the themes are central to the subject hair analysis. Its science and technology amongst various fields are likely to converge and standardize in the no-so-distant future for good economic reasons. A less charitable interpretation would be that QWrs might support QW-related negative stmts in other articles since negative hair analysis references seems to be a recurring favorite. I think that it is time to focus on one neutral, encyclopedic, technically sound and informative article and have made some suggestions[2]. This POV fork is not even close. If you are confused by the article, try to write a better (less confusing) article or study more chemistry and analytical methods.--TheNautilus 12:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Holmes

Is this new addition a letter to the editor? If so it doesn't qualify as a (WP:RS) good source, since anyone can do that. I have letters in the BMJ! -- Fyslee 23:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is a Letter to the Editor. The person adding it says it is peer reviewed, and I see the reference shows the article to be 8 pages long. Although I've not looked at it (It was published in a 2003 edition) it seems likely to me that it is a full article. Pzavon 01:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
You're right. It is a published study, that has been debunked here: Part 1 and Part 2
Even if it had been a well-done study, we have to decide if it is appropriate for this article, or if it applies more to some other articles, such as Controversies in autism, Vaccine controversy, Thiomersal controversy, or related articles. For relevance to this article it only shows (IF we could trust it, which I doubt) that hair analysis is not reliable "as a measure of total mercury exposure in a subset of the population":
  • "These data cast doubt on the efficacy of traditional hair analysis as a measure of total mercury exposure in a subset of the population. In light of the biological plausibility of mercury's role in neurodevelopmental disorders, the present study provides further insight into one possible mechanism by which early mercury exposures could increase the risk of autism."[3]
Even those researchers (several of them, and especially Safeminds, raises red flags) use weasel words to avoid getting into too much trouble: "cast doubt", "plausibility", "one possible", and "could", which are weasel words that aren't necessarily inappropriate (one can rarely be absolutely certain....;-). Yes, mercury certainly could cause neurological disorders, and in fact is proven to cause some serious conditions. The debate over whether dental amalgams, or the Thimerosal some vaccines have previously contained, are a common cause of autism (my son has Aspergers Syndrome) is not for this article. -- Fyslee 11:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Title

Would it not be wise to rename this article? It was separated from the main article on uses of hair analysis on which there is a broad consensus. I believe that it will grow beyond hair analysis in alternative medicine, where there undoubtedly is some quackery, to also include the use of hair analysis in scientific research. Generally new medical techniques do not immediately make it from the inventor's lab to everyday practice overnight. Doing this would allow a much finer differentiation between what he know does work, what we know doesn't work, and allow us to include techniques and rationales in the grey areas between these two extremes, which we could then deliberately list and examine.

I would propose a title such as "Hair Analysis in Alternative Medicine and Medical Research." If we must then fork the article again, we could split it into "Unproven uses of Hair Analysis in Alternative Medicine and Medical Research" and "Disproven Uses of Hair Analysis in Alternative Medicine and Medical Research." --Alterrabe 20:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend populating both Hair anaylsis articles to ~40-60kb length first, and then consider spinning off neutral technical specialty articles for some segments instead. The problems of inappropriate marketing, premature, or unfounded uses don't really require huge summaries of what appears to having continuing recognized, biologically based research and development, federal support at some level, and significant laboratory professionalization.--TheNautilus 22:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I prefer Alterrabe's suggestion to the current HA(altmed) title but am willing to wait a little while for a confirmation or suggestion from Fyslee.--TheNautilus 22:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Please excuse me if I was rash in renaming this article. It will need to be capitalized. Some of the contributors to this page have made changes to my changes within 2 minutes of my making changes; I assumed that this page was on a watch list, that all concerned were well aware of my suggestion, and that they had chosen to answer by remaining silent. I also believe that unforking the articles would be the best alternative for now. But a new (properly capitalized) title does seem to be more accurate than the old one.--Alterrabe 16:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
It came as somewhat of a shock. Properly it should have gone through an RfD review, with input from many editors and admins. This is not proper. I've never seen it done before. -- Fyslee 22:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I moved it back, as all changes Alterrabe made, other than the addition of the two peer-reviewed studies, seem to be improper — mostly clear bias, making conclusions, or adding clearly unsourced statements. The only other plausible addition was the rebuttal to the study showing that hair analysis is unreliable, which was sourced at one point, but the source was found to be unreliable. I feel those two studies should be moved to the main article Hair analysis, but that's still not entirely clear.
Please open a request at WP:RM if you still feel the article should be at the new name. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 08:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dead link

This link is dead:

I removed it. Others may wish to update it.--Alterrabe 11:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I found the new location and have added it. It's better to find the new link (or use the Internet Archives), than to undo or delete links. We're here to build up, not tear down, articles. -- Fyslee 22:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Fyslee, I deliberately put the url of Aetna's policies and the fact that I was removing it onto the talk page. Even if I had found an new URL (making sure that bad data is not in the article takes a precedence over finding good data) I would not have wanted to go to the trouble of making sure that Aetna still stands by their policy. There is a lot of outdated information on the internet, sometimes even on corporate homepages.--Alterrabe 13:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How stupid of me

I just realized that Tamari (George Tamari. Unreliability of hair analysis. Letter to the editor: Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, May, 2004) is a letter to the editor. As such, as dicussed in "Holmes" vide supra it is not (WP:RS). Out it goes.--Alterrabe 12:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wennig Article

The Wenig article footnote #6 in the article is about the use of hair analysis in toxicology, i.e. assays of drugs and drug metabolites in the hair. This is described in Hair Analysis main article. Furthermore the article does not say that it doesn't work, but that it "needs further research."

Does anyone believe that an article about the use hair analysis in toxicology has anything to do with the an article on practitioners of alternative medicine measuring hair minerals?--Alterrabe 20:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unreliable and inconsistent results?

The Shamberger study appears to explain the apparently unreliable and inconsistent results. I would suggest we rename this section to "Apparently unreliable and inconsistent results and possible explanations." If this is too long, we could go for "Questions about hair analysis". I am very open to suggestions.--Alterrabe 20:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC)