Provenge, Radiation Oncologist doesn't like it Options

[Piperdown]

Provenge article on Wikipedia was butchered by a Radiation Oncologist.

Removed an entire section about a very recent FDA approval, with extensive Reliable Source citing of very "Encyclopedic" details about the reaction in the media to the approval, and what is involved in the roll out of the drug.

Things that threaten a Radiation Oncologist.

...who decided to pare it down to a "Criticism" section where a NEJM editorial was included to "criticize" Provenge. Nevermind the fact that the editorial also praised Provenge, and the same edition contained an extensive presentation of the data by an esteemed Prostate Cancer doctor.

I've never seen a more blatant butchering by a WP:COI editor, well, since Gary Weiss went to town on Patrick Byrne.

Here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=372213258

The main butchering. Most of the material was outdated, but the "Approval" section is the problem. He cut it out like a cancer threatening his livelhood, which you'll see proudly mentioned here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Djma12


I'd edit the article, but I don't do that any more. I just don't want very sick men to Google "Provenge" and see this lump of shite by this Nuke Doctor with a very narrow interest on WP.

This post has been edited by Piperdown: Fri 6th August 2010, 5:18am

[Somey]

Don't they have some sort of warning bell that goes off when an article goes from 16,600 bytes to 2,893 bytes in just one edit? Or would that be too logical and stuff?

OTOH, Djma12 (T-C-L-K-R-D) did have a point about the previous version kinda sounding like a drug advertisement. Not enough to justify wiping 80 percent of the article in one fell swoop, though.

[Alison]

Don't they have some sort of warning bell that goes off when an article goes from 16,600 bytes to 2,893 bytes in just one edit? Or would that be too logical and stuff?

OTOH, Djma12 (T-C-L-K-R-D) did have a point about the previous version kinda sounding like a drug advertisement. Not enough to justify wiping 80 percent of the article in one fell swoop, though.

Apparently, he has re-written it, so I guess it's his now

[Emperor]

An expert comes to help out on Wikipedia, and you poop all over him. Brilliant.

[papaya]

Emperor is right, and there is more to this than you can gather from looking at just this one article. The real source of the mess is the article on Dendreon, which you can see has an extremely checkered history which seems in large part to revolve around the approval of Provenge and which seems to include most of our favorite tactics. In the middle of this, the apparently clueless ThaddeusB stashed a bunch of the controversial Dendreon in the Provenge article. In a contest between a physician in the field and an admin who is apparently not even an amateur in the field, guess who I'm going to go with?

[Milton Roe]

Emperor is right, and there is more to this than you can gather from looking at just this one article. The real source of the mess is the article on Dendreon, which you can see has an extremely checkered history which seems in large part to revolve around the approval of Provenge and which seems to include most of our favorite tactics. In the middle of this, the apparently clueless ThaddeusB stashed a bunch of the controversial Dendreon in the Provenge article. In a contest between a physician in the field and an admin who is apparently not even an amateur in the field, guess who I'm going to go with?

I'm not sure that radiation oncology qualifies as a "physician in the field." Yeah, it's oncology. On the other hand, this guy is a resident who spends his days zapping patients with machines or radiation seeds, and hasn't had enough experience to see what ultimately happens to them. Nor (more importantly) does his experience extend to hematology/oncology, where he gets to see what naturally happens to late state prostate cancer patients when they have advanced disease (too advanced to be cured by any means). These are the people staggering around under the effects of toxic chemo, and the only time they see radiation oncology is paliatively, for bone mets (where it helps their pain a little, but doesn't prolong their lives).

This is the the group that new therapies like antibodies (and now Provenge, which is an immunostimulant procedure) get tried on. And of course the results all look crappy at that stage. If these things were allowed to be used as adjuncts on earlier stage cancer therapy, as radiation is, we would no doubt see something quite different. But THOSE experiments cost too much for a new drug, simply because they run too long. Prostate cancer, like breast cancer, kills slowly.

Rad-onc. When the only tool you use is a hammer, it is indeed tempting to see every problem as a either a nail, or as something that can't be attacked well with any other sort of tool.

On the other side of this, the original article was written with a very unencyclopedic breathless enthusiasm:

"In attaining success with Provenge, Dendreon, the company behind Provenge, has found the Holy Grail of cancer research--a method to have the human body fight cancer on its own and without the need for chemotherapy poisons which also massively kill healthy cells and result in horrible side effects."

It's not clear if that came from Dendreon or from an overenthusiastic NYT medicine review (as the cite suggests). Or both. But in cutting down the article, our rad-onc dude did take out a lot of history and some good cites in the published literature. And he was pretty snarky about results that are no worse than chemo at similar stages of many cancers. Chemo, too, is curative in most cancers only when used as an adjunct to surgery/radiation, in earlier stages.

At the core of this we have the ever-present problem of induction. We have certain results on people nearly dead of cancer. Clearly, the stuff has an effect without much side effect, although it's presently expensive. The technique looks promising as an adjunct for other cancers and for cancers at earlier stages, but that's induction. Boosters will see the future: if we can clone sheep, why should we not be able to clone humans? Detractors will argue the other way: if we can clone only tadpoles, maybe we'll never clone humans. Have we reached the sheep stage where even the detractors admit the future (as happened when people went to the moon and everybody stopped seriously suggesting we'd never go to Mars?).

Induction is a bitch. We still haven't cloned humans.

[EricBarbour]

Emperor is right, and there is more to this than you can gather from looking at just this one article. The real source of the mess is the article on Dendreon, which you can see has an extremely checkered history which seems in large part to revolve around the approval of Provenge and which seems to include most of our favorite tactics. In the middle of this, the apparently clueless ThaddeusB stashed a bunch of the controversial Dendreon in the Provenge article. In a contest between a physician in the field and an admin who is apparently not even an amateur in the field, guess who I'm going to go with?

Hah. The Dendreon article stinks of POV-pushing. At one point last year, it was 51,000 bytes long.

The Wiki-nerds could have posted this to AN/I. They could have come here and posted it. This kind of thing
implies that they knew Dendreon-connected people were editing it. But noooo, instead they'd rather
have a protracted years-long edit war.

(And Nerdseeksblonde (T-C-L-K-R-D) is either working for Dendreon, or is a damn fool.)

[Subtle Bee]

Have we reached the sheep stage where even the detractors admit the future (as happened when people went to the moon and everybody stopped seriously suggesting we'd never go to Mars?).

Induction is a bitch. We still haven't cloned humans.

I thought the Martians cloned humans to build pyramids? And how come the moon landing shots all look like the set from The Honeymooners (...one of these days, Alice...)? You're the one stuck in the "sheep stage", you sweet, naive, gullible man.

[Somey]

I thought the Martians cloned humans to build pyramids?

You're thinking of the New York Mets. Besides, the Martians would never go to that much trouble just to build pyramids - most of them are perfectly happy living in trailers and cheap studio apartments.

[Milton Roe]

I thought the Martians cloned humans to build pyramids?

You're thinking of the New York Mets.

And cancer is not like Shay Stadium: With cancer, the Mets generally win.

That's why Provenge is one of those things that needs to be used early. Which hasn't been tried yet.

[Moulton]

I thought the Martians cloned humans to build pyramids?

You're thinking of the New York Mets. Besides, the Martians would never go to that much trouble just to build pyramids - most of them are perfectly happy living in trailers and cheap studio apartments.

I'll have you know that Barsoom Tork does not live in Moulton's basement.

[Subtle Bee]

You're thinking of the New York Mets.

This has actually never been true in my life for even a moment, right up until I read that post.

[Somey]

This has actually never been true in my life for even a moment, right up until I read that post.

And that's exactly what you'd be expected to say, if you were secretly a clone working for the massive global New York Mets conspiracy.

[Subtle Bee]

This has actually never been true in my life for even a moment, right up until I read that post.

And that's exactly what you'd be expected to say, if you were secretly a clone working for the massive global New York Mets conspiracy.

Is it only a secret about me being a clone, or is it mum all round? And how do I know the rest of me's are going to keep their gobs corked? I mean, if I know me, that's not very likely.

Anyway, you seem in quite the hurry to tar my feathers - well played, too! I'm highly suspicious. Then again, my username isn't a mass noun...

[victim of censorship]

Don't they have some sort of warning bell that goes off when an article goes from 16,600 bytes to 2,893 bytes in just one edit? Or would that be too logical and stuff?

OTOH, Djma12 (T-C-L-K-R-D) did have a point about the previous version kinda sounding like a drug advertisement. Not enough to justify wiping 80 percent of the article in one fell swoop, though.

Apparently, he has re-written it, so I guess it's his now

How dare he, considering you tolerate some who think they own, like Wiki very own Goethead
Goeathean gone wild, and enabled

any rate this little story below illustrates the absurdity of the World Wide Wiki or as it's know in some circles, Jimbo's Sum of all Bullshit.

If surgery was like Wikipedia: Surgipedia.

Several surgipedians have gathered in an operation theater. On the table lies an unconscious man whos left leg looks dark. Surgipedian #1 grabs a sheet prepared by the patient's doctor that details the problem.

Surgipedian #1: "Whoa, he's been lying here for 26 hours, we sure got a backlog again. It also says on this that he has a 'claudication' and a 'chronic venous insufficiency' in the left leg", looks at right leg, "and we are asked to do a 'leg segmental arterial doppler ultrasound exam'. Whatever that is. His leg looks pretty good to me".

Surgipedian #2: "You looked at the wrong leg. It says the left one".

Surgipedian #1: "I looked at the left and it's looking totally normal!"

Surgipedian #2: "The left from his point of view! Do you know where your left leg is?"

Surgipedian #3: "No need for shouting, #2, please remember Surgipedia guideline 'Assume Good Faith'. #1 was just trying to be constructive!"

Surgipedian #2: "I was only trying to be constructive, too!"

Surgipedian #3: "Well, let's just get to back to this guy."

Surgipedian #1, feeling securely at the helm again: "I remember something I read once on a website about heart diseases; when your arms or legs turn dark, you got a heart problem".

Surgipedian #3: "Yup, you are right. It's something about the veins in the heart being clogged up."

Surgipedian #2, feeling outdone: "I think it's something about having not enough oxygen in your blood!"

Surgipedian #1: "Can you cite a source for that?"

Surgipedian #2: "My aunt Thelma had something like that and I wrote a paper about it for my biology class at school!"

Surgipedian #3: "Please remember Surgipedia guideline: No Original Research! Let's get back to the man's heart problem! What should we do?"

Surgipedian #1: "I think you need to cut open his ribs and give him a heart massage or clean the veins or something".

Surgipedian #3: "Sounds reasonable. After all, when you get a massage to your back, the blood there flows better as well. I just wrote an article about it".

Surgipedian #2: "Heh, that is original research, too!"

Surgipedian #3: "Several surgipedians agreed on that article to be correct. Are you trying to be a nuisance or do you want to do that man some good?"

Surgipedian #2: "Of course!"

Surgipedian #2: "Then please stay constructive! How do we cut the man's ribs?"

Surgipedian #1: "You need a saw or something."

Surgipedian #3: "A saw? Surgeons use scalpels when they operate. I think you just need to cut a hole and poke your fingers through".

Without further ado, he grabs a scalpel and cuts a hole approximately where the heart is and sticks two fingers through.

Surgipedian #3: "I can't reach the heart, my fingers are not long enough!"

Surgipedian #2: "Then do that thing with the veins!"

Surgipedian #3: "How do you do that?"

Surgipedian #2 "Well, my aunt Thelma finally had something they call a bypass and they cut open the veins, I think".

Surgipedian #3: "But that is orig..., well let's try it. But I will have to push in the scalpel pretty deep to reach the heart. Shall we do it?"

Surgipedian #1, #2: "Support".

Surgipedian #3 remembers Surgipedia guideline "Be Bold!", grabs the scalpel in his fist and swings his arm in preparation of a deep push into the hole, but at that moment a surgeon comes by.

Surgeon: "Stop! What in the world are you doing?"

Surgipedian #3: The man has a problem in his leg and we are going to cut his heart veins open".

Surgeon: "What? All I see is a man with vascular problem in his leg and another that wields a scalpel like a knife. Are you aware that pushing a scalpel into someone's heart will kill that person?"

Surgipedian #1: "We have decided by majority that this is the proper thing to do. Besides, can you prove that pushing a scalpel into someones heart is deadly?"

Surgeon: "You decided by MAJORITY? Are you all nuts?"

Surgipedian #2 feels that there is finally someone besides him to put down: "Please, no personal attacks!"

Surgeon: "I will fucking personal attack you if you endanger someones life!"

Surgipedian #3: "We need to call an admin!"

Surgeon: "Alright, do that, but put that scalpel down!"

An admin comes by.

Admin: "I have heard that a guest is violating Surgipedia rules".

Surgeon: "I am a surgeon and these people are about to kill this man by pushing a knife into his heart!"

Admin: "Reviewing the archived discussion, you are in violation of rules Surgipedia: Assume Good Faith, Surgipedia: Vandalism, Surgipedia: Neutral Point of View, Surgipedia: No Personal Attacks, Surgipedia: Avoid Weasel Words and Surgipedia: Do not disrupt Surgipedia to make a point. You will be blocked from accessing Surgipedia for one week. Please use the time to review

Surgipedia guidelines and rules".

Admin and desperate Surgeon leave.

Surgipedian #3: "Okay, where were we?"

Surgipedian #2: "You were about to cut his heart."

Surgipedian #3: "Yup. I propose that so-called 'surgeon' was just a troll and we should go ahead."

Surgipedian #1 and #2: "Agree".

Surgipedian #3 slams the scalpel into the man's heart, who is dead within moments.

Surgipedian #3: "Why did he die?"

Surgipedian #1: "It's his fault. There was nothing WE did wrong!"
[All guidelines and policies mentioned in this satire do exist in Wikipedia

This post has been edited by victim of censorship: Mon 9th August 2010, 8:49am

[EricBarbour]

any rate this little story below illustrates the absurdity of the World Wide Wiki or as it's know in some circles, Jimbo's Sum of all Bullshit.

If surgery was like Wikipedia: Surgipedia.

Niiice. Did you write that?