Talk:Tuberculosis in China

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Tuberculosis in China was a Natural sciences good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: February 10, 2008

[edit] General comments

• Lead fails to summarise article since it concentrates too much on the governmental and organisational, but only briefly mentions the scale of the problem. I suggest a first paragraph on the statistics and epidemiology alone.
• Try to find references in English if you can, think of your readers!
• In general, there are a large number of specific criticisms of the program and the health system in general that lack references. In addition, any reference for these statements needs to make the explicit statement that it is being used to support.

[edit] Specific comments

• "By 2005, the detection of cases of tuberculosis had increased to 80% of the estimated total new cases" - saying "increased" in the lead gives you no idea if this was significant, 75% to 80%, or was it 5% to 80%?
• "In China, tuberculosis has been the number 1 cause of death from infectious disease in adults." - confusing start, is it no longer? Is it still? Give a date or a range of dates ie (from 1990 to 2006 tuberculosis has been the number 1 cause of death...)
• "The spread of SARS brought to light substantial weaknesses in the country's public health system." - this needs a source that specifically makes this statement.
• "scandalous plasma-donor practices in the 1990s" - not a neutral choice of words.
• "Some come from areas such as Henan Province where huge numbers of peasants were infected with HIV from scandalous plasma-donor practices in the 1990s. Many male migrants are at risk of unprotected sex when away from home." - nothing to do with TB, suggest cut
• "With this "floating" migrant population making up 10% of the total being poorer and having more tuberculosis than average, China has far more than its share of tuberculosis (disease burden) in the world." - poor grammar and a confusing sentence, might be better if you remove "being poorer" and reword.
• "Over the past 30 years, that part of the health system has run down because government funding has fallen while everything else has become more expensive." - needs source that makes this statement
• "Until recently, virtually all rural residents, 900 million in all, had no health insurance at all." - needs source
• "The inadequate control of tuberculosis can be linked to a malfunctioning health system." - needs source that states this directly.
• "Even in areas where government subsidies support free diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, many CDCs continue to charge patients for ancillary tests and drugs, some of which are of questionable benefit." - needs source
• "Early in 2003, the SARS epidemic brought China to a virtual standstill." - needs a source that says this explicitly
• "SARS revealed that public-health facilities were largely outdated and inadequate to tackle existing public-health problems, not to mention addressing new or emerging challenges." - needs source
• "The absence of a sound financing mechanism to fully fund tuberculosis services is a further problem." - needs source

Sorry to fail this, it is a very interesting and quite well-written article, but its claims could be contentious, so need the best possible references. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)