Talk:Mucoid plaque

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This article was nominated for deletion on 24 May 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

This article was nominated for deletion on 20 February 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

[edit] Other thoughts

On subjects like these, it is often best to keep an open mind. Analogous to a legal system where an individual is considered innocent until proven guilty, there is no harm in treating this subject as "possibly true, or, likely until proven false". I would have to ask if any definitive studies have been conducted to prove this phenomenon is entirely false. If not, the concept should remain on Wikipedia to raise awareness and instigate unbiased scientific inquiry until a time when definitive proof is available.

[edit] Re reversion

I've reverted because this needs discussion and consensus. This anonymous rewrite [1] appears to be an entirely biased revision aimed at promoting the existence of mucoid plaque, padding the references with promotional links, and minimising the evidence against its existence.

A particular inaccuracy was the conflation of the observed reality that the bowel produces a thin layer of mucus (like other mucous membranes) with the claims for a vastly thicker layer of mucoid plaque. Tearlach 09:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

This is retrieved from the history talk that I accidently deleted: The first inaccuracy that I observed was your bizzare claim that I padded the reference section with "promotional links." The only two links I put under the reference section are to Edward Thuman, MD and Ed Friedlander, MD, two prominent skeptics. As for the books under the reference section, they are the primary, original sources of this mucoid plaque theory and they do not advertise any merchandise. I know this because I own them. The other three are simply conventional medical sources that Richard Anderson cited to support his thesis. If you are suggesting that I am associated with a company that is peddling products, let me clear up this misunderstanding. I am simply a well versed college student that has no association with any company. Concerning your claim that those medical excerpts I posted describe a thin layer of mucus rather than a thick layer of mucus, it appears that you have misread them. Those three medical excerpts I posted never explicitly described a thin layer of mucus. On the contrary, the last medical excerpt clearly describes "copious quantities" of "thick" viscid mucus, which "in turn" forms a gastric barrier. Furthermore mucoid plaque is claimed to swell up in size when exposed to mucoative agents. I would like to point out that my version is not any more biased than the previous version. It is easy to make the case that the previous version is also entirely biased. I offer to work with you or anybody else to create a well written NPOV encyclopedic article. Heelop 18:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's verifiability, no original research and reliable sources guidelines state the following:

"Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed."

"attribute the views to their adherents."

"Keep in mind that many articles are about characterizing the various factions in a dispute. This means that you will be looking for reliable published reports of people's opinions. . .that a certain person or group holds a certain opinion is a fact, and it may be included in Wikipedia if it can be verified; that is, if you can cite a good source showing that the person or group holds the opinion.

"self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources." Heelop 18:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Commendable. Also remember not to remove other editors' comments from the Talk page. [2] Tearlach 10:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The Guyton reference (I'm not sure what the current edition is) clearly relates to the stomach, which is not the colon. The stomach needs armouring against strong hydrochloric acid, the colon needs to be a bit slippery. Seeing a reference to one being used to draw conclusions from the other causes me to note that not knowing colon from stomach is very like a confusion between arse and elbow. Midgley 14:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The same applies to the whole Anderson source [3]. It's akin to my coining a new and unrecognised skin condition, "dermomolecular plaque", and then citing medical references to every flaky or oily skin phenomenon I can find - acne, sunburn, boils, eczema, dandruff, etc - as verfication of its existence. Tearlach 18:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

His reference to mucoviscidosis - cystic fibrosis - is completely irrelevant, and the meconium ileus that occurs in CF is wholly unlike anything here. THe page conforms to the norms for health fraud, with technical words scattered around in an impressive fashion which doesn't convey meaning. I do not believe this topic belongs in an encyclopaedia except with a prominant label of fraud attached to it. Midgley 21:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fraud

Is there any reason to regard this as anything other than a health fraud, and assume the anonymous editor with edits only of this topic is a practitioner of it for profit? Midgley 08:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anatomy

Gray

http://www.bartleby.com/107/pages/page1186.html and http://www.bartleby.com/107/pages/page1187.html describe the mucosa of the colon. The alleged plaque is not present. (It is not a sensible requirement that standard anatomical textbooks list all teh things that are _not_ found, what they list are the things that are found.) There is a cross-sectional diagram at http://education.yahoo.com/reference/gray/subjects/subject?id=249#p1180 Presumably we have access to a copiable or linkable copy of that old Gray?

Colonoscopy

http://www.webworldinc.com/VisualMarv/Medical/colonoscopy_view1.jpg http://www.webworldinc.com/VisualMarv/Medical/colonoscopy_view2.jpg http://www.webworldinc.com/VisualMarv/Medical/colonoscopy_view3.jpg

http://www.hemorrhoidsinplainenglish.com/hemorrhoid/pictures.htm

There is no requirement in WP policies to present fraud and false claims as though they were anything but fraud and false claims. Midgley 21:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

From what I remember, at least one of the editions of Gray's anatomy is in the public domain? enochlau (talk) 04:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin

Did Anderson originate it? If so this is mroe relevant than that he is the main promoter of the fraud. Midgley 21:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes he did. The very term "mucoid plaque" is his invention. (That itself is a pretty strong clue to the source of the so-called "problem". He has coined a term for something that **HE** created and found.):

"I coined the term mucoid plaque, meaning a film of mucus, to describe the unhealthy accumulation of abnormal mucous matter on the walls of the intestines. Conventional medicine knows this as a layering of mucin or glycoproteins (made up of 20 amino acids and 50% carbohydrates) which are naturally and appropriately secreted by intestines as protection from acids and toxins." from "What is Mucoid Plaque?", by Richard Anderson

We're dealing with an article about original research. The only reason such an article is allowed here at Wikipedia is because it has become notable as a well-known and believed form og quackery. -- Fyslee 07:41, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia: No Original Research: “it is regarded as poor taste to discuss personal theories on talk pages.” Heelop 14:42, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] possibly useful reference

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=25218&dopt=Abstract It doesn't have anything to do with mucoid ropes, of course, but it is about mucin. Midgley 03:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

You people have repeatedly and grossly violated Wikipedia's verifiability, and no original research policies. You college educated people are smart enough to know what these rules are and how you have violated them. I do not need to waste my time explaining them to you. I have fully studied each of these policies. You act like you have never read these policies. I have gone completely by the rules. Why can't you do the same? Heelop

Take this for example: "A feeling that something inside must be got rid of is common in depressed people, and techniques for producing the appearance of clearing something from the gut give some satisfaction to this." Do I really need to explain how this violates Wikipedia's verifiability, and no original research policies? No published source. Original idea invented by the editor. The "administrators" will readily agree that this violates policy. So stop calling me a vandal because I choose to delete it. Furthermore, everyone can see how immature and unethical this statement is. I make sure that everything I upload conforms with Wikipedia's verifiability, and no original research policies beforehand. Heelop

Also, please stop deleteing and/or editing over my contributions, which clearly conforms with Wikipedia's verifiability, and no original research policies.Heelop

[edit] AfD?

This is in my opninion absolute quackery. Since other unsupported therapies are discussed in Wikipedia I am not sure if it warrants deletion. I'll think on it, but may decided to AfD this rather ridiculous article. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 10:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Good to see that the article is not being deleted. The very existence of the concept, regardless of its quackiness, is grounds enough to keep it, since it has a degree of notability. Thus the article can serve a useful purpose - as a debunking source, where the facts can be presented for those searching for information. -- Fyslee 20:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please don't delete this article. I came across it after several friends and I had seen or heard several infomercials related mucoid plaque and promoting treatement products. This article answered the questions I had about the veracity of the claims in these advertisements. As long as these ads are running, the is a good course for debunking any fraudulent claims. One claim that is featured in several such ads is dubunked at http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/fecalcolon.asp66.64.24.14 21:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have personally done Richard's cleanse and had ropes of plaque come out of me. The article claims it happens because the psyllium and bentonite harden into the shape of the bowel. This is not true as I had plaque come out when I didn't take the clay and psyllium. I also have other friends who had the same. Not to mention the fact that in all cases I know of, including my own, our health dramatically improved after the cleanse. Bernard Jensen's cleanse is really the original cleanse that Richard's was based on. Bernard cured multitutes of people of illness using this cleansing tecnique. His book, like Richard's, also gives numerous pictures of the stuff. And trust me if you persoanlly see the stuff you know it's not clay and psyllium. I find this wikipedia article false and misleading and based on claims by people who have not had any persoanl experience on the issue.

Welcome to the Placebo effect. --mboverload @ 01:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Nowhere in placebo effect documentation can I find a case where someone actually synthesized something something physical (like mucoid plaque) to expel from the rectum. Ettu

I have also seen mucoid plaque come out of me without taking any psyllium nor bentonite. I've seen it come out with an apple juice fast and even more when I take the herbs and psyllium. I never use the bentonite though. Furthermore, Richard Anderson cites a credible conventional source describing mucoid plaque coming out without psyllium nor bentonite:

"There is a photograph of mucoid plaque in Color Atlas of the Digestive Tract, plate #439. The authors comments: 'a particularly bizarre stool, from a young woman with irritable bowel syndrome'. (Avona heard about plaque coming out of people long before she knew about a cleanse. These reports came from people who had done 40-day water fasts. Late into their fasts they suddenly expelled long black rubbery ropes (as they described them)."

I tried to edit it to create a NPOV, but they kept editing over it and accusing me of having a financial interest even though I am just a college student. I left it alone because I did not feel like getting into an edit war and I am busy with classes. I figured that any intelligent person can see how bizarrely illogical and illegal their article is anyway:

(a) After Richard Anderson explains that the term mucoid plaque is his convenient catchall phrase for various substances in the body such as gastrointestnal mucin, the skeptic is silly enough to try to counter it by saying that conventional sources do not use the term mucoid plaque. Of course they don't. As Richard Anderson explained, it is a convenient term he uses to describe various substances such as gastrointestinal mucin.

(B) They claim that Richard Anderson used that Guyton source to support his assertion that it exists in the colon. Anybody that reads his research paper can absolutely see that this is not true. He clearly uses it to show that it exists in the stomach and clearly uses other conventional sources to show that it exits in the colon as well.

(c)They grossly, and I mean grossly, violated Wikipedia's verifiability and no original research policies. Everyone can clearly see that they made up stories about psyllium and bentonite forming into mucoid plaque, etc.. These stories that they made up from their own creative imaginations are the editor's own synthesis and are thus not allowed by Wikipedia's rules. Furthermore, they contain no references. Even though the one about somatisation contains a reference, it still is the author's own synthesis because the article does not say anything about mucoid plaque and is misinterpreted.

What is so shocking is that these people have apparently been promoted to an administrative position because they are supposedly respected members of the community being medical doctors yet they have absolutely no respect for Wikipedia's rules. Heelop

If you can cite sources, go ahead and edit the article 'WITH the sources included. You seem a little bent on making sure people think you're a college student, it's even the only thing on your user page. Your edits are also only to this talk page. Oh yeah, and It doesn't matter if Bulbasaur came out your butt, we need reliable sources. If it's so untrue stop complaining about it and fix it in a NPOV manner. --mboverload @ 07:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how to cite sources? I cited everything in perfect MLA format, but you people tore them down claiming that it was not cited properly. Midgley, for example, took down the in-text citation "(Gray 31)" claiming that it has the appearance of a reference but it really is not. Do I really need to explain to you supposedly college educated people what MLA format is? It is very similiar to Harvard referencing format. The first part, Gray, is the last name of the author. The number part is the page number. You find it by looking for the word Gray in the list of references at the bottom of the page. Wikipedia allows both MLA and Harvard referencing formats, and, in fact, prefers them over sloppy embedded HTML links. If you go through the history, you will see that I cited everything in perfect MLA format, but you people tore them down then criticized me for not cite anything. Unbelievable. You people also repeatedly edited my paragraphs to make them sound different. Heelop

Clearly I shall have to apologise for that - it being something I didn't know... I'm used to using the style of references which uses <ref>reference text</ref> at the point in the article, and then places the <references /> XML tag at the bottom of the page.. It'll work as well with any form of notation of the references, and uses the hypertext nature of the Web and of WP effectively to aid the reader, rather than inviting readers as in a paper book to go and read somewhere else. When pointing people toward WP policies and habits, including a link to the one cited is very helpful ... As I understand it, WP is adopting a citation template, which handles the format of the reference. THis is quite distinct from inline HTML links though. Midgley 17:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I have taken stuff down that has violated Wikipedia's verifiability rule. The Wikipedia: Verifiability page states the following: "Be careful not to err too far on the side of not upsetting other editors by leaving unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living people. Jimmy Wales has said of this: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced." Heelop --72.227.95.236 20:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

What's the gripe with describing mucoid plaque as a cast of the colon? If it matches the internal shape of the colon, then a cast is a straightforward factual description of it. Here (image) is the colon as shown by barium enema contrast x-ray. Note especially the shape of the transverse colon. Here (image) is some mucoid plaque. Look familiar? Tearlach 22:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The user Midgley, who identifies himself as a medical doctor on his user page, added on May 24, 2006 09:19 a reference to a journal article titled “Frequency of constipation in major depression: relationship to other clinical variables” claiming that it was about somatization when, in fact, it is about psychosomatics. That is, the article is about depression causing very real constipation not about a patient imagining that he or she has constipation. Note that the name of the journal is psychosomatics and the article does not talk about somatization. Any medical doctor that does not know the difference between psychosomatic and somatization and does not bother to read the journal article that he gives reference to frankly should not be writing medical articles and should not have a license to practice. Furthermore, the paragraph that he futilely tried to support with this reference violates Wiki’s no original research policy because it is a new synthesis of published data. WP:NOR clearly states that Wiki articles may not contain “any new analysis or synthesis” of sources, that sources must be “directly related to the topic of the article,” and that you must “adhere to what those sources say.” The journal article has absolutely nothing to do with somatization nor mucoid plaque. Heelop --72.227.90.34 22:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

"soma" the body. "somatization" feeling, generating, or ascribing some bodily symptom which doesn't have a physical basis. "psyche" the mind. Psychosomatics the process by which th mind generates or symptoms identifies to the body. In other words, somatization and psychosomatization and the study of them, psychosomatics, are not obviously different things. The rest of the rant above is similarly wide of any point. As far as I can understand the diatribe, there seems to be a suggestion that my paragraph noting that a feeling of (constipation) is common in depression is cause for striking off since constipation is observed in depression. Such feelings are common in depression, and along with sleep disturbance and psychomotor retardation measurable changes occur in some people. It is entirely possible that other references may be useful to add to it, since the authors of the paper cited have not covered every aspect of everything. A better reference is probably not going to be a research paper, but rather an undergraduate textbook. Midgley 13:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

“A feeling that something inside must be got rid of” describes a disorder called hypochondria not a disorder called somatization disorder. If you study the Wiki articles, you will see that hypochondria and somatization are distinct subcategories of Somatoform disorders. Hypochondria is characterized by an unfounded “preoccupation with one’s body” whereas somatization disorder is characterized by very real physical signs having a psychiatric origin rather than an organic origin. You, expressing a strong desire in the history that WP be “written in English,” will appreciate me clearing this up for you.

Furthermore, a psychosomatic illness is defined as a very real physical illness having a psychiatric origin. The article contained in the journal called Psychosomatics is clearly about a psychosomatic illness, that is, about very real constipation having a psychiatric origin, not about hypochondria, that is, “feeling” you have something stuck in your body when you really do not.

Thus, the journal article about psychosomatics does not support your paragragh about hypochondria. That is, the journal article about depressed people experiencing very real constipation does not support your paragragh that it is common for depressed people to have an unfounded preoccupation that something inside must be got rid of. Consequently, your paragraph violates WP:NOR which states that you must “cite reliable sources which provide information that is directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say.” Furthermore, WP:V states that “It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced.”

Even if you were to find a reliable source about an unfounded feeling that something inside must be got rid of in depressed people, Wiki would still not allow it because the article must also be about mucoid plaque. WP:NOR states that “Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article in order to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research. "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article.” Thus you cannot use an article about cleansing programs and another article about depressed hypochondriacs to produce your new synthesis that people who do cleansing programs are depressed hypochondriacs. The article must actually say that people who do cleansing programs are depressed hypochondriacs.

A common criticism of conventional doctors is that they abuse psychiatric terms in order to not have to admit their failings. Not understanding the definition of the very psychiatric terms that you use will simply add weight to their criticisms. Heelop --72.227.90.34 08:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Show me it in a textbook or peer reviewed journal that says this thingy exists. Then we can talk. --mboverload @ 09:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

“A feeling that something inside must be got rid of” describes a feeling. Going from that to a diagnosis applied to every patient with that feeling on the basis of not having seen them is unwise, and certainly not something that I've done. Accordingly the rest of the passage above based on an assumption that all such feelings can be dismissed as hypochondriasis is entirely irrelevant. I had it from a lecturer in Psychiatry, a practicing psychiatrist, at the London Hospital medical school some years ago, I agree it needs a reference even though "I feel as though I'm full of shit" is a common experience for those who meet or deal with people who are depressed (and don't worry, I can cure it with this special treatment is a temptingbit of quackery...), so turning to my bookshelf as I undoubtedly should have done to in my copious free time in earlier weeks, I find the Concise Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry refers to this on page 136. That is Gelder, Gath & Mayou, IBN 0 19 262032-0 published 1994. THey phrase it as "complaints about physical symptoms are common in depressive disorders, they take many forms, but complaints about constipation {.....etc} are common."

As noted, this is not an article about depression, so excessive detail should be avoided, however this seems to me relevant.

"Somatisation" is the text. Somatisation disorder may or may not be a good link for it, it would probably be dicdef to have a definition for this common, behaviour. Midgley 10:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

If it is really a “common experience” for depressed people to say “I feel as though I'm full of shit," why is there absolutely no documentation of this anywhere? It is because you made it up. By putting these words in quotes, you are claiming that these are actual words that depressed people “commonly” use to describe how they feel. Yahooing the words “feel,” “full,” “shit,” and “depressed” or “depression” reveals that there is absolutely no mention that depressed people say they feel full of shit. Instead, the Yahoo search engine reveals that depressed people commonly say the following:

“I feel like shit. I look like shit. I act like shit. By god, I am shit. Heh. I'd smile or laugh...but because I feel like shit, etc, I can't. I didn't take my Zoloft today.”

“I feel like shit right now. I am so damn depressed and I dont know why. I feel like my life is going now where”

“I decided what the bipolar world needed was someone who not only understood the disorder, but also knew how to do a seminar. . .I told my shrink about my new workshop idea and he replied, "You should leave that to the professionals," meaning those with a Ph.D. who didn't actually have any first-hand experience. I decided that he was full of shit and set out to put together my own seminar that was going to give people hope.”

“Zyprexa shouldnt cause an elevated pulse, but if your doctor said there are no cardio side effects he is full of shit. As Zyprexa is so connected with diabetes and causing obesity it is unreal.”

“depression can be a horrible illness. A co worker of mine hung himself a few years back. His company went belly up, his wife left him and he owed money to the wrong people. He got hooked on prescription medication and just lost it. I will never put that shit in my body.”

“My experience is all of this is fairly unique. I've taken my meds without fail for 17 years even when they weren't giving me more than half results. Only for four months did I do a med-free experiment and then I was back on three meds that were beating the shit out of my body and mind and not working with a damn. It was only a couple of years later that, out of desperation, I went to my doctor and said I wasn't going to take all my meds anymore, that they were eating me alive and not giving me the kind of results I had a right to expect.”

You told me that you wanted a definition for this common behavior. This behavior that you find so difficult to understand is called figuratively speaking. I’m surprised you are not familiar with it given that it is an extremely common human behavior. Shit is an extremely popular American swear word that is used in very creative ways. Americans are much more creative with this word than the British are with their word “bloody.” When Americans say they “feel like shit” it means they feel bad. It is not meant to be taken literally. Likewise, when an American says a psychiatrist is “full of shit,” he is not suggesting that the psychiatrist is constipated but rather that the psychiatrist is full of stupidity or lies. It is not meant to be taken literally. When an American refers to your medication as “shit,” he does not literally mean that the medication is shit. He simply means that it is as worthless and dangerous as shit. Any doctor that cannot pay attention to what the patient is actually saying and does not understand the normal day-to-day nuances of figurative language should not be handing out psychiatric labels.

In the Wiki article, you are clearly claiming that depressed people typically have unrealistic or undue feelings of contamination or constipation. The only references that you did give to support this are those two sources referring to somatization (psychosomatics). All the medical sources, such as the ones you have given, describe constipation in depression as a psychosomatic (somatization) disorder:

“Individuals who are depressed frequently have such physical complaints as headaches, indigestion, constipation, dizzy spells and general pain. . .they frequently are expressed in somatic (symptoms related to the body) or psychosomatic (interaction between the mind and body) ways.” http://www.seniorcareservices.org/symtoms_of_depression.htm

A psychosomatic or somatization disorder is characterized by very real physical signs being caused from psychiatric turmoil. Thus, those sources you have given about depressed people commonly complaining about very real constipation caused from psychiatric turmoil does not support your claim that depressed people typically have unrealistic or undue feelings of contamination or constipation. Because the paragragh is not properly sourced, it violates WP:NOR and WP:V and according to WP:V it “should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced.”

Furthermore, anti-depressive medications that you doctors give out typically cause constipation:

“Drug-induced constipation is a well-known phenomenon accompanying the use of antidepressants” G. Bassotti Motions and emotions: the treatment of depression causes constipation Neurogastroenterol. Mot. (2000) 12, 113-115

Heelop --72.227.90.34 08:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps not all people who have been depressed have posted, in American or English, on the Web about it? And perhaps they do not all communicate with their medical attendants by posting undirected comments on tehir blogs. Midgley 23:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just cut someone open...

Seriously, there shouldn't be a debate about the existance of this... just take someone who has donated their body to science, grab a scapel, and put this debate to rest.

I have read a few Taoist books, written years before anyone was making a profit off the idea, and I believe it. But I could be wrong, I'll withold judgement until we can slice up an old dead guy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.227.111 (talk • contribs)

1510 for instance

There isn't really a debate, there are some people making claims that a condition exists which they can treat, and many many old dead people have already been cut up[4], as well as many people having their guts looked into in life (proctoscopy;sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy, MRI) which is why pathologists and gastroenterologists know that it is not a genuine condition. They spend a lot of time describing things that are seen, and condition s that do exist, it is neither credible that they would not describe this if it occurred, nor reasonable to expect us to describe all the things that don't exist and say they don't exist. Health frauds are tedious, but this one is more tedious than some. Midgley 11:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The following is a detailed explaination for my 15:25, 1 October 2006 revert documented in the history. The edit summary did not offer enough space for my explaination, so I am explaining it here in the talk page. Midgley removed all of my edits even though my edits did not violate any of Wikipedia’s policies. For example, in order to comply with Wikipedia’s NPOV policy, I created a proponent section as well as an opponent section so that both sides of the issue may be presented. Please note that in doing this I have, in good faith, preserved all of the opponent arguments. That is, I did not delete nor edit anybody else’s contributions. Heelop 03:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The following is a response to Midgley’s 11:58, 1 October 2006 edit to this talk page. The fact that those particular pathologists, etc. claim that they do not see a thick plaque of mucus that causes digestion and absorption problems just demonstrates how incompetent they are. As I already noted in the article, many other conventional pathologists claim that they see it. For example, that conventional medical journal I cited in the article says the following: “the mucosal surface is covered with a rather thick layer of mucus. . .with increasing age, the mucus layer becomes more pronounced and widespread. . .The increased production of intestinal mucus and its layering over the mucosal surface results in the formation of a physical barrier which should impair digestion and absorption of macro- and micronutrients, as well as of medications.” Furthermore, on page 155 of the conventional medical textbook titled Color Atlas of the Digestive System there is, in fact, a picture of a long, black, ropy piece of bizarre stool that came out of a young women with irritable bowel syndrome without taking any psyllium, herbs, nor bentonite. It looks exactly like those pictures of mucoid plaque. Heelop 03:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The following is a detailed explaination for my 17:59, 1 October 2006 revert documented in the history. The edit summary did not offer enough space for my explaination, so I am explaining it here in the talk page. The editor with computer ID number 213.120.158.228 supported his removal of my NPOV edit with Wikipedia’s undue weight clause [5], claiming that minority views should not be represented. However, Wiki’s undue weight clause [6] clearly says that “views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.” The whole article is about mucoid plaque, which is a minority, alternative medicine concept. The article is clearly devoted to the minority views of Richard Anderson and other alternative medicine practitioners and supposedly how opponents dispute those views. How can you dispute their minority views if you do not know what they are? One of you opponent editors clearly said that mucoid plaque is “a non-medical concept invented by naturopath Richard Anderson”, who is in the minority. Accordingly, the prepositional phrase “except in articles devoted to those views” applies in this case, and thus the views of the mucoid plaque proponents is not undue weight. Heelop 03:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Was any of the above intended to ba reply to something in particular? It seems entirely disconnected. (And also wikilawyering). Midgley 21:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Calling a normal and encouraged Wikipedia chore a derogatory name such as "wikilawyering" is silly and abusive. I mean it is really silly. Wikipedia policy highly recommends editors defend their edits with detailed explainations from others that want to remove them. This is what the talk page is for. Heelop 03:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikilawyering see also RFC and RFArb. Midgley 22:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

silly and abusive

Like hysterial edit summaries calling edits you dislike "vandalism, profoundly extreme irrational behavior, and refusing civilized discourse". Heelop, you are clearly a vendor of this scam. It bears no relation to medical reality. There are no reliable sources, only sites by scammers selling its existence. I agree it's time for an RFC. 81.153.214.131 01:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Like hysterical edit summaries such as “scam apologist”. This is what WP:PA says about this behavior: “Users have been banned for repeatedly engaging in personal attacks. Abusive edit summaries are particularly ill-regarded.” Pointing out that it is highly regarded as childish and irrational behavior to fill edit summaries with hysterical personal attacks rather than logic explainations is not in itself an hysterical personal attack. This truly demonstrates some sort of disturbed logic. Was this response actually meant to prove that you are not, in fact, irrational? Furthermore, you and Midgley have been engaging in Wikilawyering by hiding behind misinterpretations of Wiki’s NPOV policy to justify writing extremely biased articles. In this talk page Midgley says “There is no requirement in WP policies to present fraud and false claims as though they were anything but fraud and false claims.” Yes there is! WP:NPOVFAQ clearly says “How are we to write articles about pseudoscientific topics, about which majority scientific opinion is that the pseudoscientific opinion is not credible and doesn't even really deserve serious mention? If we're going to represent the sum total of human knowledge, then we must concede that we will be describing views repugnant to us without asserting that they are false. . .A minority of Wikipedians feels so strongly about this problem that they believe Wikipedia should adopt a "scientific point of view" rather than a "neutral point of view." However, it has not been established that there is really a need for such a policy, given that the scientists' view of pseudoscience can be clearly, fully, and fairly explained to believers of pseudoscience.” He is talking about you! The reason you resort to hysterical name-calling is because you are not able to “clearly, fully, and fairly” counter the scientific evidence supporting the mucoid plaque theory. The pattern of your behavior shows a flamboyant contempt for the spirit of Wiki’s policies and you should therefore be banned from editing. Heelop 16:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Pull the other one. Your edits unfortunately fit a different classic pattern: the single-topic scam-product apologist whose absence of interest in anything else on Wikipedia gives away a personal involvement in the topic concerned. RFC time, Midgley? 213.120.158.228 02:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I have already explained that I am simply a college student and have no financial interest in this subject. My health has been greatly improved by removing this mucoid plaque from my body. Your edits, unfortunately, fit a classic pattern: paranoid personality disorder. These individuals typically suspect, without sufficient basis, that others are deceiving them, become preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the trustworthiness of people, are often involved in excessive litigation, and are quick to react angrily or to counterattack. This is considered a disorder because individuals afflicted have difficulty following the norms of society. Indeed, you have repeatedly resorted to name-calling counterattacking, character assassination, and have demonstrated flamboyant contempt for the spirit of Wiki’s NPOV Policy. As yet another reminder, WP:PA says that “using someone’s affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views – regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or extreme” is an example of a personal attack and that “users have been banned for repeatedly engaging in personal attacks.Heelop 17:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

1. A process note. It is generally useful to folow the standard of using colons to indent replies. I've added some above. Don't worry, they are clean punctuations. 2) I'll accept there is an appearance of youth here. I've met more civil ones. 3) above here is an explicit statement of original research (WP:OR) represented by one contributor's entries. Midgley 17:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Mucoid plaque is totally verifiable. I see lots of words attesting to the "fact" that it doesn't exist, but no actual research. So try this - no you don't need the products - just drink juice for a few days and see that you will still be producing much more fecal matter than you should be given your intake. Go for longer and you will undoubtedly know there are things up there that have been rotting for a long time. Until then, I suggest you discontinue your propagada campaign.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.4.109 (talk • contribs)

Research findings indicating something as bizarre as this exists, not research findings indicating that each individual thing thaty does not exist does not exist might reasonably be asked for. The unsigned remark above by 71.244.4.109 gets a simple explanation, that is just shit, nothing special. The suggestion that what comes out of everyone is "much more than ... should be" has more to do with the unhealthy fantasy that fuels this scam than logic - most people would say that if you want to know how much should be expected to come out of people's bottoms you should take a set of them, and observe it. Oddly enough this has been done by many people and the results are used from latrine diggers to designers of submarines and spacecraft. Midgley 18:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The suggestion that what comes out of everyone is "much more than ... should be" - What? You're not making sense. You seem to be overlaying what I wrote with what you can respond to. Ettu 18:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

You probably need to be able to make sense of this before seeking to advise the population of the world on medical matters, particularly if the view you are proposing is that all the doctors know nothing about, or are completely wrong on a claimed pathological process and the normal functioning of the gut. Thank you for confirming your identity with the IP address noted above, please ensure you understnad the 3 revert rule in WP.Midgley 18:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not seeking to advise the population of the world on medical matters. I am trying to make this article less biased. It is the antithesis of what an encyclopedic article should be - it is sensational and poorly written. It backs up only one viewpoint and completely disregards the experiences Naturopathic, holistic, chiropractic, and yes, even some of your allopathic medical professionals, have had. Not to mention the evidence of the people who have cleansed for several millenia. I think all viewpoints should be presented and this article more of a knowledgebase, than a slam page. A skeptic is just another form of zealot, neither will listen to reasonable arguments and are only interested in sensationalism. Until such time as you can refrain from editing or reverting with biased language and factoids, I will continue to do the best I can to correct the situation. What is the three revert rule?Ettu22:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Several points: You have already broken the three revert rule and can be blocked from editing all articles at Wikipedia at any time without warning. We are being very patient with you. Familiarize yourself with the way Wikipedia works before any further editing. Here is the rule: WP:3RR. Your edits under all your user names or IDs count as being from you, and your privileges here are in jeopardy. Your continued accusations of bias work both ways. Your views are just as biased, and you have a vested financial interest in this matter, unlike us medical people. All viewpoints are mentioned, but deception and misunderstanding must not be presented as fact. Unless you can provide scientific evidence from peer reviewed journals to back up its existence in normal people, then the beliefs of believers can only be presented as just that, not as fact. BTW, this article is not about bowel cleansing, but about mucoid plaque. It exists primarily as the product of its inventor, Richard Anderson, and the sellers of similar products. -- Fyslee 22:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

"You have already broken the three revert rule and can be blocked from editing all articles at Wikipedia at any time without warning. We are being very patient with you...and your privileges here are in jeopardy" - oh noes. Haha, thank you oh so much for your generosity. "Your views are just as biased" - Hmmm, if you actually read my edits you will notice that I really only added one paragraph and the rest was just deletion or rewording of biased language, as I am not yet ready to write a full article. "you have a vested financial interest in this matter, unlike us medical people" - Excuse me? Could you enlighten me on my alleged "financial interest" please? As far as you "medical people" go - you stand to lose a lot of money if people start curing themselves, don't you? No more drugs, no more ridiculously high cost visits to the clinic or the hospital. Imagine, if people are learning how to live healthily, where does that put your industry? And mine for that matter (being a massage therapist), the difference is that I work hoping to put myself out of business. I've seen your kind before, I've actually had interactions with people paid by various interest groups to propagate slander and block from public awareness things that could help them. So tell me, who is paying your bills? Ettu23:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

A data point for consideration: one strong reason for this being called a scam is that psyllium is perfectly well-known in mainstream medical circles - products such as Metamucil - where it's known for what it is, a form of soluble fibre that acts as a gel-forming bulking laxative. If you want people to live healthily, tell them to get exercise and eat fruit and veg (an idea strongly promoted by the medical profession). It's the scam merchants who insist we need all kinds of supplements and special cleansing routines. 82.25.228.195 11:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

You are correct about psyllium. Just like all dietary fibers, is passes through the digestive system and binds fecal matter to it, helping it on through. But psyllium and the bentonite clay are not necessary when cleansing, as stated by Dr. Anderson on his website. They only make the experience more comfortable. The herbal combinations are what do the work. Herbal combinations that he lists out on the website. Eating fruit and vegetables and excercising is some of the best health advice you can give a person. However, this in no way ensures abundant health. That would be like running bad gas through your car for years, then switching to good stuff, thinking all the clogs and debris will magically disappear. Yes there are some sensationalist scammers out there, and I believe their existence should be duly noted. But to disregard this whole field as "quackery" is doing a great diservice to the research that has been conducted. Can you really still believe that the legit cleansing programs out there are scams when they reveal exactly what goes into their products and what effects they have? All you need do is go buy the ingredients yourself and follow the recommended diet to know. There are no proprietary formulations (as in the drug industry), and no secret ingredients. Should you still doubt the existence of plaque in the intestines, look no further than the teeth ang tongue of most people - why would it be there and not further down the line? You could also look to studies done on fasting to see what gets expelled when the body has a chance to clean house. Ettu21:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaborative editing

Ettu, Wikipedia works by presenting all sides of the issues, using good sources. That requires collaboration between editors who approach the subject from different POV. Making large edits and reverts is counterproductive to collaborative efforts. Please start making smaller edits and discussing them here first. -- Fyslee 12:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

See, the thing is, I have done that, as have other editors. Editors like you and Midgley however, seem to be on a mission to denounce whatever you deem to be "quackery". So any edits made, no matter how small and documented, are quickly removed, and opinions of single persons (Ed thuman for example) are presented as concrete fact. Who is Ed Thuman? How do we know we can trust him and not Richard Anderson? Your duty to WP is to present articles with a NPOV. Words like "alleged" and "claims" are not neutral when presented in this context. You are assuming the non-existence of the very topic we are presenting. Ettu 20:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Now we're at least talking. Reverting is not collaboration. You want to edit this article? Fine. What particular parts are in question? Bring it here and we'll discuss it. If you can source your quotes well, then they have a chance of sticking. All POV should be presented, but the majority scientific viewpoint is based on documentation, not anecdotes from users. Anderson is just a naturopath, not a real doctor, much less a gastroenterologist. Let's talk about it and take it a little bit at a time. -- Fyslee 21:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Removing the reference and associated quote of Edward Thuman, MD, as no entry can be found anywhere on the UT System ( http://www.utsystem.edu/ ) website nor its affiliated medical school sites and directories of his name, published research, etc. No reference was found in a search of the internet except in regards to the quackwatch article. This therefore constitutes original research as it has not been published by a reliable source, and is simply the opinion of one person that we get secondhand from a website with an admittedly biased standpoint. Ettu 22:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

You need to learn more about WP:RS. The Thuman reference qualifies. WP:NOR refers to OR by editors, not by outside sources. As far as the removal of the external link, that is downright suppression of opposing POV, which is definitely forbidden here. It's an article on a reliable website placed in the external links. Read about WP:EL. -- Fyslee 22:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

You are right about the external link. As for WP:RS the page states:

"Reliability is a spectrum, and must be considered on a case-by-case basis. Typically peer reviewed publications are considered to be the most reliable, with established professional publications next. Government publications are often reliable, but governments vary widely in their level of reliability, and often have their own interests which will explicitly allow for withholding of information, or even outright deception of the public. Below this are sources which, while not tangible, can be providers of reliable information in some cases, for example websites associated with reliable publishers."

Along with listing what makes a source credible. The maintainer of quackwatch, Stephen Barrett, MD, is a retired psychiatrist. He appears to have no direct experience with bowel pathologies, as the only entry posted on his site in regards to bowel cleansing is a short Q&A with the unknown Edward Thuman. In his answer, Dr. Thuman states:

"I have seen several thousand intestinal biopsies and have never seen any "mucoid plaque."

Not original research?:

"The only way to show your work is not original research is to produce a reliable published source who writes about the same claims or advances the same argument as you."

"Reliability is a spectrum" and is subjective, but Thuman did not state this in a reliable published source. We find no record of Thuman at all except in this website. This qualifies as original research as the editor has not come up with verifiable proof of this person or his authority. This reference has been up a long time, and editors have had a chance to supply additional information. Therefore I will remove it and hope to not see it again until it appears as a reliable source. Ettu 23:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:OR only refers to editors here, not outside sources like Thuman. He's an expert on the subject. -- Fyslee 21:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You are correct in that it refers to editors. This is original research of an editor because:

Thuman has not published a paper for review by his peers stating this. We don't even know if he exists, because all we have is the word of whoever relayed the Q&A to us on QW. The internet is a place where we tend to take a lot of things at face value, in spite of the ease of their manufacture. This, however, pushes the limit. Perhaps he is an expert, but we need proof he exists, we need proof of studies he has done. Without these things, WP:OR says:

"The only way to show your work is not original research is to produce a reliable published source who writes about the same claims or advances the same argument as you."

Where is the reliable published source? Produce this and send the Thuman quote back up. Until then, it is clearly not admissible. Ettu 22:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've only been watching this topic, so this is my first post. =) But I am curious as to where you find that Dr. Thuman is an expert on the subject - I've only been able to find scant mention of him, and certainly nothing reliable. It'd be great to have his professional links to back up and support his claims. Thanks! Kaffine23 15:23, 27 November 2006 (CST)

[edit] Disputed banner

I think we should remove the "disputed" banner from the top of the page. What factual accuracies are under dispute? There seem to be none on the detractors side (whose language and opinions dominate the text), and I for one would rather see it gone and all disputes settled here.

I also think we should remove the article from the "accuracy dispute" category for the same reason. I am removing it from the "fraud" category as there exists no proof of this, only opinion. I am removing it from the "quackery" category as this article does not qualify per the precedent set for quackery as determined in the QW discussion page. Ettu 04:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The banner creates the category. Removing the banner removes the category. As long as this discussion is going on, there is an accuracy dispute, therefore it should stay. Its function is to alert other editors and admins that this is an article to watch and it also attracts help from other interested editors. -- Fyslee 21:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Ettu 22:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

As far as the fraud and quackery categories, it might not qualify for the fraud category, simply because Anderson has disappeared and isn't answering questions, so it's hard to prove hs intent. He's just counting his millions in private.

The quackery category definitely applies since this subject is all about making exaggerated claims for a dubious phenomenon. -- Fyslee 21:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean "dubious phenomenon"? And "exaggerated claims" are simply your opinion. Can you cite sources proving your claims? Until you can, your opinion is not relevant to WP. Ettu 22:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

The intro states:

"...only found as a unique form of feces produced primarily by consumers of bowel-cleansing products based on psyllium seed husks (a gelling agent) and bentonite clay..."

This simply contains misinformation. It is common knowledge that the psyllium husks and bentonite only aid in the removal of fecal matter, and are not necessary, supporters having found the same mucoid plaque being expelled without the use of these ingredients. I will leave this statement intact for now only because I would like some collaborative discussion on how to reword it. Ettu 04:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What wording would you propose? -- Fyslee 21:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mispelling of Uthman's name

The confusion is caused by Dr. Uthman's name being mispelled at Quackwatch, where it is spelled in two different manners:

Documentation for mispelling at Quackwatch:

"Mucoid Plaque" Edward Thuman, M.D. (wrong spelling)

http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/QA/mucoidplaque.html

Correct spelling:

Edward Uthman, MD Adjunct Assistant Professor of Pathology University of Texas School of Medicine Houston, Texas

http://www.quackwatch.org/09Advisors/medadvbd.html

Right spelling:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-38,GGLD:en&q=%22Edward+Uthman%22

Alternate spellings:

Edward O. Uthman
Edward Uthman, MD
Ed Uthman, MD
Ed Uthman
Ed O. Uthman MD

Diplomat American Board of Pathology

http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=2381281

Books:

Case Files Pathology (Lange Case Files) by Eugene C. Toy, Margaret O Uthman, Edward Uthman, Earl J. Brown

Understanding Anemia (Understanding Sickness & Health Series) by Ed Uthman

From the author:

Since the publication of Understanding Anemia, my e-mail address and Web site URL have changed. As of 24 Nov 2005, the current addresses are:

uthman@airmail.net

http://web2.airmail.net/uthman

Hope you enjoy the book, but either way, let me hear from you! Ed Uthman, MD, Houston, Texas, USA

His research can be found here:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=pubmed+%22uthman+e%22

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed (Do searches for: uthman e & uthman eo)

While you're at it search PubMed for mucoid plaque. There is nothing for this concept.

I doubt that he's written about mucoid plaque anywhere else than Quackwatch, since scientists aren't in the habit of doing research on pseudoscientific or dubious subjects (except for homeopaths!). That explains the paucity of information from medical and scientific sources. If it were a commonly observed phenomena, then they'd throw themselves all over it in an effort to understand and research it. Since it's only an anomalous phenomena easily explained by it's being caused by bowel cleansing, and is not found in normal people, then it has no interest for them. -- Fyslee 23:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Nor in sick people, either. Midgley 21:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course. It's only found in people who do bowel cleanses, and it certainly isn't found in most people, as the sellers of these products claim. The "cure" creates the "problem", and then the cure is used to treat the problem, ad infinitum. It's quite the scam, since there never is an end to it. -- Fyslee 22:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misrepresentations of Proponent View

The following statement: “As an example, he points to a reference to the gastric mucosa in the 7th edition of Textbook of Medical Physiology by A.C. Guyton, suggesting that this applies to the colon as well” was removed because it is not true that he is “suggesting” that this reference applies to the colon. In his research paper he clearly is using this reference only for the stomach. Throughout his paper, he gives references for the colon and the rest of the intestines as well thus supporting his claim that it can be found in both the stomach and intestines. Note that in his book, Richard Anderson claims that mucoid plaque can be removed from the stomach and that the majority of what people see come out(the long ropes) comes from the small intestines. Heelop 05:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The following statement: “but the suggestion that thickening the lining of the colon would inhibit digestion is unsupported by medical evidence. The experience of those whose colon does not absorb (eg those with ulcerative colitis) is of drastic diarrhoea as the volume passing through is not diminished sufficiently” was removed because no one is “suggesting” that mucoid plaque in the colon inhibits digestion or absorption. Richard Anderson is suggesting that mucoid plaque in the stomach and small intestines inhibits digestion or absorption. Heelop 21:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summaries

Heelop: note that edit summaries exist to explain what change you made, not as a vehicle for adding polemic to the edit history (such as [7]). 86.139.230.25 02:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

86.139.230.25: note that edit summaries also exist to give a logical and wiki-legal reason for the edit. Such was not donehere.Heelop 04:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiably Untrue Statements

Statements claiming that stool that resembles mucoid plaque is only found in people taking bowel-cleansing products and that there is no mention in the medical literature of a thick coating of mucus-like material lining the alimentary canal have been removed because these are verifiably untrue. In a conventional textbook of pathology titled “Color Atlas of the Digestive System” dated 1989 by Pounder, Allison, and Dhillon on page 155, there is a full color photograph of a long, blackish-brown, rope-like rubbery looking stool that takes on the shape of the intestines. The author comments: “A particularly bizarre stool, from a young woman with the irritable bowel syndrome.” This photograph looks exactly, and I mean exactly, like those photos of mucoid plaque removed from cleansers. I can’t overemphasize how exact it looks. By the way, this young woman was not involved in any type of bowel cleansing practices. I have a copy of this textbook in my possession. You can find this textbook in conventional medical libraries throughout the United States. Go to http://www.worldcat.org/ to find the library nearest you. Also, the claim that there is no mention in the medical literature of a thick coating of mucus-like material covering the alimentary canal is not true as proven by the following passage from a conventional medical journal:

“The ‘mucosal barrier’: excess mucus covering the mucosal surface. Situations such as the one mentioned above are encountered quite often and, because of the lack of appreciation of surface details with the light microscope, are ascribed to so-called patchy lesions. . .Indeed, in such instances, the mucosal surface is covered with a rather thick layer of mucus. . .This layer of mucus, when adhering closely to the mucosal surface, probably functions as a barrier to membrane digestion and most likely also to absorption. This mucosal barrier has been observed in chronic nonspecific diarrhea, in giardiasis, in food intolerance, and particularly in cystic fibrosis where, with increasing age, the mucus layer becomes more pronounced and widespread. . .The increased production of intestinal mucus and its layering over the mucosal surface results in the formation of a physical barrier which should impair digestion and absorption of macro- and micronutrients, as well as of medications.” --- Poley, J. Rainer. “The Scanning Electron Microscope: How Valuable In The Evaluation of Small Bowel Mucosal Pathology In Chronic Childhood Diarrhea?” Scanning Microscopy Vol. 5 No. 4 1991 page 1040.[8] Heelop 03:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The gelling properties of psyllium

Why are you afraid of the gelling properties of psyllium being mentioned? Bothered people might get wise to the scam? 86.139.230.25 03:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Doctors that prescribe metamucil to their patients are not afraid of the gelling properties of psyllium so why should I? Psyllium has been studied just like any other "drug" and the PDR reports that it produces bulky, well lubricated stools and does not describe mucoid plaque--even in toxicity studies. Anybody with a biology background knows that in vitro experiments often produces different results than in vivo experiments. Every doctor knows that their metamucil that they prescribe does not come out like mucoid plaque but rather produces bulky, well lubricated stools. This is an extremely silly claim. We should put warning messages on bottles of metamucil: "may cause long, black, ropes of hardened plaque to come out." Heelop 04:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning Paul Lee’s Blog Site

The blog site titled Mucoid Plaque – a dubious idea [9]created by Paul Lee (a.k.a. Fyslee) has been removed because it violates the following guidelines found on WP:EL concerning external links normally to be avoided:

“Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority”

“Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research”

The following are the violations of these guidelines:

It is a blog site and Paul Lee is not a recognized authority.

The blog site suggests that stool that resembles mucoid plaque is only found in users of bowel cleansing products. This is verifiably inaccurate. For the explanation, go to the heading in this talk page called “Verifiably Untrue Statements.”

The blog site claims that modern medicine and science know nothing of this “problem,” the “problem” being an “unhealthy accumulation of abnormal mucous matter on the walls of the intestines” or “a layering of mucin.” This is verifiably inaccurate because Richard Anderson’s research paper [10] lists a number of conventional sources describing a layering of mucin. What makes this particularly bizarre is that the blog indicates that Paul Lee actually read this research paper!! The conventional sources describing a layering of mucin is right in the research paper that Paul Lee read and criticized for not having any!! This makes the article look very dumb!! Furthermore, go to the heading in this talk page called “Verifiably Untrue Statements” to read an excerpt from a conventional medical journal describing an abnormal mucous matter on the walls of the intestines.

The blog site claims that mucoid plaque is actually psyllium and bentonite which make a soft, rubbery, cast of the intestines. This is unverified original research. Even worse, this blog site has been used to mislead readers into believing that “the mucoid plaque people have passed have been analyzed” and determined to be nothing more than the psyllium and bentonite that cleansers ate. [11]This, of course, is absolutely not true. Even more, Paul Lee is actually caught bragging about misleading this reader: “Read and weep!” he says. [12]

The blog site claims that psyllium produces lots of mucus-like material. This is verifiably inaccurate. Psyllium has been throughly tested just like any other “drug” and the Physicians Desk Reference under the brand name Metamucil does not report such a thing.

The blog site claims that Richard Anderson says that mucoid plaque is the disease cystic fibrosis. This is inaccurate. If you carefully read it you will clearly see that Richard Anderson says that the medical definition of mucoviscidosis describes an advanced condition that is an example of mucoid plaque. That is, mucoviscidosis is not defined as mucoid plaque but rather the definition of mucoviscidosis describes a mucoid plaque build-up by which it got its name. Go to the heading in this talk page called “Verifiably Untrue Statements” to see that it is indeed true that an unhealthy accumulation of abnormal mucous matter builds up on the intestinal walls of cystic fibrosis patients.

In short, this blog site needs to retire – YESTERDAY!! Heelop 15:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Serious warning though...

I looked through the AfD, and quackwatch was cited for establishing notability of this article, yet this source is no longer cited in the article. I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways, you can't use a critical source to establish notability and then not include that source in the article. Please remedy this situation, or I will file an AfD to enforce all sources that establish notability to be included in the article. I have otherwise found no news coverage of this issue and google scholar yields some dubious results....

[13] -- uses the term in a dental context
[14] -- is a semantical study of how the language of customer correspond to medial language, and it only mentions "mucoid plaque" as an example of a "nonsense concept".

Anyway, the point is this: the sources used to establish notability must be used in the article. If they are not reliable enough to cite in the article, they are not admissible to establish notability either. --Merzul 17:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medical journal

Please provide the article in any medical journal to prove that doctors use the term. And no, Scanning Microscopy is NOT a medical journal. Examples of relevant journals are given in the criticism. Try finding any article in NEJM, JAMA, Lancet, Gastrology: those and not others like Law review, paleontology, Mathematics, Biology. Those clearly are NOT medical journals, certainly not leading and notable medical journals. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 04:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Have looked at the abstract from Scanning Microscopy, as a physician I have only access to medical journals an not to this non-medical journal, and it does not mention the term! Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 04:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

- You, as a college educated physician, never heard of interlibrary loan? What's the matter? Do they restrict you to only certain journals that they want you to see? How pathetic! Scanning Microscopy is a very scientific and very conventional medical journal found in the very conventional and very reputable Medline database. Concerning your weird argument in the edit summary that microscopy is not a medical journal because it does not have the word medicine in it, it would be interesting to see how you explain journals such as Lancet that don't have the word medicine in the title. Thank you for identifying yourself as a medical doctor. You further illustrate my point that medical doctors, for the most part, are incompetent.Heelop 05:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

- - The journal you advocate is not commonly used as reference within the medical community. Further, the article does not even use the term mucoid plague, so it surely is not evidence of its use. Evenso, one article in a uncommonly used journal does not establish the fact that this concept is known or even accepted within the medical community! Untill you prove otherwise the paragraph you object to is exactly how the medical community sees this. Case in point, the Lncet published an article about homeopathy. That fact alone does not prove that doctors now all think homeopathy is sciense and a real accepted form of medicine. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 08:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

- You, sir, are proving yourself to be manipulative. First of all, you have previously said that it needs to be published in a journal such as Lancet in order for it to be relevant; but now, you reveal that even if this happens, it is still not necessarily relevant, citing homeopathy as an example. Ironically, I do not believe in homeopathy; I am just pointing out that you are contradicting yourself. If articles in journals such as Lancet are not, as you have suggested, necessarily anymore relevant than articles in journals such as Reader's Digest, why do you insist on limiting yourself to just these types of journals when there are other more scientific journals? Second, your repeated rants that this is not accepted by conventional medical doctors is redundant and weird because this is an alternative medicine concept not a conventional medicine concept: alternative medicine means medicine not practiced by conventional medical doctors. Duh! The thesis is that there is independent reputable conventional scientific medical evidence that this described concept exists despite it not being "accepted" by medical doctors. Your labyrinth of logical fallacies does not fool me.Heelop 18:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Please do not misrepresent my words:

The article is not from a journal that vis used by doctors to find diseases and therapy.
The article does not mention mucoid plague, so to claim that it describes that concept is OR.
Even if ONE obscure article mentions that term it does not represent consensus among gastroenterologists!
Please stop making misleading edits and revert yourself.

I am trying to AGF, but you clearly refuse to accept that you have not provided ONE source proving the concept is used by medical doctors. I will not editwar so ask someone else to undo your tendentious edit. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 18:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Nescio, how can you doubt this? Mucoid plaque is very similar to the well-known dermoid plaque that covers all normal persons' skins to a depth of an inch or more. It can only be removed by my special Dermoklenz mixture of mud and green Jello; if you smear this over yourself and let it set, it combines with the dermoid plaque, which can be peeled off as a green muddy gel. It looks just like normal skin, only doctors are too dull and badly-trained to recognise it, or else use other names for it. The many references in health and beauty publications - terms such as sweat, sebum, dandruff, greasy skin, dry skin, suntan, sunburn, zits, freckles, warts, calluses, dirt, etc. - are proof of its existence. 81.155.125.234 19:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Nicely done, sir (ma'am?) MastCell 20:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

So it should be trivially easy to cite chapter and verse from a reliable medical source. For some unaccountable reason it doesn't appear to be i my copy of Black's. Guy (Help!) 22:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:NOR

Heelop please provide an article discussing this concept AND using the term mucoid plaque. Claiming that an article discussing several diseases and the use of special diagnostic techniques proves this concept exists is obviuosly not a correct assertion. Untill such time leave the article as it correctly depicts the current status of this subject: unsupported rethoric.

As an aside, the difference between conventional and alternative medicine is that alternative medicine is unable to support their claims supposed conditions and remedies with objective and verifiable evidence. This is therefore impossible to distinguish from plain fraud. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 16:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The Concept:

Thick coating of mucus-like material that builds up on the intestinal walls as the body attempts to protect itself from various toxic substances and reducing the absorption of nutrients. It is sometimes referred to as "mucin".

Objective and Verifiable Evidence:

“Intestinal mucins are complex glycoproteins which are secreted from goblet cells, and form a gel-like covering over the mucosal surface. . .Implications for diseases such as cystic fibrosis, peptic ulcer, malignancy and inflammatory bowel disease are briefly discussed. . .The present review will be concerned with the major organic component(s) of mucus, namely the large glycoprotein mucins of the intestine. . .Following its release from goblet cells, mucin normally forms a continuous blanket over and between the villi. The blanket is composed of a randomstructured fibrillar network arranged in layers. In vivo it forms a loose gel, with the complexity and thickness of the meshwork increasing as the volume of secreted mucin increases. . .in vivo, a situation of lowered intestinal pH and/or increased luminal serum proteins might cause normal mucins to undergo a pathological transformation into either a viscous gel or an insoluble precipitate. . .These findings suggest that mucin secretion may be a physiologic mechanism by which harmful toxins or immune complexes are cleared from the intestinal surface." --- Forstner, JF. “Intestinal mucins in health and disease.” Digestion 1978 17(3) 234-63.

I can't dumb it down anymore for you. Heelop 06:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Nowhere does either article mention "mucoid plaque." To claim that any article discussing mucus is about mucoid plaque is ipso facto OR. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 17:34, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Factual accuracy tag

Any objections to removing the "factual accuracy" tag? Everything should be pretty well sourced at this point. MastCell 00:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Make it so. Raymond Arritt 01:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

OK. MastCell 20:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] As a person with Crohn's disease would someone explain this subject?

I have Crohn's like I say in the title. I have passed what is shown in pictures via Google both through the bowel and vommit. What is this article supposed to mean, that everyone has this problem? Does it mean that taking the herb suggested will stop the passing of this goop? I pass this stuff when I have a partial blockage do to a stricture. I am just trying to understand. Thanks, --Crohnie 12:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I have Crohn's

Sorry to hear that, and welcome to Wikipedia. What the article's saying is that many vendors falsely claim that just about everyone has this problem, and that in healthy people the goop is made of the very stuff they sell claiming to cure it. No-one can offer you guidance on your condition: Wikipedia isn't a discussion group. Tearlach 11:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification on the article because it didn't make sense to me at all. I agree that what the vendors are selling might cause this in a healthy person. As for guidance of my condition, I am not asking for any. I totally understand my condition and what it involves. I was just using it as an example about the links I went to and the pictures I saw, which I have seen myself during partial blockages. I don't expect to have my crohn's explained, thanks for clarifying the article for me. I hope to see you around, thanks for the welcome too.--Crohnie 11:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia community members.

I found this article very valuable and appreciate the thoughtful (and spirited) debate apparently behind it.

I do wish to ask a question that neither the article or any of the posts appear to respond to:

I am currently doing one of these mentioned cleanses and have seen the substance refered to as "mucoid plaque" today. If the material (also described by the Chrohn's sufferer and depicted in the photo of irritable bowel suffer) is not mucoid plaque, what is it? While the article and much of the responses clearly assume that "mucoid plaque" does not exist, none of it responds to what the substance described anectodately is.

(I assume It would also seem fairly easy to determine its makeup from a sample; perhaps this has been done?) Anyways, I would be especially interested in hearing from medical practitioners who may be able to shed light on this. Thank you. I am grateful to the article (and the related discussion) for letting me know that this concept was one in current dispute. I do eagerly await any response that might help explain what the material is; I do believe such an addition could also make the article more valuable to readers.

ps - This is my first post and I thank you in advance for your patience if my post is not in accord with the community's accepted policies. RR June 3rd, 2007 8:59 pm

The cleanser stuff causes what you see as the "mucoid plaque." That's part of the whole scam -- the so-called cure is what actually causes the symptom. For example see this article. Some of the cleanser products include bentonite, which is a type of clay. The clay makes what amounts to a cast of the inside of your intestine. This cast then gets passed out -- presto, "mucoid plaque." Pretty clever. Raymond Arritt 04:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Raymond. This doesn't explain though the anecdotal evidence discussed that a Chronh's sufferer and a patient with irratible bowel syndrom appear to have passed the same substance, without any of the psyllium-based "cleanse." (Incidently, the cleanse that I am taking [redact product name and vendor] does list Bentonite clay among its ingredients; in a call to the vendor they told me that the volcanic ash-based clay is used to help draw the "mucoid plaque" from the walls of the intestine.) Even if the bentonite clay does serve to form a cast, though, this surely does not again address the appearance of the substance in the other cases of those who have not taken the "cleanse" or other similar substances.) Other thoughts? Raphael June 5, 2007 11.48 am (Updated to include response from call to vendor June 5, 2007 12:15 pm)

Without seeing the evidence (ick...) it would be hard to say what it is. Never underestimate the ability of people to see what they wish to see. I would not take the vendor's explanation at face value any more than I'd take any other vendor's explanation at face value (say, a used car dealer). Raymond Arritt 19:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this article may be helpful. It depicts full color endoscope photographs of what Richard Anderson says is mucoid plaque including from Crohn's sufferers. It also depicts that full color photograph from a conventional atlas of pathology of mucoid plaque that came out of that patient with irritable bowel syndrome who did not take any cleanse. Heelop 19:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Gosh, somebody's personal web page on Geocities -- now if that isn't an authoritative source, what is? Raymond Arritt 20:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Paul Lee's personal blog site, which you cited as an "article", is certainly not an authoritative source so your comment does not make sense. This article, oh I'm sorry, web site depicts mucoid plaque from conventional sources that cannot be denied by anybody. I would not take any medical doctor's explanation at face value. Heelop 20:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting; I'm similarly reluctant to accept scientifically and medically unfounded claims from people with a direct financial interest at face value. I don't see Paul Lee's blog cited in the article; neither will your (?) Geocities page be. Both would fail the reliable-sources criteria. MastCell ^Talk 22:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

First of all, you guys did not think that Paul Lee’s blog site failed the reliable-sources criteria when you guys put it in the main article and kept it there. If you look in the history, you will see that I am the one that had to take it down. Second, you appear to be confused if you think I am asking for your permission to put my makeshift web site in the main article. As you already know, if I believe an edit is wiki-legal I would just add it without asking for your permission first. I was thinking that if you guys can site personal blog sites on this talk page to make your point, then I can as well. It’s not like I can upload copyrighted photographs to this talk page. Third, this financial interest argument is so old, worn-out and weak that I will try to reduce my response to one sentence: M.D.’s have a financial interest in the stuff they peddle. Fourth, being an empiricist and a straight A student, I am reluctant to accept unfounded claims from people who say that no modern scientist has ever seen anything resembling the concept of mucoid plaque when photographs and anatomical studies prove otherwise. Heelop 03:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

One would think a straight A student should know that there are sounder ways to argue a point than tu quoque, proof by repeated assertion, and proof by vehement assertion. Raymond Arritt 03:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of copyright, do you have permission from Spiro to reproduce the photos from Clinical Gastroenterology on your website to promote proprietary products? MastCell ^Talk 04:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC) Never mind... I need to remember that this talk page is not for general discussion. Heelop, do you have any actual suggestions as to how the article can be improved? MastCell ^Talk 04:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Yes. This article does not have a NPOV. Please read up on Wiki's NPOV policy so that my future edits will be understood. Also, please assume good faith by not repeatedly suggesting that I have a financial interest in this. I have repeatedly told you that I am just an average Joe with no financial interest! Heelop 05:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll re-read WP:NPOV if you will also, particularly the section on undue weight. The gist is that NPOV does not mean that subjects must be presented uncritically. In fact, subjects should be presented in the context of their acceptance by experts in the field. In this case, experts in the field unanimously reject the existence of mucoid plaque. Failing to mention that tidbit would be a true NPOV violation. MastCell ^Talk 16:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears Heelop is not persuaded by comments here. May I suggest other options such as a third opinion, mediation or RFC? Would that satisfy user if that also resulted in a similar outcome? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 17:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, lets see hear. The undue weight link that you gave me says that “views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.” The article is clearly devoted to Richard Anderson’s mucoid plaque theory and to alternative medicine’s autointoxication theory. For example, if an article was about the Earth, mentioning the Flat Earth Theory would be inappropriate. But if the article was about the Flat Earth Theory, then describing the views of these minority proponents is obviously necessary. Failing to mention this tidbit from the actual link that you gave me would be a violation of my request for you to actually read it. Heelop 17:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your interpretation and selective quotation of the policy. Any mention of the Flat Earth Theory would necessarily be accompanied by a statement that it's explicitly been rejected. Same here. "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view.". Also, "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject." Since "mucoid plaque" and "autointoxication" are minority theories explicitly rejected by experts in the field (e.g. gastroenterologists), it's clear that the article needs to reflect this. Policy is clear on this matter, and consensus (as reflected both here and by uninvolved editors at the AfD) is pretty clearly against your interpretation. If you think I haven't re-read WP:NPOV many a time in response to single-purpose accounts on a mission to push a fringe health-related POV, you'd be wrong. MastCell ^Talk 18:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

This page already makes appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint. In fact, there is nothing but the majority view point. Anybody that thinks otherwise is obviously delusional. Simply adding the minority viewpoint to the page is not going to magically “rewrite” the majority-view content “strictly” from the minority view. In fact, this page is already written “strictly” from the majority viewpoint. Speaking of selective quotation, it is interesting how you selected the last part of the complete sentence “or among the concerned parties” out of the actual complete sentence “Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties.” Richard Anderson is a concerned party. Also, you misinterpretated what “expert” means and ignored that they must have “competing views”. It is obvious to all that the “experts” you cite in the article do not have “competing views” and that what Jimbo Wales means by “experts” is the prominent adherents not simply medical doctors: “If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents.” Policy is clear that flamboyant disregard for Wiki’s foundational issues such as NPOV is an exception to consensus. Heelop 20:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

May I again invite you to seek dispute resolution through the above mentioned fora? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 21:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. You've already had every other editor on this talk page, in addition to the many commenters at the AfD, disagree with your interpretation of policy. The consensus at the AfD was to keep the article, provided that it makes clear the absence of evidence for the existence of mucoid plaque. You've now had every other editor, both on this talk page and in the AfD, disagree with your interpretation of NPOV, and been blocked for disruptively attempting to force the issue. We can continue forum-shopping (the next step would be a request for comment or post to Village pump to get more input), but at some point you may need to accept that consensus is going against you and attempting an end-run around it isn't going to work. MastCell ^Talk 21:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Concur. Heelop - no, your representation of policy and various conepts is simply wrong. GO through the dispute resolution process if you won't acept that. Midgley 19:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Currently a good article

It is useful, balanced, neutral, informative, and encylopaedic in the sense of being useful to the reader of an encyclopaedia. Midgley 19:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC).

I disagree entirely. Currently I see 3 sections to this article: An introduction which contains a disproportionate (read: biased) number of quotes and rhetoric discrediting the theory, a VERY brief background of the origin of the theory and what it's supposed to actually do, a large section on criticism, and to top it off, not counting a John Wayne and Elvis Presley myth. Wikipedia doesn't exist to present or favour one side of an argument in order to discredit something. If you feel such a compelling urge to discredit Mucoid plaque, make your own web page for this purpose. Otherwise, clean up the language on this page to read more neutral, add more of the other side of the argument, rebuttals, counter criticism, etc. ▫Bad▫harlick♠ 07:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

You may be misunderstanding WP:NPOV, particularly its section on undue weight. The guideline on "fringe" theories is also useful reading. Basically, the article reflects what reliable sources have to say about mucoid plaque. Subjects are generally presented in the context of their acceptance among experts in the field (see WP:WEIGHT); as mucoid plaque is nearly universally dismissed as a non-entity by experts in the field, Wikipedia needs to reflect that in order to truly be neutral. The purpose of the article is not to present a point/counterpoint debate about mucoid plaque; it's to adequately summarize the state of knowledge on the topic at present. Which this article does. MastCell ^Talk 17:48, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

No I really don't think I'm misunderstanding anything. I'm not interested in what "reliable" sources "have to say" about mucoid plaque, they have their place in the article to give balance but the article is not titled "the case against Mucoid Plaque" - I did not search for this article to read nothing but discrediting. I'm not interested in reading about that, I want to read information pertaining to the THEORY not other people's views on that theory. And before anyone accuses me of anything, I personally believe that this theory is total bunk.

Just look at the post below. That alone is the evidence that proves my point. That person seems to think that presenting information on the theory is "advertising" it, as if anything in wikipedia is endorsed by wikipedia as fact. You should not get that kind of posting in a good, neutral article. Wikipedia doesn't exist to "quash the mad tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists". Fringe theory or not, we must be neutral. ▫Bad▫harlick♠ 05:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

IF you're "not interested in what 'reliable' sources 'have to say' about mucoid plaque," then you're in the wrong place. Wikipedia's standards on verifiability and use of reliable sources, and its insistence on not giving undue weight to fringe ideas, are non-negotiable core policies. Raymond Arritt 06:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

True. Also, the beauty of Wikipedia is that it collects useful references. If you want to read a lot of detail about the "theory" of mucoid plaque, I believe we do have a reference to Richard Anderson's website. If you want more detailed, three-dimensional coverage of mucoid plaque in the context of its notability, impact, and responses to it, then Wikipedia is the place. MastCell ^Talk 03:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, well, well. It looks like I don’t have to “continue forum-shopping”. Is▫Bad▫harlick♠ one of the other “fringe health-related POV” missionaries disagreeing with your delusional interpretation of NPOV, MastCell? By the way, the “many commenters at the AfD” that you mentioned did not disagree with my interpretation of NPOV policy. Instead, they agreed to adopt a “if all else fails, ignore all rules and do what you can” policy. What’s the matter? Are you forced to resort to irrationality because all other rational methods of discrediting fail? First, it is not true that only so called “expert” MDs get a soapbox on Wikipedia. The undue weight clause says that “Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties.” Note also that the “experts” must have “competing views”. Second, what the undue weight clause actually says about minority theories is that they “can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them” and they “may be spelled out in great detail” as long as they make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint. Third, it is not true that “reliable sources” means only medical doctors. WP:RS says that “an article should use the most reliable and appropriate published sources to cover all majority and significant-minority published views.” Fourth, Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources that you described as “non-negotiable” states that “personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources”. So, two of your so called “reliable sources” are not so reliable. Are they? Fifth, that “article from the Division of Complementary Medicine of the University of Exeter” does not mention mucoid plaque at all contrary to what you claim. I have the article. That removes the last of your so called “reliable sources”. Lastly, it looks like the “ignore all rules” policy which you apparently adopted also applies to the logical rule of not contradicting yourself. Despite your claim, MastCell, that “the article reflects what reliable sources have to say about mucoid plaque”, you have already stated in the AfD that “there are no reliable sources refuting such a claim.” Heelop 05:41, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

"delusional interpretation" and "irrationality"??? Pretty obvious personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith of a severity worthy of immediate sanctions. Heelop, you deserve an enforced wikibreak of about 14 days for that attack on a highly respected MD and administrator. Better yet, take a voluntary break and cool off. -- Fyslee / talk 06:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Hah... I thought you were referring to me until I read "highly respected". Welcome back, Heelop. In all seriousness, it's very simple. The only way this topic comes close to meeting notability guidelines is if critical sources are considered (cf. "If a non-mainstream theory is so unnotable that mainstream sources have not bothered to comment on it, disparage it, or discuss it, it is not notable enough for Wikipedia."). You can't hold up the critical sources claiming they demonstrate notability, and then turn around and refuse to acknowledge those sources in the article. By the way, read the AfD you cited again. Not only did the commentators disagree with your approach to NPOV, there was a consensus that the page required constant monitoring to avoid being hijacked by "problem editors". Your record in that regard speaks for itself, and it's unlikely you'll be taken seriously unless you modify your approach. MastCell ^Talk 06:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

For some reason people feel that if one editor finds fault with this article it should be amended against consensus. As I suggested before, would said editor please go to WP:RFC or engage in some other form of WP:DR? Simply complaining that the world is unfair may be a correct statement but will not improve this article nor does it belong on any talk page. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 13:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll mediate, if no one minds :) Xavexgoem (talk) 23:50, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I feel this is more an issue with the content and presentation of the article than with any POV policy. I have a hunch this will be resolved quickly if an edit, example, or reversion can be provided. I don't mean to be insisting on that part, but this can be settled quicker if we debate the content of that edit and not the policies behind it. Xavexgoem (talk) 00:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not clear what you hope to accomplish through your offer to mediate, when this thread has been inactive for nearly four months. Can you elaborate? Raymond Arritt (talk) 00:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh wow, I hadn't noticed that. here is the case review, dated, err, yesterday... *sheepish*. Nevermind then! Xavexgoem (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] My sincere thanks

To all who fought to keep this page from being used to advertise and perpetuate a very seemingly convinving urban myth.

Good work! Sethie 23:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

We don't have a proper reference for this statement: "The existence of mucoid plaque has not been reported in the medical literature,", so let's delete it as OR.
The reference for this one: "a complete fabrication without any anatomical basis" is just one person writing on a bloggish part of the Quackwatch website. Let's delete that.
The reference for a "non-credible concept" looks respectable. Maybe it's a peer-reviewed article. Let's keep that.
The reference for "a bold lie" looks like just some guy's website. Let's delete that.
This one seems to have a proper reference, so let's keep it: "An article from the Division of Complementary Medicine of the University of Exeter described mucoid plaque and other claims of "colonic autointoxication" as "a triumph of ignorance over science", based on "old bogus claims and the impressive power of vested interests."
This looks POV to me: Despite the absence of scientific evidence, Let's delete that.
This one: mucoid plaque is discussed outside the medical community, especially within holistic health circles and in anecdotal accounts of colon hydrotherapy procedures. doesn't look too bad. I assume everyone agrees that it's talked about. If necessary it can be replaced by attributed quotes or attributed paraphrases.
This one is POV and OR: The idea of huge accumulations of fecal material in the bowel has acquired urban legend status. It's POV because "legend" implies that it's false. It's OR because we don't have a source stating that it's an urban legend (do we?) I suggest replacing it with a very short summary of what the source actually says. How about something like this: "An urban legends website says that fecal matter can become impacted, but dismisses the idea that 40 or more pounds of mucoid plaque was found in autopsies of various celebrities." (I don't think we should name the celebrities here.)

Under "Background," I assume the description of his theory is OK, (hopefully someone based it on his book or something,) but this part lacks a reliable source: "These claims are not supported by scientific or medical research." so let's just delete that bit.

Criticisms:

"The major criticisms of the concept of mucoid plaque are that it has never been described in the scientific or medical literature" this lacks any proper citation. It's OR -- just the conclusion of a Wikipedian. Let's delete it.
"and that medical doctors report that it has never been found in their patients" -- now that we're in the Criticism section, the Quackwatch reference looks OK. I was going to suggest replacing this with a statement that can be supported by the reference, but I see that something almost identical to what I would have proposed is already there in the next sentence, so let's just delete this bit.
"The existence of mucoid plaque is promoted primarily by people and organizations in the business of selling books and products aimed at remedying it." Citation needed. Let's delete it unless a citation can be found.
"Edward Uthman, a practicing pathologist and Adjunct Professor of Pathology at the University of Texas School of Medicine, has said on the basis of having examined several thousand intestinal biopsies: "This is a complete fabrication with no anatomic basis." This is a good representation of the Quackwatch source. (which may or may not be considered a reliable source, but in the criticism section I think it's OK.)

Continuing...

"A 2004 paper by Soergel, Tse and Slaughter on the relationship between lay and medical language uses "mucoid plaque" as an example of "non-credible concepts" used by healthcare consumers.[4]" I think this bit looks OK.
"An editorial in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology described the concept of mucoid plaque and "colonic autointoxication" in general as characterized by "...false claims, a lack of evidence, big money, aggressive advertising, [and] disregard of risk."[6]" Maybe I can only see the abstract, so I can't verify the details, but I assume this is an accurate representation of what the paper says.
Re John Wayne and Elvis Presley: For one thing, the reference given actually says that Elvis' colon was found on autopsy to be 5 inches in diameter in places and filled with a white, chalklike fecal material. It used the words "the severely impacted condition of Elvis' colon." So this doesn't look like a debunking of a theory that colons get impacted. Secondly, although I suppose WP:BLP doesn't apply since these people are dead, I'm still a little uncomfortable including their names since I assume they might have family or something that could be bothered by this sort of thing. On the other hand, if some product is making claims about one of them, maybe it's better if we do say something about it here. No strong opinion one way or another about including this section. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

That'd be about the bulk of the article ;). I know nothing about this subject, but I'll clean up the more obvious examples over time. Xavexgoem (talk) 03:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You're holding statements of criticism regarding mucoid plaque to a much higher standard than you are statements of support. You're requiring peer-reviewed articles and the like for criticism while giving a bye to sources favorable to the concept. Sorry, but that's just not on. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of Coppertwig's intent, many of these items are indeed problematic. I disagree with deleting un-cited info and opting for fact templates instead. Much of this article will be improved with simple copy-editing. Xavexgoem (talk) 03:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, it's better to claim something may be OR or un-cited than to delete it out-right. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Raymond: would you please be specific? In particular, which statements favourable to the concept do you think are not sourced to the standards I seem to be requiring for the statements unfavourable to the concept? Which particular passages would you handle differently from what I suggest, and why? Remember though, this is an article about the theory, so we need sources that establish that the theory says certain things -- not necessarily sources that establish that that theory is true.

Fact tags for a while are OK, but WP:V says "Any edit lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references." and "Do not leave unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living persons." --Coppertwig (talk) 04:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see where we need any more of a definition than that given in the lead sentence. Why allow proponents of this "theory" get to use Anderson's self-published contentions that mucoid plaque protect the body from toxic substances and so forth, if we are so concerned with sourcing? Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It is self-published, indeed. However, there is absolutely NO way to get ~~WP:UNDUE~~ context without that source, regardless of how boneheaded the idea is. It is an article about Mucoid Plaque (whatever the hell that is), not an article about what's wrong with it (I can name about a million myself). As such, we need SOME context. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

For this reason: that the article is about the theory, so we need to present information about the theory, because that's what readers of such an article are expecting and wanting. If nothing else, it sets the context for the criticism section. See WP:SELFPUB, which says "Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as: ..." If this article were titled "Quackwatch", we might include a bunch of info from Quackwatch in it. --Coppertwig (talk) 04:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there is nothing in this article that gives the man a free pass. But it's relevant to the article. I don't want to hit 3RR over a contextually relevant section. EC: Basically, what Coppertwig said :p Xavexgoem (talk) 04:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, but have you actually read WP:UNDUE? It doesn't say we need to assign equal weight and credibility to every viewpoint that exists. It says we should "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." (emphasis added) See also the discussion on parity of sources at Wikipedia:Fringe#Sourcing_and_attribution: if you're going to allow Anderson's SPS to stand, there's no call for taking a scorched-earth approach to critical sources. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

No, no, no...WP:UNDUE was the wrong one to use. I'm in no way favoring unreliable cites (and they WILL be unreliable) to fill up the article with fancy ideas. All I meant was we need the context, and Coppertwig is absolutely right in referring to WP:SELFPUB. I striked the undue, and apologize. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

(<<outdent) From WP:UNDUE: "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them". Note the example of the Flat Earth article. This article has no structure to it if the background section is removed. Note that the whole background section is presented from the point of view, more or less, of the majority viewpoint: words such as "purported" and "claimed" are used to imply that the material is probably false. Please note that my name is "Coppertwig". --Coppertwig (talk) 04:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry! Won't happen again :) Xavexgoem (talk) 04:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Not a big deal, Xavexgoem. Maybe I shouldn't have made a fuss about it. (Or did you mean about accidentally bringing WP:UNDUE into it? :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 05:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Small deletion spree

Just went on a bit of a spree, partly to remove unreliable citations but mostly to make the article more concise and let the facts speak for themselves. If someone has issues with the citations, feel free to add them back in but make sure it conforms with WP:MOS. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I returned a couple of (reliable) citations to the lead. The issue here goes back to its most recent AfD. The verdict there was that this topic is notable as an example of a "cure" which has been widely debunked. If this topic has enough notability to pass WP:FRINGE (which I still doubt), then it's only on the strength of reliable mainstream sources which have debunked the concept. We can't turn around, once notability is established, and remove or minimize those sources in order to create a false "balance". The lead should briefly and proportionately summarize relevant aspects of the topic (per WP:LEAD). The mainstream debunking of "mucoid plaque" is probably the most relevant (and certainly the best-sourced) aspect of the topic, so it belongs in the lead. As to Quackwatch and the Uthman site, they are both reasonable sources to use in this article, and far more reliable than Anderson's website promoting the idea (and cure) for mucoid plaque. In both cases, the authors are experts in the field (pathologists). MastCell ^Talk 07:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, MastCell. I was going to suggest restoring the Uthman quote to the article, but a longer quote in the Criticism section, not a brief phrase and footnote in the lead.

MastCell, could you help with something? The Friedmann ref itself contains a quote from "J. Clin. Gastro. 24: 196, 1997". Could you obtain a copy of that actual article and verify the quote? Then we could cite the article directly, which would be reliable, and we wouldn't need Friedmann's website. Is there a list somewhere of users who have access to certain journals and are willing to look things up? I could add my name to the list for certain things, but not this journal. I don't know whether you have access to it either. Again, though, I'd like to see the longer sentence about this ref in the Criticism section (if it can be properly sourced), not a brief mention in the lead. I think it's better for the lead to summarize than to give a bunch of short quotes, which sound choppy to me. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

That was the intent of my deletion from the the lead: it sounded choppy. I wasn't entirely sure about the reliability of those sources (but I've never needed to cite medical sources, so I apologize in advance). The more elaborate statement against it by Exeter seemed fitting and reduced the size of the lead: here it is, here it definitely isn't, not here it is, here it isn't, here it isn't, here it isn't, here it definitely isn't :p. It's a style thing :p Xavexgoem (talk) 17:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Xavexgoem about the style thing. Also, I would delete "variously" from "it has been variously described as". Style, plus the quote are all tending in the same direction, so "variously" could tend to confuse the reader, setting up expectations of contradictory or at least significantly divergent descriptions. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Concerning reliability of those sources, that editorial in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology titled "Colonic irrigation and the theory of autointoxication: a triumph of ignorance over science" does not at all talk about mucoid plaque. It only talks about autointoxication. I have the full article.Heelop (talk) 19:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Then it seems fair that it be removed if it contains zero references to "mucoid plaque" or "mucoid rope". However, I speculate as to how an article about autointoxication (correct me if I'm wrong, but that's basically a placebo effect?) and colonic irrigation could not mention mucoid plaque. But I'm not in any hurry to learn what other alternative reasons people have for getting a colonic ;). Xavexgoem (talk) 19:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You're spot on. If you read the alt med "literature" at all, mucoid plaque is simply one of the factors that cause autointoxication. Arguing that autointoxication has to be kept strictly separate from mucoid plaque is like arguing that AIDS has to be kept strictly separate from HIV. Raymond Arritt (talk) 20:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Heelop nevertheless, for style reasons: 1. It's about mucoid plaque. Say it with me. "Mucoid plaque". I laugh and cry everytime I hear it; 2. Ergo, the article doesn't need to be so big; and finally, 3. The source material, although relevant, is not an indictment against the concept of (ugh) mucoid plaque, but certainly deserves a cite in the alternative enema section. Xavexgoem (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it actually IS an indictment of mucoid plaque had they heard of it, but that's beside the point. It's inclusion would be a little misleading is all (imo) Xavexgoem (talk) 20:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll remove it then. The reason mucoid plaque is not mentioned is because they are not aware of the existance of this concept. The theory of autointoxication has been around far longer than the relatively new concept of mucoid plaque. Furthermore, not all alternative medicine practitioners that believe in autointoxication also believe in mucoid plaque.Heelop (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

If the medical community is "not aware of the existence of this concept", and even the alternative-medical community references comprise pretty much just the website of the guy who made it up and sells products which "cure" it, then the article should be deleted as non-notable per WP:FRINGE. If we're going to draw a narrow net which excludes any reference to closely related concepts like autointoxication, then the article fails WP:FRINGE all the more spectacularly. MastCell ^Talk 20:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, while we're talking style, what's with relegating anything critical to the "Criticism" ghetto? "Criticism" sections are the mark of an immature article. The article should cover notable aspects of the topic more smoothly. If the topic is notable primarily for negative coverage in reliable sources, then that should be evident - it shouldn't be segregated in a "Criticism" section. MastCell ^Talk 20:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It's been kept twice before, and I don't think that process needs to be started again. I think it's fine as is, stylistic issues notwithstanding. It's clear reading it, and looking through the sources, that A) it is somewhat relevant, and B) it's bullshit. If we can think of anything better than lead, background, criticism, that'd be great, keeping in mind that the "background" section is relevant to the article, and placing it away from the lead (whilst moving all criticism to the lead) might not be per WP:UNDUE but it might look it. I say: Keep the article how it is. Xavexgoem (talk) 21:05, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Also: could probably remove the elvis/wayne myth. It's just filler and a chance to go to snopes, imo. It's possible to move that into criticism (or whatever), as well. Xavexgoem (talk) 21:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd be fine with removing the Elvis thing - it's pretty tangential. If you look at the last AfD, at least, it was kept on the understanding that it would not return to a promotional or unbalanced state. At the time, Heelop (talk · contribs) was blocked for his disruptive and promotional single-purpose activity related to this article. I'm fine with the article as it looks at this moment, but if the understanding from the previous AfD is negated then it would be reasonable to repeat the process. MastCell ^Talk 21:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Does the result of the AfD ~~result~~ bear more on the article, or the user? Both requests for deletions were met with keeps on the basis that it's an urban myth worthy of at least a stub (imo). I'll remove Elvis, poor guy. Xavexgoem (talk) 21:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The John Wayne thing absolutely must stay. It's been cited by outside readers as one of the most useful pieces of knowledge in the article. The Elvis material is more arguable, so he can leave the building. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree about keeping John Wayne and deleting Elvis. I get over 2000 Google hits for John Wayne mucoid plaque. (OK, I admit, I also get over 500 for Elvis Presley mucoid plaque.) If companies are claiming stuff about John Wayne in their ads, then (as someone else said above) it's worthwhile to give information about that.

Heelop: Here's a fine point about WP:SPS. We can use Anderson's self-published sources to establish information about Anderson and about what his theories are. But we can't use his self-published material to establish information about other people or other things. Therefore, we can't quote him saying that there are hundreds of scientific studies. If there are such studies, let's see them, and we can either reference them directly, or reference a couple of them as examples; once we've established their existence and are able to provide an alternative viewpoint as to what they say, then maybe we can quote Anderson talking about them. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Notice that WP:fringe says "In an article on a fringe topic, if a notable fringe theory is primarily described by amateurs and self-published texts, verifiable and reliable criticism of the fringe theory need not be published in a peer reviewed journal. For example, the Apollo moon landing hoax accusations article may include material from websites, movies, television specials, and books that are not peer reviewed. Critiques of that material can likewise be gleaned from websites and books that are not peer reviewed, since the accusations themselves are not peer reviewed. Parity of sources may mean that certain fringe theories are only reliably and verifiably reported on, or criticized, in alternative venues from those that are typically considered reliable sources for Wikipedi." Also, you said that "we can't use his self-published material to establish information about other people or other things" however this moon landing hoax article they give as an example allows self-published sources to evaluate NASA's moon landing pictures in order to "prove" that they were a hoax. I would also like to point out that "an alternative viewpoint" of the pictures was not required in order to describe the hoax viewpoint. Heelop (talk) 01:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Heelop; and I apologize for not having reviewed the WP:FRINGE guideline before editing this article. This frees us up to use somewhat less reliable sources (e.g. certain websites, such as Friedmann's) on both sides of the issue. In that case, we can probably write a slightly longer artlcle and divide it into meaningful sections as MastCell suggests.

I suggest the following structure -- what do others think of this?

Intestinal mucus This section to have about a paragraph, starting with a mainstream scientific description of intestinal mucus, then Anderson's claims about mucus specifically (e.g. that it's thick, etc.) and any commentary we can find on those particular claims.
Theory of autointoxication This section can diverge slightly, mentioning very briefly (e.g. a half sentence each) some other theories of autointoxication, and can end with the mainstream scientific commentary on autointoxication theories.
Regime claimed to cleanse the colon This section would describe briefly what Anderson recommends (e.g. herbs and ...) and anything we can verify about what physical effects people have experienced when following it, plus Anderson's claims about its benefits and any commentary we can find responding to that.
The John Wayne myth Leave this section just as it is.

--Coppertwig (talk) 02:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It goes off on too many tangents. And I'm dumbfounded at your implication that "this frees us up to use somewhat less reliable sources" is somehow a good thing. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

What would you suggest doing instead? --Coppertwig (talk) 03:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It's fine! Leave it alone, please, for my sanity! ;) Seriously, though, I think it's fine the way it is. Mucoid plaque is mucoid plaque is mucoid plaque. MUCOID PLAQUE! We should form a band. Xavexgoem (talk) 03:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. The article describes what little is known about mucoid plaque. There's no point in bringing in other concepts (and using dodgy sources) simply for the sake of making the article longer. Wikipedia already has material on colon hydrotherapy and such. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - I'm a bit astounded. WP:FRINGE doesn't "free us up" or encourage us to use unreliable sources; it merely provides that if a fringe idea is documented solely in unreliable sources, that the bar for critical material may be commensurately lowered a bit (though I still contend that all of the sources cited here fulfill the criteria at WP:V and WP:RS in full). Let's get back to the facts on the ground: this is a fringe idea with exactly one supporting source, which happens to be a self-published website by a guy who sells products to cure this "disease" which he's invented. Wikipedia's role is absolutely not to lower its sourcing standards in order to amplify on this one website's fringe claim, and I am a bit dumbfounded to hear WP:FRINGE interpreted that way. MastCell ^Talk 05:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think that, for the moment, nothing much more needs to be said. Its significance (low) is fine for the length and relative quality of its article (which isn't so bad as it stands, really). So, pending a RS on potential benefits (and even lowering the bar on that a notch, I think one would have difficulty finding a good source that isn't self-published), I'd like (I think we'd all like) to leave this behind us. Xavexgoem (talk) 05:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm with you there, though since you've looked at the article I'd encourage you to keep it watchlisted. Every now and then Heelop (talk · contribs) pops up to promote the plaque. MastCell ^Talk 05:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Are we to start keeping score? You know, "three strikes and he's out" of here, just like in California....;-) We need a policy change that allows that. -- Fyslee / talk 06:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I want to mention that I totally agree with Coppertwig’s proposal. I also want to point out the fact that MastCell’s claim that there is "exactly one supporting source," which is a "website," and that Anderson solely "invented" the concept is absolutely wrong. This concept of mucoid plaque has been around since about the 1950’s. The alternative medicine practitioners Victor E. Irons, Bernard Jensen, Robert Gray, and John Christopher have all written their own books specifically advocating the concept of mucoid plaque way before Richard Anderson. Also, MastCell keeps referring to Richard Anderson’s self-published book as a “website.” There is no need to exaggerate.

Concerning Fyslee’s grandiose suggestion that I am a criminal and that we should be "keeping score." I’m not aware that improving the article by requesting the support of a neutral third party to remove the blatantly obvious OR, which they have removed, or acquiring the blessing of this neutral party to remove what Raymond Arritt now agrees are "dodgy sources" about autointoxication are criminal acts and strikes against me. Furthermore, if you want to be "keeping score," ▫Bad▫harlick♠ and coppertwig on this talk page, although skeptics of this concept, generally agree with my position that we should include Anderson’s detailed arguments. Not to mention the small handful of supporters, like me, that have commented to this talk page in the past. If you, Fyslee, are referring to "keeping score" of bad behavior, an arbitration committee has already ruled that "Fyslee has engaged in incivility and personal attacks," that "Fyslee has repeatedly used Quackwatch and similar partisan sites as references," and that Fyslee "is a health activist who participates in a number of internet sites critical of alternative medicine." I don’t know how many points that is worth. Will you please, please stop the personal attacks Fyslee? Heelop (talk) 17:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Your attempt to play the victim here isn't working. Sorry. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the names of alternative theorists, Heelop. Here's another possible reference, then, that I found on Google Books by searching for one of the names you gave. I think more can be found, too: Bozesan, Mariana (2004). Diet for a New Life: 8 Steps to Weight Loss. Sageera Institute LLC. ISBN 0974610208. “As we look at it from the weight loss perspective, we need to know that removing the mucoid plaque will ensure that we will lose unwanted weight -- up to 40 pounds according to Dr. Jensen -- forever. By changing our diet and continuing to cleanse regularly, we ensure that our body gets back into balance and regains its health and vitality without having to creating [sic] that plaque ever again.”

MastCell, you said that Friedmann's website is a reliable source. Would you please provide on this talk page the rationale for that judgement? Thanks. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you seriously proposing that something published by the Sageera Institute is a reliable source?!? (*boggle*) How many self-published books and websites from woo-woo land are you intending to shoehorn into this article? Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Please see the quote from WP:FRINGE that Heelop provided above. In my opinion, a book such as this is a reliable source for the purpose of establishing that there exists such a book that makes certain claims about mucoid plaque. It is not, in my opinion, a reliable source for the purpose of establishing those claims as fact; however, I think the first-mentioned purpose is useful for this article, (just as Anderson's material is), in combination with mainstream scientific commentary on the validity of the claims. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Note, Coppertwig, that I think it is best to limit the minority view to the original prominent pioneers of the theory that I have listed rather than include all the large number of "students" of their theory. Heelop (talk) 18:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You're right. Can you find the writings of the pioneers and provide citations of them? That would be better. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this website [15] has been removed from the refs of the article and I'd like to put it back in. I think it gives an interesting perspective on the theory, and the picture is informative. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we can represent Jensen's view by citing this page of Anderson's website, which begins with a quote from Jensen's Doctor-Patient Handbook. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

To address Coppertwig's question: Friedlander is a board-certified pathologist, a fellow of the College of American Pathologists, and chairman of pathology at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences ([16]). He is published in the peer-reviewed medical literature on pathology ([17]). His website therefore falls under the portion of WP:V which states: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." On a larger note, I'm not exaggerating when I say that it boggles the mind that we are simultaneously seeking to loosen the sourcing rules to amplify the claims of non-notable, self-published fringe books, while simultaneously taking an inappropriate and non-policy-based hard line against citing a clearly qualified medical expert in pathology who has directly addressed the topic. I think we're entering the Twilight Zone. We don't need to cite every non-notable author who's self-published a non-notable book mentioning "mucoid plaque", nor do we need to reinsert a blog posting from quackfiles to "balance" the poor-quality pro-plaque sources we're contemplating adding. MastCell ^Talk 18:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Note, coppertwig, that I want to add Anderson’s arguments first because he is the most recent and influential author. But I am concerned about allowing the article to showcase the exact excerpts that Anderson specifically showcases in his book that he says supports his theory. You, coppertwig, have suggested allowing “Anderson's claims about mucus specifically (e.g. that it's thick, etc.) and any commentary we can find on those particular claims.” Afterall, to say that “extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence” and then not allow Anderson to give his alleged evidence would be unfair. As I have already mentioned earlier in this talk page, the Apollo moon landing hoax article provides a precedent for allowing this. Note that to claim that pathologists are not "trained" to recognize it is certainly an extradordinary claim. Heelop (talk) 19:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

"Extraordinary evidence" in the context of WP:V refers to multiple prominent, notable, extremely solid and reinforcing reliable independent secondary sources - that is, to extraordinarily solid sourcing - not to "extraordinary" evidence of a claimed disorder presented by a fringe practioner in his book or website. MastCell ^Talk 19:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You are again misunderstand. As Coppertwig already explained to you, we are not establishing his evidence as facts but rather establishing that Anderson makes those claims. Heelop (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

But we've already got Anderson's claims in the article. Raymond Arritt (talk) 19:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

And his claims are not particularly notable in themselves, so it's not necessary to expound on them in great detail; it's enough to briefly summarize them. Most or all of their notability comes from the mainstream sources which have debunked them. MastCell ^Talk 19:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Notability concerns "topics" not "claims". You misread it. If the topic is notable as you claim it is, then WP:NPOV allows the minority view to be "spelled out in great detail" as long as appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint is given. That is, if one exists.Heelop (talk) 20:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

His claims are the topic of this article. Come on now. MastCell ^Talk 20:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, MastCell. I remember reading that part of WP:V previously; I'm sorry it didn't occur to me to apply it here. Also, I apologize for being sloppy and getting the name wrong. It's Friedlander, not Friedmann. --Coppertwig (talk) 20:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

MastCell, if "his claims are the topic of this article," why not allow Anderson to "expound on them in great detail." On the other hand, if the topic (or his claims) are not notable, rules dictate that the article be deleted. Come on now. Heelop (talk) 20:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd be fine with deleting the article rather than have it turn into a showcase for Anderson's spurious claims. Raymond Arritt (talk) 20:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

His claims CREATE the topic of this article, but they are NOT the topic of this article. It is against policy (as has been said), and using WP:IAR (which is frankly your only recourse without a RS) will bring this back to dispute resolution, AfD, etc, which you will (I believe) fight with tooth and nail (and will probably be rejected per the articles significance and the two keeps it already maintains). You've been warned about this before, I believe. Xavexgoem (talk) 20:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Raymond Arritt, you said of my suggested structure above, "It goes off on too many tangents". Would you expand on that, please? It seems to me that intestinal mucus, the theory of autointoxication and Anderson's recommended regime are each fundamentally associated with the topic. What specifically are the "tangents" you see? Can you suggest a different way to subdivide the article into subtopics? --Coppertwig (talk) 22:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

There's no need to go into exhaustive detail on everything remotely relevant to such a thin topic. Adding a review of medical aspects of intestinal mucous and so forth distracts from the issue at hand. The article is about mucoid plaque, not gastroenterology. It's a very short story: Anderson says we need to get rid of mucoid plaque. The medical community says mucoid plaque doesn't exist and the whole thing is "a bold lie". The End. As I said before, there's no need to make the article longer for the sake of making it longer. Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Salvador Dali

Seeing this debate I can only conclude we are back at the first AfD and have entered the surreal world of Through the Looking-Glass. If it is not possible to have an adequate article on this subject without people attempting to remove all criticism we again are left with an advertisement. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 21:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest stepping back and taking a broader view of this. This is entirely about a procedural loophole in Wikipedia. The article is the equivalent of someone selling a joke soap that turns black when you wash with it, and claiming that the black stuff is "dermatological plaque" that was there all along. It is such a fucking stupid and bizarre claim that few medical sources have debunked it. What to do?

It is not original research to state what is generally known. Therefore we are not stopped by procedure from explaining the context of general medical sources that deny the existence of anything remotely resembling this "dermatological plaque" or whatever. It is also a procedural sophistry to argue that we can't cite the non-appearance of some phenomenon in mainstream sources. A lack of citation is just as valid a summary of generally agreed knowledge as a citation.

Is this not time to drop these procedural arguments anyway? We have a clear case of long-running WP:SOAP and tendentious editing, and probably undisclosed conflict of interest: an editor who has zero interest in Wikipedia except to promote this claim. It's long overdue to throw the book at them for that, and for abuse of process for the recent attempt to invoke mediation. 217.44.19.100 (talk) 00:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

For your information, mysterious editor that did not sign in, Nomen Nescio and MastCell repeatedly told me to seek mediation. Please. Heelop (talk) 03:13, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I told you to file an RfC or seek help in understanding policy from the Village Pump the last time you advanced the same arguments, back in June. MastCell ^Talk 05:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proving a negative

I oppose this edit by Nescio, which restores material I consider to be original research. Carrying out a database search or checking through some books to find that something doesn't appear in them is original research. I dispute the statement that existence of mucoid plaque hasn't been reported in medical literature. I don't know whether it has been reported in medical literature or not. I find the sources provided (a database search and links to three textbooks) to be unconvincing; but even if convincing, they're original research by Wikipedians. If the statement is to be made that it hasn't been reported in medical literature, a source must be provided that makes that statement. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I hypothesize that muscular contractions are controlled by aliens from the planet Zorgon. Find someone who states that the medical literature does not discuss my hypothesis. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

You could write a book about it ;) Xavexgoem (talk) 03:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

You don't even know what Anderson's arguments are, Raymond Arritt. Anderson is not claiming that the concept, as a whole, is describe in the medical literature. He is claiming that the concept has been collectively and unwittingly described in the scientific literature. Also, Richard Anderson never said that there is black plaque in the intestines. In fact, Anderson says that it only turns blackish-brown after it breaks away from the intestines because of the bile. See the heading "Verifiably Untrue Statements"in this talk page for more information. Heelop (talk) 03:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Given the medical evidence that it doesn't exist at all, its supposed color is irrelevant. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that we got the color worked out,

The Concept:

Thick coating of mucus-like material that builds up on the intestinal walls as the body attempts to protect itself from various toxic substances. It reduces the absorption of nutrients and is implicated in various diseases such as diarrhea, giardiasis, food intolerance, cystic fibrosis, peptic ulcers, and various bowel diseases . It is sometimes referred to as "mucin".

The Medical Evidence Found in PubMed:

Heelop (talk) 04:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I could deconstruct this, but I think MastCell's view will provide greater entertainment. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I will only for now that a pathological entity which returns zero PubMed hits does not, medically speaking, exist. I suppose one could call that "original research", though one could also call it a statement of the blindingly obvious. Mucoid plaque may exist in the mind, and books, of a naturopath who believes that well-known and pedestrian elements of GI physiology contain an "unwitting" description of an entity which has been oddly overlooked by the entire medical community. It may even make that naturopath a rich man, or inspire someone affiliated with the sale of mucoid-plaque cleansers to come to Wikipedia to promote his ideas. I wouldn't know. I do know that we don't really have much further to discuss unless there are some new reliable secondary sources produced that we haven't seen yet. MastCell ^Talk 05:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Seeing the subtle attempts at removing the caveats I am inclined, against better judgement, to ask others what to think of this. And yes that means the tiresome and probably useless third AfD. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 07:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I thought, and continue to think, that this article should be deleted as failing WP:FRINGE. I grudgingly accepted the verdict of the last AfD, which was that the article should be kept as an example of a notable pseudoscientific health fraud. I didn't think that was a particularly good idea, because a) it's not Wikipedia's business to debunk non-notable health claims, and b) the article is targeted by a single-purpose promotional account and tends to fall off peoples' radar. I would be fine with sending it to yet another AfD on the basis that the goalposts which led to the "keep" verdict are being moved, though I'm a bit pessimistic about the outcome. However, I continue to believe that if an article describes a supposed medical phenomenon which has never been mentioned anywhere in the medical literature, as demonstrated by zero PubMed hits, then that fact needs to be mentioned for the article to be neutral, accurate, useful, and balanced. MastCell ^Talk 19:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if someone, perhaps MastCell, would explain to me what footnotes 1 and 2 are supposed to mean and how they work. Footnote 1 appears to be a PubMed search on the term "mucoid plaque" which returns not zero, but 15 hits. Even before Heelop posted the above references, it occurred to me that an article clearly asserting the existence of mucoid plaque need not contain the phrase "mucoid plaque", or even both those words. If, for example, an article were to say "Plaque formed from mucus, as described by Anderson," that would be a clear allusion to mucoid plaque. But even if we consider only the articles with both words: there are 15 of them. Is this a record of a PubMed search that was done at a particular point in time, or is it an active link to PubMed which might possibly show 16 or 17 articles in a year or two? Did the person who put in the footnote obtain copies of the 15 articles and verify that none of them report the existence of mucoid plaque? If a reader wants to use the footnote to verify the sentence in the article, does the reader have to obtain copies of the 15 articles and read them? Shouldn't a date be specified, as in "has not been reported in the medical literature as of date"? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say, based on this footnote, "a PubMed search on 'mucoid plaque' gives only 15 hits" rather than "has not been reported in the medical literature"? Similar questions re footnote 2. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears to be a PubMed search on the quoted phrase "mucoid plaque", which, as the banner at the top of the search states, returns zero hits (I believe it says "Quoted phrase not found" or some such formulation). When a phrase returns zero hits, PubMed lists results for the words individually, which is what you're seeing. In other words, those 15 references contain the words "mucoid" and "plaque", but not in conjunction with each other. A brief review indicates that none deal with the concept of "mucoid plaque" as explicated by Anderson et al. I think a date is specified in the reference; if not, it certainly should be. If a PubMed article containing a reference to mucoid plaque appears at a future date, then we should both remove the statement about "not described in the medical literature" and cite the relevant paper. I don't quite buy the argument that mucoid plaque is a described phenomenon but there happens to be no paper in PubMed with the word "mucoid" next to the word "plaque". MastCell ^Talk 05:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It may be helpful to consider that dental plaque, atheromatous plaque and mucus are common terms in the medical community. Therefore it is possible to find articles describing either of these. If we then combine physiological phenomena -mucus + plaque- and claim that constitutes a new concept -"mucoid plaque"-, as is done here, we engage in misrepresentation of the facts. Second, when both a search of medical journals and three major medical textbooks on internal medicine -the specialty dealing with gastrointestinal disorders- do not use the term "mucoid plaque" it is unreasonable to demand a source stating the obvious. Please, we should not ignore common sense. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 13:16, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that you have openly admitted that although it is an obvious fact that the term "mucoid plaque" is not used, it is just the editor's opinion that the concept is not described, I have edited the article to reflect this. Note that this still violates Wikipedia's no original research policy. Nescio, you are not making any sense. You are claiming that Richard Anderson combines an article on dental plaque or atheromatous plaque with an article on intestinal mucus in order to prove the existance of his concept of "mucus plaque." Anybody can see those two articles aboveand see that this is not true. Richard Anderson openly and explicitly says that this is a term that he coined. So, naturally, attempting to proving that the term is a neologism is redundant and lame. Richard Anderson says that he coined the term for the sake of simplicity because alternative medicine practitioners in the past have used multiple terminology to describe the concept and the conventional medical literature also uses multiple terminology such as "mucin," "mucosal barrier," etc. to describe the concept. Concerning your personal opinion that those conventional sources that Richard Anderson points out and showcases do not adequately describe the concept, everyone can see by looking at those articles I showcased above that they describe the concept extremely well. Note that those articles I showcased above totally and explicitly contradictEdward Uthman's claims that a thick mucus-like substance does not build-up on the intestinal walls as the body attempts to protect itself from various toxic substances and that mucus is produced by the body only for lubrication. Heelop (talk) 18:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

first off: no personal attacks. I'm inclined to agree with Heelop that the article has made a shift with the citations Heelop provided above. I think now, if you accept this dangerous mission, we might actually have a wp:undue issue here, and the problem is between mucoid plaque as a term that does describe a thick layer of mucus in the intestines, and that the coinage used here necessitates Anderson's claim as being central, which apparently it now isn't. He's a major figure (quack or not), but there's medical evidence now. Perhaps a change of article name? This is just my 2 cents, and we can agree to disagree. Xavexgoem (talk) 23:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Hold the phone. Heelop presented two non-medical sources to substantiate his claim that mucoid plaque is described in medical literature. No medical doctor uses those sources, see my comments higher on this page. Second, establishing there is such a thing as mucus and plaque is not the same as establishing a novel concept called mucoid plaque, i.e. we have the Eiffeltower and we have Sears Tower therefore we now have the Sears-Eiffel tower. See the logical fallacy? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 23:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, and that is the fundamental problem with this article and why it's frustrating to deal with. Heelop's sources do not describe anything like "mucoid plaque" in the sense this article defines it. They describe a normal, well-known feature of gastrointestinal physiology, which is mentioned in our article on intestine - namely, that the gut secretes mucous. These articles make absolutely no mention of, and bear no resemblance to, the supposed pathological condition Anderson calls "mucoid plaque". Using them to support the existence of "mucoid plaque" is the purest form of original synthesis. We could, potentially, report that Anderson cites these papers on unrelated topics to support his claim that the medical community has "unwittingly" described mucoid plaque, but that's about it. Otherwise, I might as well invent an eye disorder called "tear plaque", and cite as evidence of notability a medical article stating that the eye produces tears. Actually, wait, I'm patenting that one... MastCell ^Talk 00:24, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I take back my comments; didn't mean to cause an upset (should've read the stuff closer). Xavexgoem (talk) 00:40, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

(<outdent) Thanks for explaining footnote 1, MastCell. I would like to have more words added to the footnote to explain that. Even after your explanation, it took me a while to find "quoted phrase not found" on the PubMed page. I know, it's right in front of your nose, but I looked all around the top and sides of the page before noticing it, even though you'd told me it was there. Perhaps the footnote could say "Note where it says "quoted phrase not found" and perhaps also "the search items returned are for the individual words appearing separately; there are zero exact phrase hits." We also need to think about what will happen to this footnote if the information in PubMed changes. I don't understand whether the footnote presents a live link to the current PubMed database, or a save of a search conducted at some time in the past. Even if you believe there's no such thing as "mucoid plaque", you need to consider the possibility that at some time in the future there might be a medical article that contains that phrase (if only to say "there's no such thing as mucoid plaque" or something along those lines). I notice that the footnote specifies the date the search was done.

Could you please also explain footnote 2 to me? Is the reader supposed to obtain copies of 3 medical textbooks, read them, and thus verify that the phrase doesn't appear in them? Isn't that a bit much to ask of the reader? Has someone done that? How does one know there aren't other relevant textbooks?

The article currently says "The existence of anything resembling "mucoid plaque" has not been reported in the medical literature." In my opinion, given the quotes provided above by Heelop, this is just plain false. Let's at the very least delete "anything resembling". I think this sentence really ought to be changed to something like "The phrase "mucoid plaque" does not appear in the medical literature" (which is reasonably verifiable, although I still think it contravenes WP:NOR). As a compromise, how about "The existence of "mucoid plaque" as such has not been reported in the medical literature as such.", i.e. inserting "as such".

Heelop, could you please also provide quotes from Anderson where he cites those studies? I think a neutral way to present those in the article would be something like this: "Anderson argues that the existence of mucoid plaque is supported by the scientific articles ... which say ..." and provide a few short quotes. But before being able to say this, we'd need to know what Anderson actually says about those studies. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Coppertwig. On page 38 Anderson says, "Clinical and anatomical studies from many scientific papers and textbooks have clearly demonstrated the existence of mucoid plaque in the alimentary canal." He has repeated this over and over as a major theme in both volumes of his books while sporadically citing quotations and/or sources to support this. In the header of this same chapter on page 36, he showcases the following exact excerpt, as it is written word-for-word:

"This layer of mucus, when adhering closely to the mucosal surface, probably functions as a barrier to membrane digestion and most likely also to absorption. . .where, with increasing age, the mucus layer becomes more pronounced and widespread. . .Furthermore, mucus on the mucosal surface inhibits contact of carbohydrates with disaccharidases, resulting in clinical intolerance of lactose or sucrose in the presence of normal disaccharidase activities." --- Poley, J. Rainer. "The Scanning Electron Microscope: How Valuable In The Evaluation of Small Bowel Mucosal Pathology In Chronic Childhood Diarrhea?" Scanning Microscopy Vol. 5 No. 4 1991

I have acquired this scientific journal and verified that it does indeed say exactly what Anderson has quoted it as saying, word-for-word. Even more, on page 39 of this same chapter, Anderson gives a citation to this specific excerpt while saying that "mucoid plaque production continues without reprieve, and of course it continues to build, becoming thicker, firmer, and more widespread. Clinical studies have clearly shown this to be true." Given all this, we can verify that Anderson claims that many scientific papers etc. demonstrate the existance of mucoid plaque and then say: "For example, on page 36 of his book, Anderson showcases the following excerpt:" Heelop (talk) 16:45, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

They have correlated its existence as defined by him; they have not proved a thing accordingly. Xavexgoem (talk) 17:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Some observations:

Sources do not have to be available to every single editor. All that is required is that the presented information is verifiable. If we have to visit a library or ask another editor to do that it would be fine. Medical textbooks usually are present in libraries, or most physician editors here have a copy themselves.
Heelop has not presented any source from medical literature, detailing a mysterious coating present in the general population. Can we advance examples of some particular disorder that might have some thickened mucus akin to this? Maybe, you might look at mucoviscoidosis. That still is not evidence of a condition, as opposed to symptom, found among most people.
At present the article is absolutely accurate. If that is not acceptable we may need to ask outside input.

Respectfully Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 18:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you intended that as a reply to my suggestion to delete "anything resembling" and insert "as such", Nescio. I've implemented that change anyway, as the previous version seems unacceptably false to me. Your statement that the then-current version is absolutely accurate doesn't logically imply that there aren't also other versions of the article which may also appear absolutely accurate to you. Hopefully we can arrive at a version that appears accurate to all of us.

I agree that we don't have evidence that there is a condition found among most people. Therefore, the article should not make this assertion. The article might assert that Anderson claims there is such a condition (if he indeed makes such a claim).

I don't think we have any reliable source stating that nothing resembling mucoid plaque has been reported in the medical literature. --Coppertwig (talk) 19:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that we need to put the whole quote into the article. How about this: "Anderson claims that scientific studies have clearly demonstrated the existence of mucoid plaque, and quotes articles such as one from Scanning Microscopy which says 'This layer of mucus, when adhering closely to the mucosal surface, probably functions as a barrier to membrane digestion and most likely also to absorption'". --Coppertwig (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Please, why do you think a non-medical journal as Scanning Microscopy can be used to establish what the medical community thinks? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 19:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking to me, there must be a misunderstanding. I don't think a non-medical journal such as Scanning Microscopy can be used to establish what the medical community thinks. What the medical community thinks is represented in the article by such things as "and it has been described by physicians and researchers as "a complete fabrication without any anatomical basis",[3] a "non-credible concept",[4] and "a bold lie" --Coppertwig (talk) 19:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I think I see what happened. This conversation diverged from its original purpose. We're discussing the quotes Heelop provided, in addition to discussing the concept of "proving a negative". --Coppertwig (talk) 21:05, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I oppose this edit by Raymond arritt, which deletes a quote. The above conversation supports inclusion of such a quote. If some of the comments above are intended as arguments against its inclusion, that has not been made clear, as far as I can see. I disagree with the edit summary, which says "the quote essentially duplicates discussion in the previous paragraph - choose one or the other, but not both." The quote illustrates the type of material in the scientific literature which Anderson claims to support his theory. Nothing in the previous paragraph does that. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Here are details of the duplication:

Anderson further claims that many anatomical studies have demonstrated the existance of mucoid plaque in the alimentary canal.

is simply an expansion of Anderson's general claim for its existence. The latter, which is more specific, should be used in preference to the former, especially as it matches well to the testimony of physicians that mucoid plaque has never been observed in anatomical studies.

This layer of mucus, when adhering closely to the mucosal surface, probably functions as a barrier to membrane digestion and most likely also to absorption

is simply a rephrasing of Anderson further claims that mucoid plaque acts as a health threat by reducing the absorption of nutrients, impairing digestion

Furthermore, mucus on the mucosal surface inhibits contact of carbohydrates with disaccharidases, resulting in clinical intolerance of lactose or sucrose in the presence of normal disaccharidase activities.

was already stated more concisely as causing sugar intolerance

There's no reason to say the same thing twice. If one statement is better than the other, use the better one and remove the poorer one. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Nescio [18] deleted the quote with "see mucoviscoidosis, nobody denies the existence of mucus, conflating things however is WP:OR." I don't see any OR there -- could you explain in more detail? It's not R by any Wikipedian; it's previously-published information, originating from Anderson. --Coppertwig (talk) 20:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note the title: "The Scanning Electron Microscope: How Valuable In The Evaluation of Small Bowel Mucosal Pathology In Chronic Childhood Diarrhea?" Do you think an article about diarrhoea in children is a valid source to support the idea of a condition among the general public? Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 01:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "as such"

I strongly object to this change. "As such" suggests that physicians may have observed something very, very close to mucoid plaque that didn't quite fit the exact definition. That's not warranted by the available sources. Raymond Arritt (talk) 15:09, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I can see how it might be taken as implying that (modulo one or two "very's"). Can you suggest an alternative wording, that makes no statement or implication about whether physicians have or have not observed anything similar to, very similar to, somewhat similar to or exactly the same as (but by a different name) mucoid plaque, but that makes it clear that they have not reported its existence by that name? How about "The phrase 'mucoid plaque' does not appear in the medical literature."? --Coppertwig (talk) 16:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

How about "The phrase 'mucoid plaque' does not appear in the medical literature, nor are there reports of a corresponding condition under a different name." Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a reliable source to support the statement " nor are there reports of a corresponding condition under a different name." Without a source to verify it, I must insist that it be left out. If a source is found, I'll ask that it be reported with a prose attribution, since it appears to me to contradict the quotes Heelop provides. Some other statement, such as that there is no such condition found to occur in a large fraction of the population, might not contradict those other quotes and might therefore be reportable without prose attribution, if a reliable source can be found to support it. What about the sentence I just suggested above: "The phrase 'mucoid plaque' does not appear in the medical literature." Sorry if I missed it, but I don't think anyone (including your comment above) gives any reason not to use this version of the sentence. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

You miss the point. Nobody denies the possibility some disorders result in a thicker mucous, see mucoviscoidosis, this is not the same as finding a condition among the general public that constitutes of thick mucus. To claim that a crcumscript disease as mucoviscoidosis, or morbus Crohn (where undoubtedly people have described a thick layer of mucus and which incidentally the article presented by Heelop does) is evidence of a widespread condition is not only lucacrous, it is OR. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 17:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Then how about ...and medical practitioners report that they have never encountered a corresponding phenomenon, for which we already have attribution. That phrases it as a positive -- we have evidence of its absence, rather than absence of evidence. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Expressing it as a positive: yes, very much an improvement. Avoids OR. Thanks. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Willing to AfD

It's clear by now that this article is going to be hijacked to promote Anderson's made-up medical syndrome. I had thought it could be a valuable resource for uninformed individuals who might be interested in the "treatment," but it's not turning out that way. Let's scrap it. Wikipedia says it's not in the truth business, but it shouldn't be in the lie business either. Raymond Arritt (talk) 15:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately the artiicle cannot be kept under present conditions. This week I keep watching it and if the PR keeps up I start the third. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 17:33, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BLP concern

Would someone please immediately delete the following from this article: Links to Health fraud and Quackery, and the category Deception. These imply that (1) Anderson's claims are false, and (2) that Anderson is deliberately deceiving people about them. We don't have any clear evidence of (2). We can quote people making colourful comments, but we cannot, based only on the evidence we have, have the article assert that Anderson is lying. These links and category in my opinion violate WP:V and WP:BLP. --Coppertwig (talk) 17:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

You and Heelop win. I don't have the patience to continue this. AfD it is. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm reverting a number of things. I'm putting in the wording suggested by Raymond arritt, "and medical practitioners report that they have never encountered a corresponding phenomenon," which seems verifiable to me based on the sources we have, instead of the sentence we were having trouble with in terms of OR and in terms of finding wording we could agree on. I changed "Despite the absence of scientific evidence," which is OR, POV and unverified, to "Despite the lack of acceptance by the scientific community," which seems reasonable to me although it may not be strictly attributable. I'm deleting "are that the supposed phenomenon has never been described in the scientific or medical literature." I had asked for an explanation of what had been footnote 2 and the explanation seemed to be that the books could be found in a library. That doesn't tell us much. We don't have evidence supporting the claim that the phenomenon has never been described in the scientific literature, and we don't have a source stating that claim.

I'm also deleting two "see also"'s and one category as described above. Sources would be needed clearly establishing fraud etc. before we could make such a claim. Just a quote from somebody saying something is a "lie" (especially on a page that does not contain the phrase "mucoid plaque") is not such evidence. A reliable report of a criminal conviction would do, I suppose, if such existed. Please respect WP:BLP and don't put in NPOV categories and see-also's without firm evidence and without consensus.

I attempted to address Raymond arritt's concerns about repetition by drastically shortening the part about Anderson quoting from a scientific paper; however, I find the concern about repetition unfounded, because it amounts to insisting that the quote purportedly supporting Anderson's case be something different from what his case is stated to be, making it look as if it's not supporting what he claims; furthermore, there's a lot of repetition in the mainstream-science parts of the article. --Coppertwig (talk) 21:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I pruned the categories and see also's a bit further. I think we can say what needs to be said without them. MastCell ^Talk 21:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disputes are characterized, not engaged in

Note, MastCell, Raymond arritt, and Nomen Nescio that Wikipedia's policy makes it clear that disputes are characterized but not engaged in. In this article, you have repeatedly engaged in this dispute by inserting your opinions into the article rather than simply characterizing the opinions which are already published. This violates Wikipedia's policy. You, Raymond arritt, have expressed your dislike for Wikipedia's policy above on this talk page. People that don't have respect for Wikipedia's policies should go elsewhere. Heelop (talk) 12:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

You are making many mistakes. WP:AGF, WP:NOR (maybe), and, at the moment, WP:IAR. That was an ad hominem argument, I might add. Policy has been discussed already, and the consensus is 4/5ths in agreement. Xavexgoem (talk) 13:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that as an ad hominem argument. It's perfectly valid and quite normal and accepted on Wikipedia to point out that someone is violating policies (at least in the opinion of the person pointing it out). The proper response is either to change one's behaviour to stop violating the policies, or to explain why one thinks one is not violating the policies.

WP:FRINGE says "Ideas that have been rejected, are widely considered to be absurd or pseudoscientific, only of historical interest, or primarily the realm of science fiction, should be documented as such, using reliable sources." My interpretation of Wikipedia policy is that it's OK to portray Anderson's ideas as pseudoscience, rejected by the scientific community, etc. However, this can only be done in ways that are supportable according to WP:V. Some of the edits go beyond that and make claims against Anderson's ideas which are OR, unverified etc. We should not use pseudoscientific methods ourselves.

Re Raymond arritt's alleged dislike for Wikipedia's policies: I don't see that. Perhaps it's a misunderstanding. Which comment of Raymond arritt's are you referring to, Heelop?

Please explain why you think NOR and IAR are being violated. (Is it possible to violate IAR? :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 13:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Coppertwig, I was refering to Raymond arritt's statement above on this talk page that "Wikipedia says it's not in the truth business, but it shouldn't be in the lie business either." This is an allusion to the NPOV policy which says that none of the views should be "asserted as being judged as 'the truth'". Raymond is apparently criticizing this policy as being too politically correct, suggesting that the article should assert that the mucoid plaque theory is a lie rather than simply characterize the dispute on both sides using published sources. Wikipedia says that the NPOV policy is "mandatory", "absolute", "non-negotiable", "expected on all articles, and of all article editors" and "cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus." Heelop (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Aside from this page there is no dispute. One lone wolfe invents a "disease" and it is so farcical nobody feels the need to write an article debunking it. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 14:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I think Raymond is simply saying that the goal is an accurate article which leaves the reader with a clear understanding of the subject. If a reader walks away from this article unaware that this "disease" is not described anywhere in the medical literature, then the article has failed in its goal of providing neutral, accurate, relevant, and comprehensive coverage of the subject. While you're quoting WP:NPOV, you might include the fact that ideas are covered in proportion to, and in the context of, their acceptance by experts in the field. If the entire body of indexed medical literature contains not one reference to "mucoid plaque", and if the few experts who have commented specifically have called it a fraud, then it's pretty clear where the opinion of experts in the field is. The question becomes why we're trying so hard to dance around it. I agree with Coppertwig that the wording can be improved. I don't agree with Heelop that we all lack respect for Wikipedia's policies; in fact, such accusations are a bit... ironic coming from a single-purpose promotional account. MastCell ^Talk 18:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I think Heelop may have misinterpreted some comments. I don't think anyone has expressed disrespect for Wikipedia's policies.

MastCell, you say, "If the entire body of indexed medical literature contains not one reference to "mucoid plaque", and if the few experts who have commented specifically have called it a fraud, then it's pretty clear where the opinion of experts in the field is. " If this is so, then all we need to do is inform the reader that the medical literature contains no references to "mucoid plaque" and that the experts who have commented have called it a fraud. If you're right, then that will make it clear to the reader where the opinion of experts in the field is. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

(However, see my comment in the section below in response to website refs that Nomen Nescio provided.) --Coppertwig (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Common sense

I think we are losing our sense of reality here:

The only source for this "disease" is material from a non-medically trained individual.
This non-physician happens -coincidence of coincidences- to sell us the cure to this miraculous disease that thousands of gastroenterologists and pathologists just failed to notice.
No medical texbook mentions a harmful coating in the general public, let alone mucoid plaque
No medical article mentions a harmful coating in the general public, let alone mucoid plaque
How do we know that? Open a textbook and try and find such an article.
The fact that an invented concept is so bizarre no scientific article has officially debunked it does not mean we should simply allow WP to turn into a soapbox.
To ignore the blatantly obvious, i.e. medical literature does not mention anything like the purported harmful coating, defies all logic. To insist on WP:OR while allowing an article on chronic diarrhoea in children(!!!) is ridiculous.
WP:IAR was invented just for this type of nonsense. Too obscure for experts to write about yet evidently not based in reality: i.e. quackery.

Respectfully Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 00:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not (now at least) standing in the way of the use of IAR to override NOR to state in the article that as of a certain date, the phrase "mucoid plaque" doesn't appear in the medical literature, supported by the PubMed search. The footnote with the three textbooks has not been adequately explained to me, and I suspect it would be stretching WP:V too much: the reader shouldn't have to read whole books to be able to verify something. IAR is not, in my opinion, an excuse for putting into the article claims that are not actually verifiable, such as that mucoid plaque has not been reported by any name in the medical literature.

One aspect of this situation is that I'm assuming that "mucoid plaque" has a rather vague definition, therefore it would be difficult to prove it doesn't exist since a number of things might be seen as fitting the vague definition. Other editors seem to think the definition is more specific. For example, it's not clear to me that existence in the majority of the population is actually part of the definition of the phrase -- it looks more like a claim about it than a definition to me.

The section heading "Criticism" could perhaps be changed. This heading seems to imply that it's a respectable theory that might have both proponents and critics. Other possibilities might be "The mainstream scientific view," "Criticism from scientists," "Theory rejected by mainstream science," "Rejected by science," etc. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

... or not. I just looked at a few other articles and a lot of them seem to call such a section "Criticism". One has "Scientific assessment of Radionics" -- that sounds good to me. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think having a "criticism" section is problematic. The trouble comes when all critical perspectives are cordoned off into a "criticism" ghetto. That's not the case here, but it's something we need to guard against. Raymond Arritt (talk) 02:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I oppose this edit which was done earlier by Nescio (and almost the same thing re-reverted back in by Raymond arritt too) for the following reasons. It deletes the longish quote Heelop put in, without explanation. Earlier, an argument was made that the quote was repetitive. I argued that that argument was unfounded for two reasons, and I don't think anyone has rebutted that on this talk page. "Trying to avoid AfD" (in one of the edit summaries) is not a valid justification for reverting other editors' edits without other explanation. The edit introduces what has already been pointed out as unverified and original research: "medical literature has never reported the existence of any harmful gastrointestinal coating, i.e. "mucoid plaque," among the general public"and "Despite the absence of scientific evidence" -- these are unverified and would be very difficult to verify; we don't even have sources making such claims. Scientists would be somewhat unlikely to make such broad, difficult-to-verify claims and peer reviewers would be somewhat unlikely to let them pass; we shouldn't make such claims either -- at least not if we have no source to attribute them to; not as OR by Wikipedians.

Please engage in discussion defending your edits on the talk page instead of (or at least in addition to) editwarring. Please answer these arguments. You are introducing OR and you are deleting material which has a supporting citation without adequate explanation.

By the way, re the version with the quote that Anderson showcases: I'm not fond of the word "showcases" and would change it to something less dramatic, e.g. "quotes". Raymond arritt has a good point that the quote is from a study about childhood diarrhoea; that could be mentioned; actually, it is mentioned: the whole title of the article is right there; but if the article title is moved into a footnote, then it could be mentioned like this: instead of "Anderson showcases the following excerpt," it could say "Anderson quotes the following from an article about chronic childhood diarrhoea." Also, I find that the length of the quote gives undue weight to Anderson's theory and suggest either lengthening the Criticism section to balance it, perhaps by quoting the whole paragraph by Uthman; or else shortening down the Scanning Microscope quote to one sentence and including it within a paragraph rather than as a block quote. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

For some reason people are unable to read/understand the extensive rebutals on this talk page. I'll summarise the situation to help the discussion.

The only source for this "disease" is material from a non-medically trained individual.
This non-physician happens -coincidence of coincidences- to sell us the cure to this miraculous "disease" that thousands of gastroenterologists and pathologists just failed to notice for the past 50 years.
No medical texbook mentions a harmful coating in the general public, let alone "mucoid plaque." How do we know that? Open a textbook and try and find it.
Physicians that deal with gastroenterological conditions are internists. They are specialists in internal medicine. Whenever they need to look up things the textbook of choice is Harrisons, Cecil and the Oxford. Hence the use of these textbooks because if these books, on all condition of internal organs, have not heard of this ailment it is unrealistic to expect that the condition is mentioned by a dermatologic textbook.
If one is unable to go to a library, in order to read these major textbooks on internal medicine, that does not negate the fact that internal medicine (regarding internal organs) has not heard of this phenomenon.
No medical article mentions a harmful coating in the general public, let alone "mucoid plaque." How do we know that? Open any medical journal and try and find it.
The fact that an invented concept is so bizarre no scientific article has officially debunked it does not mean we should simply allow WP to turn into a soapbox. Certainly anybody can write a book describing any condition and to then argue that because nobody refutes it it therefore deserves to have an article without any caveats boggles the mind.
To ignore the blatantly obvious, i.e. medical literature does not mention anything like the purported harmful coating, defies all logic. To insist on WP:OR while allowing an article on chronic diarrhoea in children(!!!) to establish that this "disease" is real among the general public is ridiculous.
Does thick mucus exist? You betcha. We can find it in pneumonia, mucoviscoidosis, inflammatory bowel disease, et cetera. This is even acknowledged by the inventor (see his site) who clarifies that he simply combines all these seperate disorders in order to create this new "disease." However, finding this in a circumscript group of people, i.e. pathological findings in these disorders, is not evidence of a thick coating of mucus prevalent among the general public.
Scanning Microscopy is at best an obscure non-medical journal. To use that as reference is somewhat unfortunate.
WP:IAR was invented just for this type of nonsense. Too obscure for experts to write about yet evidently not based in reality: i.e. quackery.

Respectfully Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 13:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your message, Nomen Nescio.

I see you've added a couple of websites as references for the statements that there is no scientific evidence for the theory. Thank you for finding these! According to WP:FRINGE we can accept lower-quality sites in refutation of the theory, to counter the self-published stuff by Anderson, so I suppose perhaps those sources are acceptable. That changes things. I no longer oppose including in the article certain statements that there is no scientific evidence for the theory. (My own opinion as to the truth value of such statements may not have changed, but we can now attribute them to someone via footnote, so it's OK.) I might still contest specific wording but am not doing so at the moment.

The only remaining issue at the moment, perhaps, is that the short quote from the paper Anderson cites was deleted and I don't remember seeing any reason stated on this page for it to be deleted. Could we put that back in (keeping the stuff about mentioning childhood diarrhoea and all that, if you like)? --Coppertwig (talk) 02:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Even if that web site is allowable, you still have to attribute the statements in the article to an actual author rather than simply assert them as facts like what was done with Edward Uthman and Ed Friedlander. Does any of that rhetoric on that web page sound familiar? It is obviously recycled information that originated from wikipedia. I suppose you could use the Wikipedia article on mucoid plaque as a reliable source in the Wikipedia article on mucoid plaque, Nescio. How lame. Heelop (talk) 03:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Nomen, your rebutals are not effective. This subject is more complicated than you make it out to be. Richard Anderson has already said that not everyone has mucoid plaque, and among the people that have it, it can range from thin to thick. Furthermore, Anderson points out numerous other scientific journals and textbooks, which describe pathological conditions associated with mucoid plaque that are common among the general public but have not manifested into any serious recognizable diseases yet (if ever). Also, generally speaking, the fact that diseases are usually caused by a combination of genetic as well as "environmental" factors explains how mucoid plaque can be common among the general public but only some of these people develop a serious disease associated with it. For instance, that scientific journal that I gave on this talk page titled Intestinal mucins in health and disease describes how mucoid plaque "normally" occurs in the intestines and can be "implicated" in diseases, assuming you have a genetic predisposition towards developing them. Heelop (talk) 04:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and undoubtedly there are hundreds of kinds of spit that can end up in hundreds of kinds of soup. We don't really need to use this talk page to speculate about how the medical literature might be originally synthesized to promote mucoid plaque. As to recycled Wikipedia material on the Web, I don't see it, but assuming it's there it would be a stellar example of Wikipedia's law of unintended consequences. MastCell ^Talk 04:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Heelop has a good point. Would someone please comment on this: what is the basis for considering the two websites Nomen Nescio added as references to be reliable? Although we can lower the standards, the standards should not be zero. Heelop seems to be speculating that the material on those websites may be based on an earlier version of this Wikipedia page. That seems to me to be a reasonable question. If so, they would not be usable as reliable sources. Do we have any information that could help us decide whether they're reliable sources? --Coppertwig (talk) 13:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The applicable standard is "parity of sources." Usually we want good sources. But since the sources favoring mucoid plaque are dodgy (at best) self-published sources, we can't hold contrary sources to the usual standard. Raymond Arritt (talk) 13:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

We do have information to help us decide, Coppertwig. The NPOV policy says that "where we want to discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion" and that "this source should be written by named authors who are considered reliable." Note also that this NPOV policy says that this is "mandatory", "absolute", "non-negotiable", "expected on all articles, and of all article editors" and "cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus." So, Wikipedia says that no other policies or arguments can supersede this. The fringe policy simply says that you may consider websites to be reliable sources sometimes. You still must attribute the statements to an author as was done with Edward Uthman and Ed Friedlander. Heelop (talk) 15:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Having read WP:WL again I can't help tbut wonder why this article, based entirely upon an advertisement and obviously fails WP:NPOV All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and, as much as possible, without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources). This is non-negotiable and expected on all articles, and of all article editors, WP:SOAP Articles about companies and products are acceptable if they are written in an objective and unbiased style. Furthermore, all article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are not likely to be acceptable. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify major organizations associated with a topic, WP:SPAM, WP:RS, WP:FRINGE, WP:ORG A company, corporation, organization, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability, WP:SPS Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable, now suddenly is being defended by an overly strict interpretation of policy. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 19:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I like this sentence which Nescio added: "He explains that disorders and physiological entities that the medical community has identified as seperate – i.e. amyloidosis, gastric metaplasia, hypertrophia, intestinal lymphangiectasia, malacoplakia, mucin, polypus, villous adenoma – are, according to him, one and the same condition, which he names "mucoid plaque."^[1]" I think it's a good description (as far as I can tell, not having read Anderson's book) of what Anderson is doing. I hope to find time to reply further to Nescio's and Heelop's comments above. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)