Talk:Dental amalgam controversy

Yobol has been massively deleting the work of other users. S/he just deletes entire sections rather than improving or discussing. I made additions to this article, which s/he has *repeatedly* deleted wtih no discussion. Are his/her other edits similarly reckless?

Is this practice of removing all non-secondary sources sanctioned by MEDRS? Just because it is not covered in a secondary source does not make the data any less credible, factual, or pertinent. These are the additions I made which Yobol deleted:

1. The reference advisory limits for mercury toxicity in Canada. These are advisory limits which are used to regulate the safety of dental amalgam.
2. Data from the most recent Canadian Health Survey. (This is a massive health survey the goverment of Canada does periodically.) In the last survey, one of the things they collected data on was the number of amalgam fillings each person had. They also collected body samples and measured mercury concentration in urine. They found that 80% of people had a daily dose of Hg that exceeding the recommended dose limit.
3. Statements of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. That is an association of dental professionals focused on the exact topic of this article. Removed my summary of their work, positions, and main findings.

Other things (not my work) s/he has removed all information about: -- amalgam containing possible endocrine disrupters, -- factors in absorption of mercury from amalgam (bruxism, gum chewing) -- research on monkeys showing accumulation in organs

I don't mind when others find a more succint or pertinent way of stating the information. But this behavior of wholesale removing relevant information is disrespectful of the time, work, and perspective of other users. As a contributor to Wikipedia, I am very tired of this kind of behaviour. I have no agenda in this article. I came to it while looking for information about mercury toxicity. I tried to contribute what I found to be relevant & credible information. Ajobin (talk) 19:18, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All health related information on Wikipedia needs to conform to WP:MEDRS, which states that primary sources should generally NOT be used for health related information. If you want to add information to this article, it needs to be sourced to MEDRS compliant sources. I note that the IAOMT is a fringe advocacy group formed specifically to push an anti-amalgam view, and is not the type of independent source we should be using in this article. Yobol (talk) 23:09, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Points 1 and 2 do not seem to come under MEDRS. 1 seems to be a legal regulation, and 2 seems to be an environmental survey that might not be connected to any statement about personal health. I agree with Yobol about the deletion of the 3rd point, which is the fringe society. This is not a mainstream organization doing science, but seems to be a political activist group acting outside of science and medicine.

I am not seeing information about endocrine disruptors but most likely that should be in the mercury poisoning article and not here, and I am not sure about monkey amalgam. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:32, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The IAOMT is not a political activist group. It is a group of professional dentists who do research and advocacy about amalgam toxicity. They study the facts and latest research and issue summaries and reports on their findings. You just don't agree with them. Science is a process that a community engages in. The concensus of science right now is that amalgam is safe for teeth fillings. That doesn't mean that there aren't professionals and scientists who take a different opinion and have evidence for their opinion. Instead of characterizing the opposing opinion appropriately, you are just deleting them from the overview of professional organization in this article. You are censoring from the article even though they are a highly relevant professional group.

The Canadian report is not an environmental survey. It is a public health survey and in the last one it collected data to precisely address this issue. Again you would rather censor it that find an appropriate characterization for it? Ajobin (talk) 00:58, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please respond about this. Yobol changed the information about Canada so that it simply says "Amalgam use is legal in Canada." However Canada has a reference intake level for mercury. In their last massive public health survey they specifically studied the relationship between number of fillings and mercury levels. They did this precisely because they were concerned about this issue. And they did find a relationship. Characterize it however you see fit, but deleting all reference to it is plainly biased. Likewise with deleting the principal group of dentists who research amalgam & advocate against it from the list of relevant organizations on this subject. Ajobin (talk) 00:10, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Canadian Health Measures Survey mercury & amalgam study: G. Mark Richardson, Mercury Exposure and Risks from Dental Amalgam in Canada: The Canadian Health Measures Survey 2007–2009, Hum. Ecol. Risk Assess., 20/2 (2014) 433-447. DOI: 10.1080/10807039.2012.743433

Data was collected on "the concentration of Hg in urine of survey participants. These data were employed to determine Hg exposures in the Canadian population. Also determined was the number of amalgam-restored tooth surfaces that would not result in exposure exceeding the dose associated with Canada's reference exposure level (REL) for Hg0. ... Of Canadians with dental amalgam restorations, 80.4% experience a daily dose of Hg that exceeds the Canadian REL-associated dose. The number of amalgam surfaces that will not result in exceeding the REL-associated dose varied from two amalgam surfaces (children, both sexes) to seven surfaces (adult males)." Ajobin (talk) 11:24, 25 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ajobin Regardless of what IAOMT is, they are not publishing in per-reviewed journals. Per WP:MEDRS, when health claims are made in Wikipedia articles, those claims must have a connection to peer review. You may say that "Science is a process that a community engages in", but Wikipedia for a long time has had an extreme and unfair bias against all science outside the peer review process. Because of that bias, the citations to that organization's information seem outside the scope of what Wikipedia can present since their own self-published materials are all that was cited.

"...Canada has a reference intake level for mercury." may be true also, but per WP:PRIMARY Wikipedia tries to avoid publishing reference numbers because their significance is not immediately obvious to a layman. In certain unusual cases it is acceptable to publish some numbers, but this rarely happens in medicine. The most discussed case is medical dosing; this is prohibited. From that consensus, giving numbers about toxicology doses is also prohibited, because typical people cannot see a number and understand the extent to which it is good or bad.

Wikipedia rarely covers primary research. This is why information about a urine study is not permissible in Wikipedia. More information on that is in WP:MEDRS.

You say that people here do not agree with the IAOMT. I am more of a librarian than anything else, and most people here are also. I neither know nor care what this or any other group says; I mostly just look at what they have published and where. Without reading any of these papers, I can see by the titles and publishing that these sources do not meet WP:MEDRS. Most of Wikipedia is just library cataloging, because the authors of books and papers typically label their work to note whether it should be cited by general information resources like Wikipedia. When the authors of papers themselves want their papers called as primary research, then of course Wikipedians agree and say that those papers cannot be used here. Since the sources you present seem to be labeled as primary research, that is why I dismiss them without considering them.

I encourage you to look for secondary sources. PubMed gets practically every paper from every researcher in the world, and it is free. Try looking there, perhaps with this search I started. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:16, 25 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He didn't just delete their publication. He deleted them from the list of professional "Organizations" which have position statements on this issue. He removed their publication and he removed this:

The IAOMT educates dentists on safely handling and disposing of mercury-laden amalgam fillings, and developed safe forms of effective dental treatment in many areas, including periodontics and preventing oral disease. The IAOMT has researched and reported on the danger of mercury in amalgam fillings to the health and safety of patients, dental workers, and the environment.^[1]

I don't mind if he characterizes them as a lesser group. He is welcome to point out that their views are not mainstream. I think that is already clear from the ADA position, but go ahead and point it out. Listing them as an organization working on this question does not imply they are on par with the FDA. It just shows that there are other views among professional dentists, which is the truth. I have had a few dentists who suggested they could remove the amalgam from my mouth. I didn't. It doesn't concern me. Doesn't mean that the existences of other views should be censored.

Re. the Canadian study: I now understand your concern with primary sources. I understand that in order for a study to be included we cannot link to the original study, but must instead find some other meta-study discussing it. However, I do not understand why it is inadmissible to point out that Canada has a reference advisory limit for mercury. Ajobin (talk) 01:45, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The IAOMT is an advocacy group, formed specifically as an anti-amalgam group. The type of WP:MEDRS compliant source would be a body of medical professionals that would impartially analyze the data and come to an independent conclusion; this is clearly not the case with the IAOMT. Using them would be akin to using a group of doctors who are also HIV denialist as a reliable source for whether or not HIV causes AIDS. Yobol (talk) 04:43, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ajobin You might say "Canada has a reference limit for mercury", or you might say "Various countries have reference advisory limits for mercury", but you cannot list the actual advisory limit because an odd number has no meaning except to a handful of people with very specific training. When numbers are presented, they should immediately mean something without other context. When numbers are listed, readers are pressured to draw a conclusions, but in this case people cannot understand the number without further research.

The reason why IAOMT cannot be cited is because they do not interact with other scientists or dentists. In conventional science, people publish in journals that everyone shares and in which many people can comment. IAOMT seems to only publish in their own website, and not in any public place, and Wikipedia almost always omits the views of these kinds of groups unless they already have a lot of respect from publishing in third party sources on other occasions. Yes, as you say, this is censorship of views outside of mainstream science. Wikipedia is never the first publication to acknowledge a group's legitimacy; someone else has to review their ideas first and comment on them. The content that you are adding is not the problem. The problem is that the citation is to a self-published work, rather than someone else's review of this information. Is that more clear? Please say if it is not, because I am happy to talk more. I could be wrong about something here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:55, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Bluerasberry Re. the Canadian advisory limit: The deleted text did not say a number. It said: "Amalgam use is legal in Canada, but the government has a reference exposure level (REL) for mercury guideline which it uses to study risk." Ajobin (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ajobin Sorry for the confusion. Yes, that kind of information seems appropriate for inclusion. Somehow I lost track of the conversation focus. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:30, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I also don't see any sourcing provided in this discussion that would indicate the views of this advocacy group are particularly notable. What authoritative independent source demonstrates their views are noteworthy and influential? Without that, it was correct to remove mention from the article per WP:WEIGHT. Zad68 16:00, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Re the IAOMT: I am not asking you to take them as a reliable source. They are a group of dentists opposed to the use of mercury fillings, and therefore should be included in the list of professional organizations who have positions on the subject. Characterize their opposition and their work however you see fit to avoid undue weight, but deleting them is to pretend that their is no professional opposition, when there is. That is a strange thing to say that they don't interact with other dentists given that it is part of their mission to educate dentists about the risks of mercury. Ajobin (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Please provide an authoritative, independent reliable source that demonstrates this group is noteworthy and we can include it. We cannot possibly open the door to inclusion of position statements of every advocacy group regarding any topic. There has to be some recognition by an authoritative body independent of the organization that the group is noteworthy. Zad68 17:33, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why is their mission statement not adequate for demonstrating the work that they are involved in? The mission statement that was deleted says they have 700 members and are an approved continuing education provider for dentists. It also says they have been expert witnesses before Congress, FDA, state legislatures, Health Canada, and other government bodies. They have another page of press releases showing that this is the work that they do. What policy says that additional proof is required to prove that this organization exists and does the work that it says it does? If I am forced to then I suppose I will contact them, point them to the article, and see if they can point to any proof about their work. Perhaps I will do that in any case. The standards you are imposing here simply to point out that there is professional dissent on this issue are ludicrous. You are creating a biased article by deleting all evidence of opposition. If there is some policy saying additional proof is required, then why not just add a citation needed flag, or put it up for discussion, rather than deleting all evidence of professional opposition? It does not improve the neutrality of the article to only show one side of the debate. Ajobin (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Their mission statement is not adequate because they published it themselves, and they rely on the credibility that they assert about themselves. No one is doubting that the organization believes what it publishes in its own press releases. What is in question is that people outside this organization respect these statements. Contacting this organization for their opinion will not address the problem. The most common and easiest way to get a perspective into Wikipedia is to find a third-party (meaning not self-published) critique of the idea in a medical journal. If you cite a source which meets WP:MEDRS then that gets the information in Wikipedia. If you cannot find a MEDRS source, then find the best source you have that is not published by the organization and share that. You said that it was strange when I said this organization seems to not interact with other dentists; show something published by dentists from outside this organization but which is about this organization. See WP:SPS for the general policy on self-published sources. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:30, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I am not trying to establish the credibility of anything they are saying. I am trying to include them as a group which is very active on this issue. Likewise, I would not be contacting them for their opinion, but for independent proof that they do work in the areas they say they do. The fact that they are a group of 700 dentists working on this issue and opposed to amalgam is in itself significant to this article. Again, the statement in question is not one of scientific opinion or findings. It simply describes their work.

The IAOMT educates dentists on safely handling and disposing of mercury-laden amalgam fillings, and developed safe forms of effective dental treatment in many areas, including periodontics and preventing oral disease. The IAOMT has researched and reported on the danger of mercury in amalgam fillings to the health and safety of patients, dental workers, and the environment.

You are welcome to change the characterization from "the danger" to something else if you find that to be too strong. Ajobin (talk) 20:41, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ajobin, sorry, but you're still not connecting to the point we're making. Basically there are two things you need: 1) A reliable source that supports the proposed content, and 2) An independent secondary source that demonstrates the topic is noteworthy enough for inclusion (i.e. meets the Wikipedia policy regarding WP:WEIGHT). You keep hitting on 1), but the objections are regarding 2). Please address 2). Zad68 21:04, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This study is not MEDRS and this group is not MEDRS. You can search pubmed to find better sources. QuackGuru (talk) 21:21, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am not trying to prove any medical facts or anything that can be found in Pubmed. I am only trying to show that there is a group of dental professionals who are active in the dental amalgam controversy. I don't see why I need an outside source to attest to their mission? What outside source could possibly attest to size of their membership? I suppose they themselves might be able to point me to an independent source that can attest to the classes they offer or the advocacy work they do. I looked at their website and it seems they are engaged in a lawsuit against the FDA. So I an probably find proof of that. But I really don't see why I should need independent proof for such basic things as that they exist, have a mission in this area, and have a substantial membership of dentists. Anyway, if you insist then I will contact them to request proof of these things. Ajobin (talk) 00:02, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you searched pubmed you may find a lot more than you think. This is not about proof. This is about sourcing. What section do you want to expand and what do you want to generally include? QuackGuru (talk) 00:38, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to expand anything. I just want to restore what was deleted, or some approximation of it. Mainly, I want to see it more fairly represent who is involved in the controversy, why, and how they are involved. I understand that the ADA views are are better supported and therefore can have more said about them. I am not looking for parity, just due weight. The lack of secondary sources may prevent certain findings from making it into the article but it shouldn't prevent the expression of the fact that there are concerns from numerous professionals who disagree with the professional/scientific concensus that amalgam is safe. This tendancy to enforce MEDRS without making any effort to add citations so that both sides can be appropriately characterized leads to bias. I am going on holiday forthwith. Ajobin (talk) 02:24, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Enforcing MEDRS is a good thing and it is up to you to find other MEDRS compliant citations to avoid bias. QuackGuru (talk) 02:27, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not take WP policies to the letter here. The IAOMT has a rather professional website which clearly shows this is not a few renegade dentists. The amount of involved professors in their science advisory board alone establishes its notability en credibility. They should at least be briefly mentioned. And since this article is about toxicity of a substance, any information about limits should be welcomed. I'd like to remind everyone here that in the right amounts, water is toxic (causing hyponatriemia if you want to look it up). So when someone tries to add this information, please don't do a discouraging delete, but expand and improve upon it. PizzaMan (♨♨) 15:39, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If they're truly an influential, noteworthy organization it should be easy to provide independent reliable secondary sources saying so. This isn't "to the letter", this is the spirit. Zad68 20:32, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The position that we should ignore our policies and guidelines because the website looks "rather professional" is remarkably unconvincing. (Not to mention it actually does not look professional at all...) Yobol (talk) 20:36, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You could just mark the information as in need of a better citation. Instead you are creating an article about controvery that ignores one side of the debate. At minimum, you could have moved it to the talk page for discussion, to preserve some hope of a balanced article. I do not agree that Wikipedia is meant to function like this. I realize this is a small issue and can be fixed when better sources can be found. I will contact the organization in question for pointers. However, this also matters to me as as an editor and a donor here. I would like an official judgment on this. Is the correct way to do this to file a dispute? Ajobin (talk) 22:08, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this is not a "major medical or scientific organization" and is therefore not a reliable source per WP:MEDRS. Ajobin you have been asked several times to provide some independent, reliable source that would convince folks that IAOMT is a even a significant minority opinion and you have provided nothing. There is no forum in Wikipedia where you are going to get any traction without that. We all need some more evidence and the burden is on you to provide it. Per policy and guideline, decisions about things like this are driven by sources, not by personal preferences. Jytdog (talk) 22:35, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I responded to your point. As I said, I will contact them and ask for pointers about where their work has been documented. Unfortunately, the only way you can prove the size of most groups is by their own statements.

Saying that there is an opposed group of professionals or that Canada has a reference limit for mercury are not scientific statements -- noone is endangered by a mistake here. It would be more constructive to just flag it as needing a better reference. Barring that, moving the information to the talk page at least preserves the hope of balance and respect for other editors work. Do you think that this way of doing things makes Wikipedia a better place for editors and readers? I think it is creates more problems than it solves. There is a small chance it is removing a potential inaccuracy and a certainty that it is creating bias by deleting one point of view in a controversy and all documentation for it. It is also disrespectful of the work of others to just delete it with no discussion. Ajobin (talk) 22:33, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No discussion?? This is HUGE SECTION OF DISCUSSION. Three things. 1) if you want to change Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines, have at it. But this is not the place for that (try WT:MEDRS). 2) just for kicks, try finding sources that discuss the importance of the American Dental Association. You will have no problem. (because they actually are mainstream and important) 3) At this point you are WP:IDHT. I recommend WP:SHUN. Ajobin is just trolling at this point. done here. Jytdog (talk) 23:19, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Ajobin but you're still not connecting to our points and I'm losing faith that you will/can/want to. At this point I'm not sure further Talk page discussion will be productive, I'll simply watch the article for edits. Zad68 05:07, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]