OT: Wikipedia: Free access to the sum of all human knowledge, or just another wa

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Wikipedia: Free access to the sum of all human knowledge, or just another

way of supporting the scientific, political and social status quo?

_http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/wikipedia_aug08.html_

(http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/wikipedia_aug08.html)

 

 

From the point of view of its founders, _Wikipedia_

(http://www.wikipedia.org/) must surely be seen as a rip-roaring success. A

multilingual, Web-based,

free content encyclopaedia project, created in 2001 and written

collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world, it has rapidly grown

to become

one of the world's _top ten_

(http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global & lang=none) most popular

web sites. These days, when conducting a Google

search on almost any subject, in the majority of cases a Wikipedia article

will come up either top of the rankings or, at the very least, amongst the top

ten results. Increasingly however, serious questions are being asked

regarding the reliability of its content.

As the article below shows, Wikipedia can sometimes be highly inaccurate –

especially so in the case of articles on subjects related to natural,

non-pharmaceutical forms of healthcare, which, in sharp contrast to those on

issues

related to drug-based medicine, it tends to treat in a decidedly sceptical

manner. Moreover, by effectively forcing its editors to rely on medical

journals, books published by " respected publishing houses " and mainstream

newspapers

for their references, the reality is that much of Wikipedia's

healthcare-related content is essentially just supporting the same

pro-pharmaceutical and

corporatist ideologies as are pumped out on a daily basis through the world's

Big Media and publishing outlets.

Wikipedia's ambitions

Whilst there is some _controversy_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales#Roles_of_Wikipedia_creators) as to

whether or not he should be credited as

the sole founder, or the co-founder, of Wikipedia, there can be no doubt that

_Jimmy Wales_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales) , an American

Internet entrepreneur, is its public figurehead. So far as the world's media

are

concerned, Wales and Wikipedia appear to be becoming almost as synonymous as

Gates and Microsoft, or Branson and Virgin. Perhaps not surprisingly therefore,

it turns out that Wales has big ambitions for Wikipedia, as particularly

demonstrated by the following two extracts from an _interview_

(http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/28/1351230) he gave in

2004:

" It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the

planet in their own language. It is my intention that free textbooks from

our wikibooks project will be used to revolutionize education in developing

countries by radically cutting the cost of content. "

" Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free

access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. "

Startling stuff, isn't it? After all, if your ambition is for your website's

content to be used as the future basis for the education of the planet,

you'd better make very sure that your content is accurate and that it

encourages

readers to approach new ideas with an open mind.

And this, despite all the hype that surrounds it, is where Wikipedia comes

up rather sadly lacking. For, whilst its _policies and guidelines_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines) are

theoretically

designed to ensure that articles are _reliable_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources) and

take a _neutral point of view_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view) , the fact is,

and

as we shall see, that in practice this is unfortunately not always proving to

be the case.

So far as its healthcare-related articles are concerned, the reality is that

by effectively forcing its contributors to rely on what it sees as

" _reliable sources_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources) " for

their material and references – e.g. orthodox medical journals,

books published by " respected publishing houses " , mainstream newspapers and so

on – far from providing free access to the sum of all human knowledge,

Wikipedia is essentially just supporting the same pro-pharmaceutical and

corporatist ideologies as are pumped out on a daily basis through the world's

Big Media

and publishing outlets.

Think that last sentence was too strong?

Well, if you do – in other words, if you're the sort of person who believes

that everything you read in your daily newspaper and watch on the TV news

must be true – (because newspapers and news agencies are free from bias and

have

a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, right?) – then this might be a

good moment to switch off your computer, pick up your daily newspaper or turn

on the TV instead.

But if, on the other hand, you know that _journalists telling us that taking

vitamin supplements may shorten our life expectancy_

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_johnson/article37789\

71.ece) are

sometimes _put under pressure_

(http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUTICAL_BUSINESS/big_media_20080618.h\

tml) to back the studies making these claims, and

that _shadowy intelligence agencies are pumping out black propaganda to

manipulate public opinion – and that the media simply swallow it wholesale_

(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/how-the-spooks-took-over-the-news-78067\

2.html

) , then you'll know that what you read in your daily newspaper and watch on

the TV news can sometimes be anything but reliable. By extension, therefore,

the reality is that this also applies to what one reads on Wikipedia.

Verifiability, not truth

As absurd as it might sound, the _threshold for inclusion_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability) in Wikipedia is

verifiability, not

truth. In other words, if readers are able to check that material added to

Wikipedia has already been published by a so-called " _reliable source_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources) " , then

no further

verification of its accuracy is required. It doesn't matter one iota whether

the material is true or not – or even, for that matter, whether Wikipedia or

its editors think it is true – so long as the material can be shown to have

been published by, say, the Reuters news agency or similar, it is considered

suitably reliable for inclusion in Wikipedia.

So, and to take an example, at the time of writing (July 2008), the

_Wikipedia article on Dr. Rath_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath)

states

the following:

In 2005, according to Reuters, the Foundation distributed tens of thousands

of pamphlets in poor black South African townships claiming that HIV

medication was " poison " and urging HIV-positive people to choose Rath's

vitamins

instead.

The source used for this claim is a _news story_

(http://www.aegis.org/news/ads/2005/ad050741.html) on the _aegis.org_

(http://www.aegis.org/) website

purporting to come from the Reuters news agency.

However, whilst it is of course true that the _Dr. Rath Health Foundation

Africa_ (http://www.dr-rath-foundation.org.za/) has distributed information

leaflets in South African townships to inform people of _the dangers of ARV

medication_ (http://www.arv-facts.com/main.html) , and that these same leaflets

also urged people to take vitamins instead, it is not true that they urged

people to choose any particular brand of vitamins, either Dr. Rath's or anybody

else's.

Moreover, given that the website used as the source for this story, the

_AIDS Education Global Information System_ (http://www.aegis.org/) (AEGIS),

states that it is " made possible through unrestricted funding from _Boehringer

Ingelheim_ (http://www.aegis.org/about/bi.html) , _Bridgestone/Firestone

Charitable Trust_

(http://www.bridgestone-firestone.com/about/index_citizen.asp?id=trust_main) ,

_Bristol-Myers Squibb Company_

(http://www.bms.com/landing/data/index.html) , _Elton John AIDS Foundation_

(http://www.ejaf.com/) , _Gill

Foundation_ (http://www.gillfoundation.org/) , the _National Library of

Medicine_

(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/) , Quest Diagnostics, _Roche_

(http://www.roche.com/home.html) and _Trimeris_ (http://www.trimeris.com/) , "

it can hardly be

said to be either ideologically neutral or to qualify as one of Wikipedia's

aforesaid _reliable sources_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources) .

Nevertheless, and largely at the behest of a Wikipedia administrator known

as " _MastCell_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MastCell) " , of whom more

later, this potentially libellous claim has repeatedly been prevented from

being

removed from the _article on Dr. Rath_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath) . Moreover, in an astonishing

display of bias, MastCell has even gone

so far as to _describe_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Matthias_Rath#Pamphlets) AEGIS – with its

" unrestricted funding " from multi-billion dollar

multinational pharmaceutical companies – as " a reasonably reliable source "

and to

claim that its funding doesn't indicate otherwise.

Incidentally – and, some might say, perhaps not coincidentally – the only

other website of any note currently carrying the story is _thebody.com_

(http://www.thebody.com/content/art25831.html) , a site whose _sponsors_

(http://www.thebody.com/sponsors.html) include Abbott Laboratories, BioForm

Medical,

Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Virology,

Bio-Technology General Corp., Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-La

Roche Inc., Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., Merck & Co., Inc., Monogram

Biosciences, Inc., Ortho Biotech Products, L.P., Pfizer Inc., Tibotec

Therapeutics

and Virco.

Perhaps most significantly of all, despite the fact that the Foundation

supposedly distributed " tens of thousands " of pamphlets " urging HIV-positive

people to choose Rath's vitamins, " it should be noted that nobody has yet

produced a single copy of one of them to verify this claim. Which, of course,

they

never will, because the Foundation has never distributed any pamphlet making

this statement.

For anybody who is interested to know what these pamphlets did in fact say,

they can be found online _here_

(http://www.dr-rath-foundation.org.za/pdf-files/ol_wanttomarch.pdf) , _here_

(http://www.dr-rath-foundation.org.za/pdf-files/freedom_day_pamphlet_2005.pdf)

and _here_

(http://www.dr-rath-foundation.org.za/pdf-files/pamphlet_NYT_2005.pdf) .

Introducing 'MastCell'

 

In most normal encyclopedias, articles are written by people who are experts

on the subjects they are writing about. In other words, you wouldn't expect

to find articles on subjects such as _Alternative Medicine_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine) ; _Megavitamin therapy_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megavitamin_therapy) ; _Naturopathic medicine_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathic_medicine) and _Orthomolecular

medicine_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomolecular_medicine) being written by

orthodox doctors

and proponents of pharmaceutical medicine. On Wikipedia however, with a small

number of exceptions, literally _anyone who visits the site can edit any

article_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editorial_oversight_and_control#Overview\

_of_editorial_structure) . As a result, its articles on

non-pharmaceutical forms of medicine tend to be written from a highly sceptical

standpoint

and are effectively " policed " by editors exhibiting a strong and open bias

towards pharmaceutical medicine.

One example of such an editor is a Wikipedia _Administrator_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators) known as '_MastCell_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MastCell) ', who, right from his very _first

edits in

August 2006_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions & dir=prev & target\

=MastCell & month= & year) , made it immediately apparent that his

primary interest and knowledge base – and probably even his career –

centers

around the practice of pharmaceutical-based medicine. (Intriguingly, therefore,

Ilena Rosenthal – a natural health-orientated editor who has been _banned

indefinitely_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilena) by Wikipedia – has

_suggested_ (http://humanticsfoundation.com/wikipedia.htm) that 'MastCell' is

" probably " _David H. Gorski_

(http://lifesci.rutgers.edu/~molbiosci/faculty/gorski.html) , an Associate

Professor at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical

School in New Jersey, United States).

A member of _Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine) , the first

article MastCell edited was on

_bone marrow examination_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow_examination)

.. After this he moved on to contributing to articles on pharmaceutical drugs

such as _Dasatinib_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasatinib) ; _Vinblastine_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinblastine) ; _Doxorubicin_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxorubicin) ; _Bleomycin_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleomycin)

and _Dacarbazine_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacarbazine) ; and to

articles on medical specialities including _bone marrow_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow) ; _hypernatremia_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernatremia)

; _flow immunophenotyping_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_immunophenotyping) ; _anatomical pathology_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomical_pathology) ; the _history of cancer

chemotherapy_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer_chemotherapy) ; _chemotherapy_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotherapy) ; _blood transfusion_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_transfusion) and _transfusion reaction_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfusion_reaction) ; _Hodgkin's lymphoma_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodgkin's_lymphoma)

; _hemolytic disease of the newborn_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemolytic_disease_of_the_newborn) ; _sickle-cell

disease_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease) ; _thrombotic

thrombocytopenic purpura_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrombotic_thrombocytopenic_purpura) ;

_non-Hodgkin lymphoma_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Hodgkin_lymphoma) ; _melanoma_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanoma) ; _acute myeloid leukaemia_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_myeloid_leukemia) ; _myelodysplastic

syndrome_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myelodysplastic_syndrome) ; _granulocytic sarcoma_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granulocytic_sarcoma) ; _chronic myelogenous

leukaemia_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_myelogenous_leukemia) ; _leukemoid

reaction_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukemoid_reaction) ; _neutrophilia_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrophilia) ; _myeloperoxidase_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myeloperoxidase) ; _ischemic colitis_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ischemic_colitis) ; _hematopoietic stem cell

transplantation_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hematopoietic_stem_cell_transplantation) and

_esophageal varices_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esophageal_varices) , amongst others.

MastCell's other early contributions to Wikipedia included creating the page

on _exchange transfusion_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange_transfusion)

(the medical treatment in which a person's red blood cells or platelets are

removed and replaced with transfused blood products); adding the logo to the

article on the _Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hutchinson_Cancer_Research_Center) ; and

editing the article on

_pharmaceutical marketing_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_marketing) . All things considered,

therefore, it's difficult to imagine somebody

less suitable to edit the _Wikipedia article on Dr. Rath_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath) .

MastCell began editing the article on Dr. Rath on _August 31, 2006_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Matthias_Rath & diff=prev & oldid=7296265\

8) ,

when, amongst other things, he used it to accuse Dr. Rath of being an _AIDS

denialist_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_reappraisal) . This was an absurd

accusation, of course, as Dr. Rath has never denied the existence of the

human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Since then, and as described above, MastCell has persistently defended the

inclusion of a statement in the _article_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Rath) that the Foundation " distributed

tens of thousands of pamphlets in

poor black South African townships… urging HIV-positive people to choose

Rath's vitamins " , despite the fact that this claim is demonstrably untrue.

In addition, he has pointedly removed references in the article to

statements made by Dr. Rath himself, despite the fact that in some cases

_Wikipedia's

guidelines on biographies of living persons_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons) clearly

permit these.

And, perhaps most notably of all, MastCell has also removed reference in the

article to a _court judgement_

(http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAWCHC/2006/8.html) given in Cape Town, South

Africa, in March 2006 in which the judge

explicitly stated that he was not persuaded that the following statements about

the _Treatment Action Campaign_ (http://www.tac.org.za/community/) (TAC)

were defamatory:

* The TAC organises rented crowds for the drug industry;

* The TAC pays people to participate in demonstrations;

* The TAC encourages people to take medicine which is harmful to them

and will kill them;

* The TAC forces the government to spend millions of rands on toxic

drugs;

* The TAC forces the government to spread disease and death among the

people of South Africa;

* The TAC destabilises democracy in South Africa.

Given these facts, and in knowledge of the reality that the TAC is

vigorously promoting the use of _toxic anti-retroviral drugs_

(http://www.arv-facts.com/main.html) , it is illuminating to compare MastCell's

attacks on Dr. Rath

with the number of clear Wikipedia policy violations that are currently being

overlooked in _Wikipedia's article on the TAC_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_Action_Campaign) .

Wikipedia's article on the Treatment Action Campaign – a classic example of

double standards?

At the time of writing (July 2008) _Wikipedia's article on the Treatment

Action Campaign_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_Action_Campaign)

(TAC)

clearly breaks a significant number of the official _policies and guidelines_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines) that its

editors are supposed to follow.

For example, there are no references whatsoever in the article. This is in

clear contravention to Wikipedia's _policy on sources_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources) , which, as

described earlier,

requires that articles should rely on reliable, third party published sources

with a

reputation for fact checking and accuracy. Given therefore that MastCell is

demanding these for the article on Dr. Rath, it would only seem reasonable to

expect him to do likewise in the article in the TAC.

Similarly, the TAC article also appears to contravene Wikipedia's policy of

not publishing " _original research or original thought_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research) . " Bizarre though

it might seem,

unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, or ideas, and any unpublished

analysis

or synthesis of published material is not permitted in Wikipedia. As such,

the opening sentence of the article, which describes the TAC as " unique for

combining the issue-specific targeted direct action tactics of North American

AIDS groups like ACT UP with the culture and organization of the South African

trade union and anti-apartheid movements " should, unless a specific reference

for it can be cited, be deleted.

In addition, neither can it be said that the article is written in a

_neutral point of view_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view) . Phraseology

describing an organization as " unique " requires, for example,

according to Wikipedia's own rules, a supporting reference, and, unless one

is supplied, should be removed accordingly.

In short, therefore, it would seem appropriate that the Treatment Action

Campaign article should be labeled as having _multiple issues_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Articleissues) until such time as all of

the above

contraventions have been corrected. Meanwhile, until such time as it does fully

conform to Wikipedia's _policies and guidelines_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines) and is

written in a _neutral point of

view_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view) , one can

only presume that MastCell is happy for Wikipedia to exhibit double standards

of this sort.

Conclusion

Numerous studies have shown that very few Internet users go beyond the first

page of search results. Discussing this, Danny Sullivan, the editor of

Search Engine Watch, an online news site aimed at the search marketing

industry,

was quoted in the _New York Times_

(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/business/media/06link.html) a couple of

years ago as saying: " If it's not on the

first page, it might as well be invisible. " Similarly, in the same article,

when

discussing the need to think critically about what results come back from a

search engine, Sullivan specifically advised that " Anybody who looks for

something on any search engine and thinks the results are the best or most

impartial results, or that they came back completely organically is totally

mistaken. "

As such, if ever there were a set of search engine results to which

Sullivan's comments could arguably apply more than most, they must surely be

Wikipedia's. After all, doesn't it strike you as a little odd that, so far as

Wikipedia is concerned, the " truth " about something is essentially dependent in

no

small part upon what the media says about it?

And what about the fact that Wikipedia's articles tend not to be written by

experts? Just as you wouldn't trust an article on the intricacies of cricket

that was written by a man who plays tennis for a living, for example, why

should anybody trust Wikipedia's articles on alternative and natural forms of

medicine when they are being so actively edited and effectively " policed " by

people whose primary knowledge base, like that of MastCell, is in

pharmaceutical-based medicine?

Without any doubt therefore, if Jimmy Wales is ever to achieve his aims of

getting a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet in their own

language and free textbooks from the wikibooks project being used to

revolutionize education in developing countries, then the accuracy of

Wikipedia's

content – and arguably even its entire approach – needs to be significantly

improved. Until such time as this happens, its articles on alternative and

natural forms of medicine – and indeed, those on its proponents, such as Dr.

Rath –

can clearly not be relied upon for their accuracy.