Talk:Martin Kulldorff

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Is Kulldorff an epidemiologist?

The article's lede states that Kulldorff is a biostatistician, though does not mention that he is a epidemiologist. I think the specialty might be worthy to mention, as it seems a good amount of sources support his assertion in the field ( [1] [2] [3]). In a court-document under the New Civil Liberties Alliance, Kulldorff's background states under penalty of perjury: Dr. Martin Kulldorff is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and he is a biostatistician and epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital ( [4] ). @Bon courage GuardianH (talk) 16:55, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

See previous discussion and dispute resolution on this. The only source which seems to consider it in depth explicitly says he is NOT an epidemiologist. So stick with what's certain. Bon courage (talk) 17:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Do you know which discussion the source is mentioned in? I haven't been a part of the previous discussions, so finding one source among the tons of discussions about Kulldorff is like finding a needle in a haystack. GuardianH (talk) 17:09, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

See.[1] and this page's archives. Bon courage (talk) 17:16, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Contentious BLP material?

Concerning this removal, I am not seeing any contentious BLP material in the passage removed. And concerning the removing editor's aspersions about the source, WP:RSP has Science-Based medicine green-listed. Therefore I see no grounds for removal. Newimpartial (talk) 19:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Newimpartial. I don't see a valid reason for removal and I think a case needs to be made here before it's removed again. — Czello ^(music) 21:26, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality and tone on disputed section "Views on COVID-19"

Section has been previously disputed and I believe current wording is not ideal. I rephrased it to say the same thing with "nonjudgmental language" per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. This topic is clearly disputed between researchers, and factually the rephrasing I did is accurate, more neutral, and less judgmental.

The sentence in question is uncited and uses the words "error-laden," "falsely claimed", and "illogically argued." I added the citation to the sentence in question to clearly show where it was from. My rephrasing states objectively that he published an essay with claims, and then moves the criticism to the following sentence, and clearly states that it is the words from the source publication Science-Based Medicine. This reorganization is a statement of fact, that Kulldorff published an essay, followed by the opinion on that essay, which clearly shifts the tone from looking like the opinion of Wikipedia, to stating the facts around the controversial publication. As this is a contentious topic, and the citation is single opinion piece on a living person, it is important to be as neutral as possible to avoid being perceived as bias.

As the change I made maintains the same exact meaning as the previous section while adding context and eliminating what could be seen as editorializing, I struggle to see the resistance. Previous discussions have shown that the SBM article is contentious, and many users have brought up criticisms of this sentence, source, and entire paragraph. I believe the amount of dispute on it warrants at least considering that it does not appear neutral, and that the rewording I proposed is both accurate and more neutral to respect the amount of dispute that has clearly happened.

Original text

In December 2021 Kulldorff published an error-laden essay for the Brownstone Institute in which he falsely claimed that influenza was more hazardous to children than COVID-19, and on that basis illogically argued against children receiving COVID-19 vaccination. In reality, influenza had been responsible for one child death in the 2020/21 season, while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 had, in contrast, killed more than 1,000.

Proposed revision

In December 2021 Kulldorff published an essay for the Brownstone Institute in which he claimed that influenza was more hazardous to children than COVID-19, and on that basis argued against children receiving COVID-19 vaccination. This essay was criticized by the website Science-Based Medicine for containing errors and factual inaccuracies, with influenza responsible for one child death in the 2020/21 season, while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 had, in contrast, killed more than 1,000. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The proposed revision is an improvement because it does not add editorial judgement and is more neutral.

The original text is questionable for two reasons. First, in the cited critique of Kulldorf's essay, regarding the claim that the annual influenza was more hazardous to children than COVID-19, the critique says:

"The true flu deaths are higher given incomplete reporting. For example, the CDC would later increase the estimate of deaths to 1,090 during the H1N1 pandemic. COVID-19’s pediatric death toll will soon surpass this grim milestone and undoubtedly would have done so long ago had the policies of the GBD been widely implemented. The single highest estimate from any other year was that 434 deaths may have occurred."

So a typical annual influenza would be up to 434 deaths and, in a pandemic year, 1090 deaths. How does this compare to Covid? As of 2023 the CDC says 776 (0-4yr) + 1071 (5-18yr) children died from Covid between Jan 2020-June 2023, i.e. averaging 461 per year. These numbers sound close enough that I wouldn't rush to weigh in as a lay editor. Source: https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/nr4s-juj3?mobile_redirect=true

Second, the CDC article which provided the data for the critique notes "importantly, among reported flu-related deaths in children, about 80% occurred in children who were not fully vaccinated." Thus, when the critique concludes "The numbers are clear, and anyone who claims the flu is more dangerous than COVID-19 for children is either completely ignorant, blatantly lying, or, like Dr. Kulldorff, trying to trick their readers with word games," it is doing so based on an invalid comparison of Covid mortality in 2020-2021 (in an unvaccinated population) with annual influenza mortality (in partially vaccinated populations). I.e. the critique might as well just say that vaccination can reduce mortality.

Neither of these proves Dr. Kulldorf's essay was correct, but we should be wary of lending Wikipedia's voice to this critique. Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the proposed revision is compliant with wikipedia policy - it takes a BOTHSIDESIST "he said ... but others say ..." approach to questions that are actually settled by science: was flu or Covid a greater risk to children in 2021, and was childhood vaccination an appropriate protective measure in this context. Revisionist text that implies "maybe, maybe not" departs from the clear consensus in the field. Newimpartial (talk) 03:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Looking through the novel we have written, I believe the current text does not comply with Wikipedia policy, and that something better can be used. Trying to take into account feedback, I proposed the following:

"Kulldorff published an essay titled "Vaccines save lives" for the Brownstone Institute, a right-wing think tank, that has been criticized for factual inaccuracies. Jonathan Howard published a critical response to this in Science-Based Medicine, detailing errors and factual inaccuracies, such as pointing out that while influenza was responsible for one child death in the 2020/21 season while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 had, in contrast, killed more than 1,000."

I think the above body of text has a better tone, and factually represents the content without the tone problems. That have been pointed out by several editors over time. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:55, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I concur with this new text as well.

With regard to being BOTHSIDESIST, the quote from Howard's critique says "The same is not true for children. Their Covid mortality risk is miniscule and less than the already low risk from the annual influenza, so the vaccine benefit for healthy children is very small." Since Kuldorf said the "annual influenza," not the 2020 or 2021 influenza specifically, whether it is settled that the 2021 flu or 2021 Covid was a greater risk is irrelevant. I.e. people know the risk of the annual influenza, even though they do not know the exact risk of this year's influenza.

If a critique of Kuldorff essay is to be presented as settled science, surely there is a better critique out there that does not rely on conflating influenza risk post-vaccination with Covid risk pre-vaccination. Tikitorch2 (talk) 02:00, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

On Wikipedia we follow the cited sources, you're not going to get far by trying to argue that the cited source is incorrect. And even that has been argued to death - check the talk pages archives. It didn't work then and it won't work now. MrOllie (talk) 02:12, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I just want the tone of this sentence to sound less like an attack piece in a clickbait article and more encyclopedic. I've tried to suggest alternative text that maintains the same meaning, and even elaborates on the bias in the publisher and moves the critique to the author of the source instead of Wikivoice. What is wrong with the alternative I've suggested, and is there an alternative to the status quo that you would suggest to try to make the tone more encyclopedic? It really seems like Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling at this point. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 08:30, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Tikitorch, I'm not understanding your argument here. Kuldorf is making an argument against vaccination, so the pre-vaccination Covid risk seems to be precisely the right one to compare. Newimpartial (talk) 02:24, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Sure, the current Wikipedia text says “In December 2021 Kulldorff published an error-laden essay for the Brownstone Institute in which he falsely claimed that influenza was more hazardous to children than COVID-19.” To your point, we can assume Kulldorf meant Covid risk pre-vaccination, but there no evidence he was comparing it to the annual influenza post vaccination—indeed it more natural to assume he was comparing like populations, I.e. to the annual influenza risk to those without the flu shot. Thus there is not really evidence in the critique of an error in Kuldorff’s essay, only the possibility of two interpretations.

I think Howard’s interpretation is not the natural one but it’s fine to cite Howard’s published critique. That being said it is editorializing to assert Kulldorff’s essay was “error laden” when the only error cited has a more natural interpretation that is probably true (that the typical annual influenza poses a greater risk to children than Covid did amongst comparably unvaccinated groups). This is also why it is important to accurately cite Howard’s critique where it says “the annual influenza,” not the 2020 influenza. The proposed replacement text also avoids this misquoting of the source. Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:55, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I see no evidence supporting your supposedly more natural interpretation. We were not living in a world in 2021 where it was necessary to choose between Covid and influenza vaccinations, which is the only context in which your comparison between unvaccinated groups would make any sense.

Also, your distinction between "the annual influenza" and the 2021 influenza is without difference - unless you are arguing that some special characteristic of the 2021 mix of influenza strains is reaponsible for its low prevalence that year, rather than the difficult conditions for its spread caused by changed social practices in 2020-21. The "2021 indluenza" was the annual influenza for that year, and was therefore the relevant comparison.

In short, you seem to belive that Howard is mistaken in finding errors in Kulldorff's work, but I find Howard's reading to be the plausible one, in line with mainstream literature in the discipline, and yours to be an ideosyncratic, small minority view. Newimpartial (talk) 09:23, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Kulldorff is a scientist; it is unlikely he was comparing the risk to children without the Covid vaccine from Covid to the risk to children with the flu vaccine from influenza. There is no evidence he was other than the opinion of Howard. Kulldorff wrote "The same is not true for children. Their Covid mortality risk is miniscule and less than the already low risk from the annual influenza, so the vaccine benefit for healthy children is very small." A scientific colleague would assume Kulldorff was comparing groups with equivalent vaccination status, or ask him to clarify.

The most straightforward way to read it is Kulldorff was informing people of the absolute risk due to covid in terms of a risk they know from past experience--the annual influenza. Like you said, it is not necessary to choose between Covid and influenza vaccinations.

Again, it is fine to cite Howard's opinion that Kulldorff's statement was in error or misleading, but Wikipedia should not editorialize a plausible interpretation as the only true one. There is no evidence presented that compares the risk from Covid vs. "the annual influenza", controlling for vaccination status. Can it be settled science that Kulldorff was in error if the critique's method made no attempt to control for the most obvious confounding factor? Tikitorch2 (talk) 00:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

This all sounds like highly strained special pleading. As Newimpartial writes, the meaning of the source is plain. Wikipedia reflects that. There really is nothing more to add. Bon courage (talk) 05:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Tikitorch, I am perplexed by your apparently original interpretation of "what Kuldorff meant", which isn't supported by the primary source itself nor by any secondary sources. Anyway, if Kuldorff was comparing the absolute risk of Covid in the actual, unvaccinated population of children in 2021 to the risk of influenza in a largely vaccinated population in previous years, which is the interpretation you just offered, you fail to note that this confirms Howard's point that this is not a valid, scientific argument against vaccination for Covid.

Also, there is simply no evidence for the n-dimensional chess interpretation you offered previously, that he was comparing unvaccinated Covid risk to influenza risk in an unvaccinated population in a typical previous year. And even had he intended that line of thinking, it wouldn't have been a valid argument against vaccinating children for Covid, because he doesn't take into account the efficacy of each vaccine - and it turns out that vaccination for Covid is significantly more effective in preventing symptoms and mortality than vaccination against influenza

TL;DR - saying "but he's a scientist!" isn't actually a license for editors to determine what someone should have meant in order to try to prove that their RS critics were wrong. Newimpartial (talk) 14:37, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Likewise, I am perplexed you say there is simply no evidence that Kulldorff was comparing unvaccinated Covid risk to unvaccinated influenza risk in a typical previous year. At the very top Howard quotes Kulldorff: "The same is not true for children. Their Covid mortality risk is miniscule and less than the already low risk from the annual influenza, so the vaccine benefit for healthy children is very small." Why would a scientist make a relative comparison of mortality risk of two different diseases, without controlling for vaccination status?

This isn't n-dimensional chess but you do have to do some arithmetic. Everything is in the first two sections of Howard's article. He says that ~1020 children died of Covid through December of 2021, that in a typical year influenza kills about 37-434 children, and during one influenza pandemic 1090 children died. He also says 527 children died of Covid so far in 2021, meaning about 500 died in 2020 (1020 - 527).

So, from Howard's own critique, we have a little more than 500/yr due to Covid and an average of 235/yr due to Influenza. Howard omits that children are vaccinated for the flu every year, so I am left assuming the average mortality risk to unvaccinated children from influenza is actually greater than Covid. Finally, for the only data point he offers with comparable groups (from the year the flu vaccine failed), influenza was potentially up to twice as deadly as Covid (1090 vs 500).

I'm sure it will be called "original research" to read the first two sections of the cited source and compare numbers in them, but Howard does not show any errors in Kulldorff's essay except by this misinterpretation of the quote above. The best he can muster is "anyone who claims the flu is more dangerous than COVID-19 for children is...like Dr. Kulldorff, trying to trick their readers with word games." Howard's critique is entirely based on his opinion that Kulldorff is trying to trick readers with word games.

TL;DR Wikipedia's claim that "Kulldorff published an error-laden essay" has no evidence other than an assertion made by Howard of "factual errors" based on misinterpreting Kulldorff's words, which isn't actually a license for editors to determine Howard's interpretation was correct. Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:00, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure it will be called "original research" You're right about that. And you're arguing the wrong things, here. On Wikipedia we cannot substitute your judgment for that of the cited source. MrOllie (talk) 03:04, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I was not proposing text for the Kulldorff’s page based on my “research,” merely pointing out the cited source is not very scientific in its methodology. On the basis of reading the source and noting the methodological flaws of its main supporting evidence, I think the proposed tone improvements by Geogsage are better than the current text, which you are ignoring.

I don’t know why I’m offering evidence to you but it doesn’t take much effort to question this source. For example in one of its secondary points it says “Moreover, there’s no plausible reason to think children will have a reaction to a vaccine years from now that is not apparent today. Though it’s standard anti-vaccine hogwash to claim otherwise, vaccines almost never have side effects that aren’t apparent within a short time.”

He somehow manages to contradict himself within just two sentences to anyone who knows the definition of plausible. Tikitorch2 (talk) 04:52, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Yuck, the proposed re-write is POV as it implies the error is just an opinion. This has already been discussed to death. Wikipedia needs to be clear about WP:FRINGESUBJECTS and WP:YESPOV applies.

@Bon courage, the proposed rewrite does not imply that anything is just an opinion, it literally says "This essay was criticized by the website Science-Based Medicine for containing errors and factual inaccuracies, with influenza responsible for one child death in the 2020/21 season, while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 had, in contrast, killed more than 1,000." This does not say that the website was posting an opinion, but states that the website criticized it for factual inaccuracies. It has been "discussed to death" because the tone of this line does not read as neutral or disengaged. The number of people who have brought this up and complete unwillingness to compromise at all on the wording is ridiculous. This is a biography of a living person, "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone." This is far from a disinterested tone. Also, remember to sign your comments please. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually it was discussed to death principally because a disruptive editor wouldn't stop trying to change it. They've since been blocked. By personifying a website as criticising something for something, you make it seem like it's just the view of "the website". If misinformation is being aired (as it was about the supposed harmlessness of COVID) Wikipedia needs to make that context crystal clear. If (as you acknowledge) WP:SBM is a reliable source (i.e. for assertions of fact), why attribute it? This creates a POV problem per WP:YESPOV by making facts seem like opinions. You could just say "The essay contained errors and factual inaccuracies ..." to be neutral, no? Bon courage (talk) 03:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The disruptive editors in my opinion after reading the discussion were the ones refusing to change it, but that is besides the point. This wording doesn't look disinterested, and I think that it needs to be heavily reworded while maintaining the spirit of the text. I think this can help to avoid future heated discussions and reflect that there has been a lot of dispute here.

The wording on the second sentence I proposed can be improved to avoid "personifying" the website, you're right. Would something like "A publication in Science-Based Medicine criticized Kulldorff's essay for containing errors and factual inaccuracies, pointing out that influenza was responsible for one child death in the 2020/21 season, while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 had, in contrast, killed more than 1,000."

Because this is controversial, I would prefer to put the full responsibility for stating this is factually inaccurate onto the source to avoid the perception that it is Wikipedia editors taking a stance on this, which is what the current sentence looks like. Clearly stating Science-Based Medicine in the second stance is also consistent with stating the essay was published for the Brownstone Institute. This is an approach I take in my professional research as well, I make sure to document exactly where my data and arguments are coming from to shift the discussion away from a debate about my opinion to what the sources say. My format is something like:

Source 1 said (a thing). Source 2 (agree/disagree), reasoning. Source 3 (agree/disagree), reasoning. etc."

For example, something like "Somebody published an essay that the world is flat and that we should not sail to close to the edge to avoid falling off.(citation1) All of science disagrees because science.(citation2)"

Saying "Somebody published an error-laden essay that falsely claimed the Earth is flat, and illogically argued we should not sail to close to the edge to avoid falling off" does not appear as neutral or disinterested.

I believe it is clear that the text here needs a tone revision, as it clearly reads in a way that strikes some editors the wrong way. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The principle problem with your proposal is that it is POV. For this encyclopedia we are required to state facts in wikivoice to be neutral, per WP:YESPOV, and NPOV is not negotiable. You say "because this is controversial" we need to do otherwise, but it's not "controversial" that Kuldorff was simply wrong (unless you can produce RS to that effect). Ancillary problems with the proposal are the personification of the "website" (if it were to be attributed, it would be to J Howard), the unfortunate shift to the passive voice, and the slightly shonky "criticised for ..." / " ... with ..." / " ... while ..." syntax. In short, what we have is fine. Bon courage (talk) 04:56, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

We have sources saying he is factually wrong, and that needs to be clearly and unambiguously reflected in a disinterested and neutral tone. The Howard article, while from a reliable source, has a bit of a hostile tone (reflected in Howards other publications discussing Kuldorff). While this tone may or may not be warranted, it should be toned down in a biography of a living person. Another suggested revision to sentence 2:

"Jonathon Howard published a response to Kulldorff's essay in Science-Based Medicine, pointing out Kulldorff's essay contained errors and factual inaccuracies, specifically noting that influenza was responsible for one child death in the 2020/21 season, while public health mitigation of COVID-19 were in place – COVID-19 had, in contrast, killed more than 1,000."

This links Jonathon Howards page to the opinion directly, as well as the publication. Science arguments are scary and get really heated. They usually don't enter the realm of pop-science and general news coverage though. This approach, the objective dry statement of fact that Kulldorff published something, followed by a sentence that details a sources response to it, using as neutral and disinterested of a tone as possible, would maintain the content of the paragraph while making it appear less inflammatory to a reader. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:27, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

This is not a "science argument", it's a case where we must simply state the well-sourced factual reality (not "opinion"). Your new proposal does not avoid the WP:YESPOV problem, introduces new MOS:SAY problems ("noted", "pointed out") and links the wrong Howard. There is no need to dance around; just relay the knowledge and move on. Bon courage (talk) 06:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

You're right, this is not a "science" argument. It is a case of stating what we must factually, in a neutral, disinterested, conservative tone. The current entry does not sound encyclopedic, it sounds like an opinion piece in a news article. The first statement is just "they said a thing," and then we follow that with what sources say about that thing they said. We don't say "they falsely said a thing and illogically thought something based on their error-laden statement." Others may in the future disagree that the claim is "false," "illogical," or "error-ridden," but that doesn't change that they said it, or what a source claimed about it. If in the future another source comes up, it is as easy as adding another sentence. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Attributing the facts makes the paragraph sound like debating expert opinions, which must be avoided. That isn't a neutral tone, that is giving equal validity to a fringe position. When a fringe claim is false, Wikipedia should say so - not try to avoid taking a stand. MrOllie (talk) 13:05, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Taking a stand is not a neutral point of view, and this text on biographies of a living person is using non-encyclopedic tone and looks like an attack page. I am not the first one to say this, but any attempts to resolve this have been blocked by the same few editors. As I said earlier, saying "Somebody published an error-laden essay that falsely claimed the Earth is flat, and illogically argued we should not sail to close to the edge to avoid falling off" does not appear as neutral or disinterested. The same is true here. Attributing the fact, that Kulldorff published an essay, followed by an expert rebuttal of that essay, is not giving "equal validity" to a fringe position, it is just reflecting reality. The current text does not just look like Wikipedia is taking a stand, it looks like a poorly written attack page at first glance, which is why so many people have already taken issue with the wording here. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 15:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I just don't understand this line of argument. This is not a matter where one can legitimately "take a stand" unless it's allowed that maybe Kulldorff was right (WP:PROFRINGE). We just say what is the case. If it's a fact that Kulldorff was wrong, then per WP:YESPOV simply say so. Why can we ignore WP:YESPOV? Bon courage (talk) 15:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

In the case that someone claimed the Earth is flat, we would indeed say they 'falsely' claimed that. It would not be a violation of neutrality to do so. What we absolutely would not do is follow the sentence with something like 'NASA has criticized the essay because the Earth is round'. We don't present mainstream science as another opinion. MrOllie (talk) 15:52, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

While the flat Earth sentence might be extreme, the language used here is still inappropriate as it is not encyclopedic. The topic of this page isn't the content the subject has written about, but the living person. "<Subject of article> published a controversial article claiming Earth is flat in a flat Earth Newsletter. Somebody at NASA pointed out that the article contained errors and factual inaccuracies, specifically that it ignored thousands of years of science and had no evidence" is a perfectly accurate statement. Even the source used in this particular case starts with the sentence "Dr. Martin Kulldorff, one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), recently penned an article for his new employer, the right-wing think tank the Brownstone Institute titled “Vaccines Save Lives“." By using overly harsh language, especially in a sentence that appears to be in Wikipedia's voice, you do more damage then you prevent by making conspiracy theorists think you are not approaching it neutrally. What I'm proposing is a more "cautious," "dispassionate," "conservative," and "disinterested" approach to the topic.

From Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons:

Tone

"BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves. Summarize how actions and achievements are characterized by reliable sources without giving undue weight to recent events. Do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking."

Balance

"Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of small minorities should not be included at all. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association, and biased, malicious or overly promotional content."

Again, this exact sentence has come up repeatedly by editors as sounding problematic, and despite this, the same few editors have refused to even prepose an alternative wording that could satisfy all parties while maintaining the objective content, instead declaring consensus and stonewalling for the status quo. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

You could always post to WP:FTN if you want (even) more eyes on the question of how to handle WP:FRINGE claims. Bon courage (talk) 16:58, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I posted it to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Additional eyes needed on contentious article Martin Kulldorff a few days ago but haven't received interest yet. In this case, the fact Kulldorff published something is not in itself "fringe," it's the content of the source. This is a biography of a living person, and a contentious article, so must be held to very strict content policy.

The Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Treatment of living persons page stated:

"Close attention should be paid to the treatment of those who hold fringe viewpoints, since as a rule they are the focus of controversy. All articles concerning these people must also comply with Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons (WP:BLP). Fringe views of those better known for other achievements or incidents should not be given undue prominence, especially when these views are incidental to their fame. However, the WP:BLP policy does not provide an excuse to remove all criticism from a biography or to obscure the nature of a person's fringe advocacy outside of their field of expertise (see WP:PROFRINGE, WP:PSCI, WP:BLP § Balance)."

I'm arguing that this sentence violates WP:BLP tone, as have others, so I thought that would get priority. I'll post this discussion there as well though. I should note that based on WP:BLP guidelines:

"When material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Wikipedia's content policies. If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first. Material that has been repaired to address concerns should be judged on a case-by-case basis."

Good faith objections have been raised, by myself and others. It has been restored, repeatedly both here and in previous discussions, without significant change to the status quo ante bellum before consensus was obtained first. The fact this has come up so much to me indicates that it is not just me who finds the tone less then adequate, and that compromise can likely be reached to improve how this content is written. For example, we can maintain the content of this while also not presenting three separate descriptions of the work as "error-laden," "falsely claimed," or "illogically argued." Especially when it is only one source cited to back those assertions, and the sentence in question is not clearly citing that source.

(To get ahead of any COI finger pointing, I don't agree with Martin Kulldorff on this, and I have never met him. I didn't even know about him before starting the article for SaTScan. From my personal experience, being highly critical of this kind of content only reinforces conspiratorial thinking, which is largely why I want to avoid using language that can and has been perceived as less then neutral in tone.) GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The matter is not biographical, but applies to a factual claim made in the realm of biomedicine. Scientific claims do not "inherit" the BLP protection accorded to the person who uttered them, and to claim otherwise if WP:CRYBLP. We have a reliable source countering a fringe view; we say what it says. Job done. Bon courage (talk) 18:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

This page is biographical, and to say otherwise is ridiculous. The first line of the source states: "Dr. Martin Kulldorff, one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), recently penned an article for his new employer, the right-wing think tank the Brownstone Institute titled “Vaccines Save Lives." It then discusses the content of the publication. This is exactly the format I'm suggesting, following the reliable source used here: Statement of fact that an article exists in one sentence, followed by another on the factual accuracy and content. This has come up repeatedly by multiple editors, and could be reworded in respect of the good faith criticisms of tone and apparent neutrality while maintaining the same exact content. I honestly don't understand the strong resistance to what could be an easy compromise and insistence on the status quo ante bellum despite this being brought up multiple times. The resistance to change and lack of any compromised revision to the text really feels like Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:57, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

That's just a personal attack. You've been given precise policy based rationales wrt WP:NPOV which you have completely failed to engage with, instead flailing around with poorly-worded and outright incorrect proposals. Time to ignore. Bon courage (talk) 19:20, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

It is not a personal attack, it is an observed pattern of behavior after reading this talk page and seeing what appears to be a refusal to compromise on tone/wording of a single sentence after multiple editors have expressed concern. I have attempted to engage with your arguments, you did not like my response. You have failed to even offer a compromise alternative text of your own that addresses concerns. You have been given precise policy based rationales that you have completely failed to engage with. Looking at this talk page, it looks increasingly like a textbook example of Wikipedia:POV railroad, complete with threats to ban users (pointing to other users who have been "blocked indefinitely" for disagreeing with this), and bait like this replies "time to ignore" line. This behavior "gives Wikipedia an undesirable reputation as a place where aggression and gaming the system are permitted, valued and rewarded." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:03, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

No. Ridiculous is the GBD. The above reasoning sounds WP:CPP to whitewash the dangerous flawed and rejected claims promoted by right-wing think-tanks and their footmen. Ixocactus (talk) 20:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Okay, lets change things up. I don't agree with Kulldorff at all personally, but in good faith thought this legitimately violated tone and neutrality policy. In the case that we are trying to avoid whitewashing stuff, the current text is not clear enough, and definitly not in line with the citations tone. How about the following:

"In December 2021, the contrarian Kulldorff, anchored to his ideas put forward in the GBD, decided to "spread disinformation" with ridiculous, error-ridden, "anti-vaccine hogwash," for the right wing think-tank Brownstone Institute, in which he tried "to trick their readers with word games" by falsely putting forth "absurd comparisons" and a "blatant lie" that influenza was more hazardous to children than COVID-19. On that basis, he illogically argued using "rhetorical sleight of hand tricks", that children should not receive COVID-19 vaccinations. Upon reviewing this text, one publications said "No semi-rational author could include all the relevant facts and still conclude that it’s a bad idea to vaccinate children" and speculated that Kulldorff knows this but believes it would undermine the GBD. In summary this publication stated "How sad.""

I honestly don't like Kulldorffs stance, but as a researcher and teacher would have marked an undergraduate paper off for this kind of unscholarly wording. If Wikipedia is really a place where we want to avoid whitewashing stuff, then the current text is no where near extreme enough. Above I have added some highlight quotes from the reliable source cited in the article to drive the point home. Either the current texts tone is too strong, or not strong enough, but it must be changed. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

See Fallacy of the excluded middle and WP:POINT. Bon courage (talk) 02:49, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point:

"A commonly used shortcut to this page is WP:POINT. However, just because someone is making a point does not mean that they are disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate that point. As a rule, editors engaging in "POINTy" behavior are making edits with which they do not actually agree, for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention and provoking opposition in the hopes of making other editors see their "point". Merely describing such hypothetical behavior is fine and does not go against this guideline. For example, saying By that standard, we ought to remove all the cited sources on this page is okay, but actually doing that just to make a point is not."

I did not disrupt Wikipeida. This is the talk page, and I was making a point and saying "By that standard" we ought to really drive the point home and avoid whitewashing this. Please refrain from Wikilawyering when you're supposed to be ignoring me. False accusations are the lamest form of wikibullying, and technically constitute a personal attack. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:13, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It is not appropriate to include quotations from any source in such a way that they are given the weight of wikivoice. I believe this should be obvious to all editors, so I conclude that Geog is making a straw goat argument here.

And re: the prior statement, This page is biographical - yes, but that does not mean that all content in the article is sensitive WP:BLP content. That Lund is in Sweden is not BLP content, and that Covid-19 was more dangerous to children than the flu is also not BLP content. Newimpartial (talk) 03:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. There was even once an RfC[2] to test the idea that BLP extended to person's (fringe) views. TL;DR – it doesn't. Bon courage (talk) 03:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I was making a point. The tone of the text in Wikivoice is not neutral or disinterested. This is why it has come up repeatedly on this talk page. While I agree it is important to avoid whitewashing misinformation, my concern is that by using to many loaded words in a sentence without a citation we don't appear neutral or disinterested. Even if my proposed text is not what we go with, I request some sort of rewording on that sentence.

For example: "Kulldorff published an essay titled "Vaccines save lives" for the Brownstone Institute, a right-wing think tank, that has been criticized for factual inaccuracies. Jonathan Howard published a critical response to this in Science-Based Medicine, detailing errors and factual inaccuracies, such as pointing out that while influenza was responsible for one child death in the 2020/21 season while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 had, in contrast, killed more than 1,000."

The overall content is great, no complaint. Our delivery does not read as encyclopedic and that is why this keeps coming up by editors. If you change the topic to something less controversial, would this sentence be in a tone that is acceptable in Wikivoice? Cause it really doesn't sound like it to me.

I'm looking for some level of back and forth compromise to make a better entry, there is always room for improvement in text. Multiple editors have over time expressed various levels of dissatisfaction with this wording. Currently it feels like there is stubborn resistance to any change for reasons that I'm struggling to understand (as a professional in GIS and public health research that is highly against disinformation and not in agreement with Kulldorff on this). Personally I think the current wording does more harm then good by making it look like Wikipedia is not neutral on this, which only reinforces conspiracy theorists. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"Tone" and "neutrality" are the go-to vocabulary of users who want to portray Kulldorff's views as having more merit than they actually do. If you want to address style questions, you should avoid those words in fringe article talk pages because if you use them, you paint yourself as a fringe POV pusher. You could argue that "error-laden", "falsely" and "illogically" are too much and bad style, without adding the dogwhistle words. Well, arguing against vaccination against one disease because another disease is more dangerous is indeed illogical in itself, and if the other disease is actually far less dangerous, that makes the total quality of his reasoning abysmally bad. It is creationist-level reality denial. At least two of the negative qualifiers are needed.

Attributing statements to SBM instead of putting it in Wikivoice would be acceptable if there were serious people who contradict the influenza and COVID death numbers. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:27, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't know how much you read of the text wall, but I'm not a supporter of his views (I use some software he wrote in my research, when I wrote the Wikipedia page for it and came to his article to tag it was actually the first I learned of the controversy.) I apologize if I used incorrect language to describe the issue, I thought I was referencing specific Wikipedia policy, didn't mean to dog whistle.

The qualifiers can be moved to a second sentence and attributed clearly to the source while still allowing for a neutral statement that the publication exists. We could even move the description of the content within the essay to a separate, cited, sentence with qualifiers. We could even avoid repeating the misleading material entirely. For example:

"In December 2021 Kulldorff published an essay for the Brownstone Institute, a right-wing think tank, titled "Vaccines save lives." Jonathan Howard published a critical response to this in Science-Based Medicine, noting that despite it sounding like an article he might agree with based on the title, the essay is not in line with medical consensus. Howard detailed factual errors, omissions, and logical flaws in this article, stating that this essay "mostly argued against vaccinating children.""

Not a perfect block of text, but it is better "style" in my opinion, and avoids repeating any of the specific misinformation while giving the reader context. Working on bigfoot I noticed that strong language will either be preaching to the choir, or give the conspiracy theorists ammunition (I fought to keep the words "dubious evidence" in a sentence, but listed multiple sources to do so). Working to make the block appear as objective as possible while presenting the counter arguments in a clear, disinterested tone might do more to lower the temperature around fringe topics then strong qualifiers.

If you have any proposed re-wordings based on anything I've written, or your own ideas, I'd love to see them. Based on this talk page, I think it is clear I'm not the only person who doesn't like the style of this text. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

GeogSage, unless you believe the whole section's tone is non-neutral, and not just the two sentences, then perhaps you could switch the section neutrality template you added to to an in-text tag? Llll5032 (talk) 07:09, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems, Geog, that you may be unfamiliar with the distinction used on enwiki between neutrality and false neutrality. Neutrality in language is required when multiple perspectives carry similar epistemological status (some critics laud an artist's work and others are withering, in a classic example).

False neutrality occurs when an article presents a fact as an opinion: "X stated in his article that cryptids are real; this was disputed in another article by Y". The latter doesn't really respect what the facts are (in "our" speech community and episteme, it is "a fact" that cryptids do not exist).

The language you have been proposing for the paragraph in question seems to others to represent false balance, since it presents the essay Kuldorff wrote for Brownstone as though it was equally grounded in fact as the statements made criticizing it. This appearance violates what "our" episteme holds to be true, and therefore violates enwiki policy. Newimpartial (talk) 11:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Changed the tag to an inline tag for "tone." The issue is style and wording more then anything, this is not encyclopedic or scholarly. Ideally, the source used here would be a bit less "passionate" about the topic, or that we had one or two more backing it up, but it is a factually accurate reliable source so not going to argue that.

On crptids, the best example I've seen for them is Bigfoot#Documented_hoaxes. One passage from the bigfoot page:

"The most well-known video of an alleged Bigfoot, the Patterson-Gimlin film, was recorded on October 20, 1967, by Roger Patterson and Robert "Bob" Gimlin in an area called Bluff Creek in Northern California. The 59.5-second-long video has become an iconic piece of Bigfoot lore, and continues to be a highly scrutinized, analyzed, and debated subject. Academic experts from related fields have typically judged the film as providing no supportive data of any scientific value, with perhaps the most common proposed explanation being that it was a hoax."

Basically formatted:

"X published an article that cryptids are real. Y reviewed the evidence presented, and stated it was factually inaccurate, pointing out omissions, fallacies, and logical flaws. This is in line with the scientific consensus that cryptids are not real."

The source that we are basing this paragraph on opens with the line "Dr. Martin Kulldorff, one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), recently penned an article for his new employer, the right-wing think tank the Brownstone Institute titled “Vaccines Save Lives“." This is a statement of fact, the article existed. It then goes on to detail issues with the article. We do not need to say that the article is error-laden, illogical, or containing omissions because we are just reporting what sources say. I don't know how the second two lines I preposed in the last text block ("Jonathan Howard published a critical response to this in Science-Based Medicine, noting that despite it sounding like an article he might agree with based on the title, the essay is not in line with medical consensus. Howard detailed factual errors, omissions, and logical flaws in this article, stating that this essay "mostly argued against vaccinating children.") make anything about Kulldorff's article look grounded in fact. The rest of the section is more or less what I'm describing here. For example:

"His efforts resulted in the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter co-authored with Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya for the AIER. The document stated that lower-risk groups would develop herd immunity through infection while vulnerable groups should be protected from the virus. The World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and other public-health bodies said such a policy lacked a sound scientific basis."

Rewording this along the same logic as the text I'm disputing would result in something like:

"His efforts resulted in the error-laden Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter co-authored with Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya for the AIER, a conservative libertarian think tank known for spreading climate and health misinformation. The document illogically argued that lower-risk groups would develop herd immunity through infection while vulnerable groups should be protected from the virus based on false information and ommissions. The World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and other public-health bodies said such a policy lacked a sound scientific basis."

I think the first text is better and less likely to cause accusations of bias. The tone is more scholarly, while maintaining an accurate, grounded, disinterested reflection of what the sources say. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:06, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• Note that this has been forum shopped to WP:BLPN again. Bon courage (talk) 08:05, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Balancing Contentious Claims

In December 2021, Kulldorff published an essay for the Brownstone Institute in which he argued against children receiving vaccination against COVID-19, falsely claiming that influenza was a greater risk to children than COVID-19. In a critical response published in Science-Based Medicine, Jonathan Howard noted errors and factual inaccuracies in Kulldorff's essay, pointing out that while influenza was responsible for only one child death in the 2020/21 season – while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 killed more than 1,000. In addition to this, Kulldorff's essay omitted that children who are infected with COVID-19 are at risk for rare but serious conditions, such as MIS-C, with 8,862 confirmed cases of children with MIS-C by March of 2023.

This paragraph lacks a dispassionate tone and makes a contentious allegation that Kulldorff made false claims without adequate inline citation. This has been brought up by multiple editors, multiple times and is based on a single, biased source (see other posts on Jonathan Howard's opinion page). I propose the changes below, including a new citation to the CDC, which has finally acknowledged that "overall, flu seems to cause more severe illness in young children than COVID-19." https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/flu-vs-covid19.html

In December 2021, Kulldorff published an essay for the Brownstone Institute in which he argued against children receiving vaccination against COVID-19 and claimed that influenza was a greater risk to children than COVID-19. In a critical response published in Science-Based Medicine, Jonathan Howard argued Kulldorff's essay contained errors and factual inaccuracies, pointing out that while influenza was responsible for only one child death in the 2020/21 season – while public health mitigation of COVID-19 was in place – COVID-19 killed more than 1,000. In addition to this, Kulldorff's essay omitted that children who are infected with COVID-19 are at risk for rare but serious conditions, such as MIS-C, with 8,862 confirmed cases of children with MIS-C by March of 2023. The flu seems to cause more severe illness in young children than COVID-19 overall, according to the CDC in 2024. Tikitorch2 (talk) 02:15, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Your concerns were heard in the section right up the page, 'Neutrality and tone on disputed section "Views on COVID-19"' you did not get consensus at that time to change the article, and I see nothing has changed since then. Your 'new citation' cannot be used here without resorting to improper WP:SYNTHESIS. MrOllie (talk) 02:29, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The existing paragraph already synthesizes extensively, both with regard to MIS-C and in repeating selected details from Howard's flawed analysis but not others, such as 1090 child deaths during the influenza pandemic compared to 527 from covid in 2021. Should we strip all of that out? My main concern is that Wikipedia should not editorialize on one side of this contentious issue--especially given the new CDC information. In the 2023-2024 season more children were hospitalized with the flu than Covid-19, despite higher vaccination rates.https://www.cdc.gov/resp-net/dashboard/index.html Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:15, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Repeating things from a source that is actually on point and directly discussing Kuldorff's work is clearly not synthesis (nor is it editorializing) so there is no need to strip anything out. Attempting to add new information by interpreting datasets yourself, though, is synthesis. Exactly that has been discussed at length on this talk page before, feel free to read those discussions in the archives. MrOllie (talk) 03:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

In December 2021, Kulldorff published an essay for the Brownstone Institute in which he argued against children receiving vaccination against COVID-19, claiming that influenza was a greater risk to children than COVID-19. In a critical response published in Science-Based Medicine, Jonathan Howard claimed errors and factual inaccuracies in Kulldorff's essay, pointing out that COVID-19’s pediatric death toll would soon--one year into the pandemic--surpass the 1,090 during the H1N1 influenza pandemic. In addition to this, Kulldorff's essay omitted that children who are infected with COVID-19 are at risk for rare but serious conditions, such as MIS-C, from which 52 children had died. Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:34, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

We've also spent a lot of time on this talk page discussing how presenting this as two competing opinions is WP:FALSEBALANCE, and that is not something permitted by policy here. MrOllie (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The CDC says that overall, flu seems to cause more severe illness in young children than COVID-19. Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:47, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

You'd need a secondary source to explicitly relate that to Kulldorff's essay, if only because the secondary source would correctly state that using stats about severity in a vaccinated population doesn't really justify claims that we shouldn't vaccinate people. MrOllie (talk) 03:50, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

No that is not needed--I want to remove the word "falsely" because it is not true, or contentious at best and is a red flag. We don't have to add the source to remove our own editorialization. Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Nah, it's the mainstream scientific opinion, and we need to keep that right where it is to avoid WP:PROFRINGE issues. It is not remotely 'editorialization'. MrOllie (talk) 04:02, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

A bold claim when, according to the CDC, overall the flu seems to cause more severe illness in young children than COVID-19.https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/flu-vs-covid19.html This is also reflected in child vaccination rates, which is about 42% updated for flu and 10% updated for Covid. https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data/vaccination-trends.html. Tikitorch2 (talk) 04:20, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, after three years of vaccinating children against COVID-19. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 03:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the relative vaccination rates for children? Tikitorch2 (talk) 03:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

It does not matter. What matters is that you are trying to use the current situation (with COVID being not as dangerous as before) as a reason go gainsay what Howard said back then. The CDC sources you linked do not mention Kulldorff and are therefore not useable in this article. You need a competent person saying that Kulldorff had a point back then. Your own conclusions (or insinuations) are not allowed because of WP:OR.

This is like arguing that quarantines against the Black Death in Italy in 1348 were wrong because nobody is dying of the Black Death now.

1000 is still bigger than 1. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Covid was always comparable or lower risk to children than the average year flu. Even in 2020 the child death rate from Covid was comparable to the typical flu death rate among unvaccinated children. That a lockdown reduced flu deaths one year is completely irrelevant to Kulldorff’s claim because the flu is a risk of average daily life, like driving a car. We don’t lockdown because of the flu risk, it is a persistent risk we live with. It was always a straw man by Howard to attack Kulldorff with a special case flu risk, but it has aged even worse. Now we have two years of data showing that Kulldorff was probably correct that the flu has more risk for children than Covid. To the point now the Wikipedia editorialization contradicts even the CDC. We dont need a Wikipedia-acceptable secondary source to remove editorial comments that are against policy and contradict the CDC. Tikitorch2 (talk) 14:41, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I repeat: If you want to add sources to the Kulldorff article, the source needs to mention Kulldorff. That is the minimum requirement. Your theories about flu and COVID do not belong in the article. Publish them in a scientific journal, then we can use them. Until then, bye. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:09, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I am not committed to citing the CDC as it is just another secondary source. The goal of bringing the CDC source here is to note that the Wikipedia editorialization contradicts the CDC. Continuing to claim such a broad, unqualified assertion about the flu being less risky for children than Covid might even be contributing to the recent decrease in pediatric flu vaccination rates.

The flu hospitalization rates for children were as high as Covid literally the next flu year after Kulldorff and Howard’s essays, basically as school was back in person. (per CDC RESP Net) Even during the initial Covid peaks, the last of which was occurring at the time of their essays, the risk to children was comparable to historic average annual flu risk after correcting for annual vaccination status. This could even be made apparent to readers without any other sources if editors selected a different or larger set facts to repeat from Howard’s hit job.

Finally, as has been pointed out above, the current Wikipedia text also synthesizes with another source about MISC, which is actually a minor factor in the overall risk being discussed, despite a larger number being cited. This is a well known logic fallacy/red flag for readers.

If it were up to my editorial judgement, I would spend at least as much space summarizing Kulldorff’s arguments as Howard’s. However, given the context of current “consensus” paragraph, can we at least correct these two obvious red flags? Tikitorch2 (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any editorializing or any synthesis going on here - everything is fully supported by the Science-Based Medicine citation. There are no 'red flags' to correct. MrOllie (talk) 18:50, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia in 2024: “…falsely claiming that influenza was a greater risk to children than COVID-19.” Meanwhile CDC: “Overall, flu seems to cause more severe illness in young children than COVID-19.” This sentence is editorialization. The next sentence has in text citation and makes Howard’s critique

Synthesis: paragraph centers around multiple facts that express risk in terms of absolute number of deaths in 2020 and 2021. Then adds incomparable primary source detailing a larger number of MISC cases (not deaths) over a different period time. Tikitorch2 (talk) 19:50, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

The cited source is Science-Based Medicine, and it plainly is an accurate summary of what SBM says. I get that you disagree with SBM, but that does not make this editorializing. The CDC's comments about a different dataset years later remain irrelevant, as everyone has been telling you. MrOllie (talk) 19:52, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

So what would you think about adding a time bound to the “falsely claimed” sentence? Because as it reads now it could be contributing to the lowering of pediatric flu vaccination rates, since according to Wikipedia the flu poses even less to children than Covid. Tikitorch2 (talk) 20:31, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that there is no possible way to add a time bound without engaging in WP:OR. MrOllie (talk) 21:17, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Then why not just remove the word “falsely”? As far as discrediting Kuldorff goes, it is redundant with the next sentence which talks about Howard’s claims of factual inaccuracies and includes dates. There is no need for Wikipedia to make Howard’s backward assertions timeless. Also it is an inaccurate summary of Howard to say “…falsely claiming that influenza was a greater risk to children than COVID-19” when what Howard actually wrote was:

”…anyone who claims the flu is more dangerous than COVID-19 for children is either completely ignorant, blatantly lying, or, like Dr. Kulldorff, trying to trick their readers with word games.” Tikitorch2 (talk) 23:20, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

"falsely" is is needed to summarize the content of the cited secondary source, and to provide crucial context for readers. It's a good summary of the citation and does not conflict with the quote you list here. MrOllie (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

No, falsely means something is not true. Howard says that statement is used by Kulldorff to trick readers, but implies Kulldorff is not ignorant or lying. Also in this case the CDC says it is true. Tikitorch2 (talk) 00:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to get drawn into a WP:NOTFORUM argument here beyond saying that I am comfortable that 'falsely' does not conflict with the cited source, the CDC, or 'the truth'. Also, saying someone is 'not blatantly lying' is not quite the same thing as saying someone is 'not lying'. MrOllie (talk) 00:17, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Howard says “either” this or that, and Kulldorff is doing this. Therefore he says that Kulldorff is not blatantly lying and is not completely ignorant. Going from that statement to falsely is either bad English or original research Tikitorch2 (talk) 01:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

See below. This is WP:OR. Stop it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:45, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The source said that COVID-19 was worse than the flu for children, and describes "worse" as a measure of total past risk to children; it says that Kulldorff omitted this information. The only sentence where Howard addresses the risk (danger) of Covid and the flu, he explicitly states that Kulldorff is trying to trick his readers with word games but that Kulldorff was not ignorant and not blatantly lying. So Wikipedia's synthesis that Kulldorff was "falsely claiming that influenza was a greater risk to children than COVID-19" seems to violate WP:OR.

This is further supported based on pediatric hospitalizations from the flu and Covid, which shows an approximately equal number of the next flu year. (There may have been a few months after the two essays where Covid risk was still greater) https://www.cdc.gov/resp-net/dashboard/index.html Tikitorch2 (talk) 13:05, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

seems to violate WP:OR No. He claimed it, it was false, so he falsely claimed it. No OR here. But This is further supported is OR. You have no clue how Wikipedia works and how it does not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:36, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I was curious how Wikipedia worked, which is why I read Wikipedia's policies and tried to correct this paragraph after I saw it and read the source. I understand one function of Wikipedia now though: Science Based Magazine has to be careful to avoid defamation, so Howard has to dance around what he really wants to say with a logic word salad. Then Wikipedia, which can't really be held accountable, launders Howard's rants into a succinct, untrue assertion.

Luckily there ends up being unnecessary, superfluous red flag words like "falsely" that creep in to alert the reader to look more closely. Another example is the pairing of incomparable numbers (in this case Covid deaths by year vs MISC cases over multiple years).

It is actually encouraging that these red flags are there because, even though both are against Wikipedia policies on original research and synthesis, they still found there way in there to help the reader identify misinformation.

Regardless, I still will advocate for a limited edit of removing the word "falsely" from this paragraph because it is only there to malign Kulldorff on his BLP page but it collaterally spreads false information about the danger of the flu to children. Tikitorch2 (talk) 06:07, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I give up. See below. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:29, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Re: the risk to children was comparable to historic average annual flu risk after correcting for annual vaccination status - this appears to be original research and is also quite irrelevant to this article. What is relevant here is that Kulldorff argued against vaccinating children for Covid, at a time when the health risk of Covid to children was much higher than the health risk to children of flu. The source we cite makes precisely this point.

The fact that years later, a combination of changes to viral strains, vaccination and prior exposure to Covid have vastly altered the relative risks of Covid and flu to the health of children - these subsequent developments have absolutely nothing to do with this article's content, which is about statements made by Kulldorff at the end of 2021 making recommendations about public health reactions at that time. Newimpartial (talk) 19:36, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

No, the irrelevant information is the risk of the flu at that moment in time, because Kulldorff’s essay was about comparing the risk of Covid to children compared to the Covid vaccine, which is an actual trade off people had to make. That he referred to the risk from influenza as a yard stick is just a side argument. It is strange Wikipedia spends so much text covering this part of Howard’s essay and can’t afford to add a single sentence fragment summarizing the actual argument of Kulldorff’s essay.

Also even within Howards irrelevant (other than to discredit) argument about flu risk at that time, all of the information about Covid deaths the year before is irrelevant, what matters is Covid deaths and hospitalizations compared to the flu the year following, when schools reopened and the flu came back. Tikitorch2 (talk) 20:14, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Why on earth do you think what matters is Covid deaths and hospitalizations compared to the flu the year following? That particular comparison is not relevant to the context of Kulldorff's argument, nor to the policy issues he was engaging with at that time: it seems like a pure "gotcha" move to suggest some other (irrelevant) context within which something approximating Kulldorff's 2021 argument might have made sense? (I ask this out of abstrsct curiosity, because the article is concerned with Kulldorff's 2021 intervention and reactions to it, rather than post-hoc rationalizations and reinterpretations.)

Also, your argument that Kulldorff's argument referring to flu is irrelevant appears to be your own personal opinion - it was this argument that stirred up the critics and that in turn made Kulldorff's intervention worth discussing at all. If he had simply written, "childhood vaccination carries risks" - well, I imagine that in that alternative history the criticism might have been different. Newimpartial (talk) 20:42, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

When Howard claims that Covid risk was greater than flu risk in the context of encouraging parents to vaccinate their kids and advocating for public policy, that implies he is talking about the risk from of children contracting flu and Covid in the future. To try and estimate which would be a greater risk in the future, it makes sense to use the only two years of data on Covid available, however an honest broker in Howard’s place would acknowledge that flu risk was expected to rise and Covid risk was expected to fall as lockdowns ended and Covid immunity was increasingly acquired. In contrast there is much more data on the risk of the flu, yearly variability, typical vaccine efficacy, etc. so you can have somewhat more confidence in the risk on that side of the comparison.

The flu risk is a secondary point in Kulldorff’s argument, but the flu risk at that exact point in time is irrelevant because that is not what Kulldorff said:

“…The same is not true for children. Their Covid mortality risk is miniscule and less than the already low risk from the annual influenza, so the vaccine benefit for healthy children is very small. It will take a few years until we know the Covid vaccine risk profile, and until then, we do not know whether there is more benefit or harm in vaccinating children.”

This is only relevant because Howard claims Kulldorff meant something extremely specific that he didn’t actually state. The only thing new here was Covid, the risk of the flu was reasonably well understood, although with variability year to year. You’ll note what Howard actually accuses Kulldorff of is playing word games rather than being factually incorrect with regard to flu and Covid risk. Tikitorch2 (talk) 22:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

that implies he is talking about the risk from of children contracting flu and Covid in the future Your conclusion is invalid, it does not imply that. But even if it did, your conclusions do not belong in the article. Could you please finally check the rules at WP:OR? Your attempts to whitewash Kulldorff are all based on your beliefs, and that is not allowed here. Stop it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:44, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Correction it implies Kulldorff was talking about the risk from of children contracting flu and Covid in the future. Howard only addressed future risk, which he calls danger, in a single sentence.

Could you please read the policies you suggest for others? "This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards." Tikitorch2 (talk) 13:11, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I repeat: it does not matter what you think something implies. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

It matters what both of us think it implies.

We should be able to agree on a talk page on something as straightforward as Kulldorff was talking about future risk of the virus when advocating a particular course of action with regard to vaccination. Do you think he was advocating parents travel back in time to make different vaccination decisions? Tikitorch2 (talk) 06:24, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

This does not make any sense. You do not want to understand how this page works, so I give up trying to explain it to you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:29, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

What does not make sense to you?

1. That we can discuss logical inferences about sources on a talk page?

2. That an essay making public health policy recommendations and briefly mentioning a specific risk is more likely to be referring to future risk than past risk? Tikitorch2 (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Tikitorch, the risk to children from Covid in the 2021-22 northern hemisphere season for respiratory virus transission was greater than the risk to children from seasonal flu. Kulldorff states that it was less. That statement was false, and Howard calls it out as trying to trick their readers - trying to trick readers into believing something that isn't true is one meaning of "falsely" - not all false statements are produced by lying or ignorance, even though you assume this to be the case.

Also, your belief that Kulldorff and Howard were (or should have been) talking about the risks and benefits of vaccines in an imagined state that "controlled for" such population characteristics as vaccination rates and prior exposure - that isn't just original research; it's downright silly. At the end of 2021, nobody was grounding their argunents about vaccine administration an imagined endemic "equilibrium".

We now know a lot about Kulldorff that we did not know in 2021. He is a vaccine skeptic who was eventually fired from his position at Harvard because he refused to be vaccinated for Covid. He still stands behind the Great Barrington Declaration and "herd immunity" as the correct policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic. These are fringe views, and any attempt to edit this article to mainstream Kulldorff's perspective and whitewash his antagonism to the public health consensus - well, enwiki policies and guidelines don't really allow us to do that. Newimpartial (talk) 18:31, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

You ask the wrong question and therefore reach the wrong answer; Kulldorff was referring to the average seasonal risk from the flu, not the risk from the flu during the middle of the 2021-2022 season.

Your comments about whether scientists should control for variables like vaccination status and natural immunity when drawing conclusions about the risk from viruses is obviously absurd--of course they should and we should expect that.

A collective bias on here against Kulldorff is very well summed up by your comments. Appealing to a nebulous "public health consensus" opinion of Kulldorff to argue in favor of keeping the current text, which authoritatively states vaccine misinformation that the flu is less dangerous to children than Covid--it is very ironic to say the least. Especially given that flu vaccination rates are down while the flu has caused more hospitalizations in unboosted children than Covid each full season since these two essays were published. Tikitorch2 (talk) 06:12, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

If Kulldorff was, in fact, referring to the average seasonal risk from the flu, he was making an irrelevant (misleading) comparison, which perhaps is what Howard meant by trying to trick their readers. The relevant comparison at the end of 2021 was the risk in that actual respiratory virus season, not the "time travel" risk nor the (then hypothetical) "future" risk, which seem to be the only two risks you seem willing (in your original argumentation, without evidence as to relevance) to consider.

What our article text states is that flu was a lower risk in the 2021-22 season than Covid, given actual conditions. This statement is backed up by reliable sources and also has the small merit of being true. It eats nothing about the risk in subsequent seasons, seasons in which the prevalent viral strains of Covid and influenza, as well as both vaccination rates and prior exposure for both viruses, have changed markedly. (Occam's razor suggests that, in general, Covid infection has declined in severity since 2021 while Covid vaccination and prior infection each provide better protection from Covid (measured by severe illness or death) than influenza vaccination and infection provide in subsequent seasons. In which case it is to be expected that statements made about the situation at the end of 2021 differ profoundly from equally accurate statements made at the end of 2024 - but I digress...) Newimpartial (talk) 17:24, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Kulldorff's essay is about the misplaced focus of public health officials. To that end it is relevant if the risk of Covid were comparable to influenza for children, for whom public health only achieves an immunization rate is about 50% with fully approved vaccines. It speaks to the relative priorities and focus of public health. Focusing on one source of risk disproportionately to a well understood, similar risk suggests public health officials are bad at weighing different sources of risk.

The article does not state that flu was a lower risk in the 2021-22 flu season than Covid, given actual conditions, and even if it did what source says Kulldorff claimed the opposite?

Also 2024 is not the right year to think about. If you assume a child is vaccinated only once a year, influenza was probably a greater risk in 2022 that Covid in terms of single year risk. If you assume a child would be vaccinated twice, once in January 2021 and once in the fall of 2022, then presumably you would want the Covid vaccine more in January 2021 and influenza vaccine more in fall 2022. Tikitorch2 (talk) 16:33, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I won't even dignify Tikitorch's comment here with the label WP:OR - it is simply off-topic speculation. Kulldorff's 2021 cri de coeur has a plain meaning; it received a critical response based on that plain meaning; and this article needs to refect that critical response, rather than engaging in revisionism or speculation about what Kulldorff "really meant".

I will also point out that revisionist speculation concerning an already-controversial scientist, subsequently fired for his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid (which is one meaning of "anti-vax"), and who is now most active as "scientific director" of a libertarian think-tank and as a DiSantis advisor - basing our interptetation of his 2021 statement on what a scientist "should have meant" is even less likely to produce a well-grounded interpretation than an editor's original reading of a typical primary source. Newimpartial (talk) 18:25, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Why does Wikipedia thinks Kulldorff made a claim about the risk of the flu for only the 2021-2022 season? Neither Kulldorff nor Howard (nor even Wikipedia) explicitly make such a statement. However you have to infer that in order to find the elusive factual error Howard alludes to. This original research implicit in the Wikipedia text is just a good old inaccurate summary that could have been avoided if it had used a quote instead.

The “plain meaning” of Howard’s piece is that Covid was worse for children than influenza for the two years prior to these essays and therefore he thinks it was irresponsible for Kulldorff not to address that when describing the current risks and making policy recommendations. Howard’s article gets increasingly deranged and illogical after that part, which is at least a legit critique.

None of that other stuff you note about Kulldorff is particularly relevant to this “what he said in this particular essay” paragraph, other than revealing your bias against Kulldorff as the reason to exclude a balance of views. This Wikipedia paragraph would fall apart completely if it had to include a quote from the essay it is supposedly about. Tikitorch2 (talk) 22:33, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Re: The “plain meaning” of Howard’s piece is that Covid was worse for children than influenza for the two years prior to these essays and therefore he thinks it was irresponsible for Kulldorff not to address that when describing the current risks and making policy recommendations - exactly, especially the part about describing the current risks and making policy recommendations, given that "current" in this instance means the 2021-22 respiratory virus season. Your "plain meaning", my "plain meaning", the text of this article and concensus reality itself are all in alignment on this point.

Also, the balance of views we are to reproduce is the balance of quality, on-tipic sources. We are not to engage in WP:FALSEBALANCE to add weight to small minority perspectives, and we are espeically not to construct arguments out of primary evidence that have not already appeared in secondary sources. Newimpartial (talk) 00:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Well, if we agree that Howard was saying the risk to children from Covid is greater than influenza for the remainder of the 2021-2022 respiratory virus season, why not make a change along those lines to the Wikipedia summary? Then we won't have the issue where this BLP page is making a scientific claim that is probably false for all other time bounds.

The balance is more of an issue related to the first sentence where Wikipedia states Kulldorff was arguing against children receiving vaccination against Covid--that is clearly a subjective interpretation of Kulldorff's essay. But perhaps that is not a hill I want to spend time on--I would be happy if we could at least correct the influenza misinformation. Tikitorch2 (talk) 01:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The current text is the result of compromise and discussion. You could look into the discussion logs and see that I'm one of the editors that has brought up issues surrounding tone and neutrality, which is why I'm weighing in now. The text we have resulted from extensive discussion on this talk page at the BLP Noticeboard. That said, I see you were part of that discussion in June, so should already be aware of this. @User:Newimpartial did a good job of tempering out the harsh language we used previously while maintaining the content. The sources say what they say, and as long as we are clearly attributing the claims to the sources, I'm satisfied with the text as is, and I believe an adequate consensus was reached. Unless new sources are released that are extremely specific to this exact set of claims, I don't think we will be able to change much in the near or distant future. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

The *source* says what they say Tikitorch2 (talk) 18:44, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm referring to the entire text of the article when I say "sources." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:57, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I remember you from the prior discussion, you seemed to have a scientific background. Would you look at the CDC respiratory virus data for Covid and the flu and reply if you think the current Wikipedia text is consistent with the data? This page is basically spreading vaccine disinformation at this point (in my opinion), given lower flu vaccination rates since Covid. The CDC website has an interactive graphic that should make it pretty quick for you to navigate. https://www.cdc.gov/resp-net/dashboard/index.html. I'm also open to a better source if you have one. Tikitorch2 (talk) 05:26, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

The problem is specifically that no one is publishing stuff in 3rd party publications debating if Kulldorffs claims from 2020 and 2021 are in line with current COVID-19 and flu literature. The page is about Kulldorff, and what has been said about him and his claims. Wikipedia is not about original research, but aggregating the work of others. We can't say A+B=C unless that is published somewhere. Call the text about Kulldorff A, your evidence from the CDC is B, and are using that to come to the conclusion C. I'd suggest this might be an avenue for research and publication somewhere else, but until such a publication exists, we are left with the sources we have that are specific about the topic. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:55, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

That makes sense it seems like the CDC source is not appropriate to be included because of synthesis. But what do we do with this original scientific hypothesis stated on a Wikipedia BLP page that has no scientific study to back it up? It cannot even be found as written in the cited source.

There is an obvious other source available from which to include a balanced view, i.e. Kulldorff’s essay, but that has been true for three years so not sure how to convince other editors to give it balanced POV treatment. The death and hospitalization data for all the years since these two essays and the flu vaccination rates certainly make Howard’s essay seem foolish, even if it had a decent point about omitted information.

If I had to sum all this up in terms of general editorial practices, the problem is the Wikipedia paragraph as currently written does not accurately summarize either source, and the end result is this original scientific hypothesis about influenza risk by Wikipedia editors. A related editorial issue is the lack of balance. I.e. if Kulldorff really made a false claim then we could quote the claim, then say why it was wrong or vice versa. Or we could quote the critique of the claim. The lack of a quote from either source facilitates the inaccurate summary. Tikitorch2 (talk) 00:43, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

You're writing like a graduate student discussing a section of their literature review, not a Wikipedia editor. Publish these thoughts in an appropriate venue and if they are in a verifiable and trustworthy source they can be included. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:14, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Well thanks I guess, although I’m not in academia.

If you don’t mind me asking do you think the Wikipedia article accurately summarizes what Kulldorff said in his essay? I am planning to write something up but hopefully we’ll get an editorial change first.

I was shocked by how little I knew about these GBD scientists before I googled them. Howard is like a masterclass if you had to teach a course in logic. Tikitorch2 (talk) 06:39, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I haven't read much of his essay honestly. I created the article SaTScan, which is a software he created. I used SaTScan extensively in my dissertation and research, which is how I stumbled upon Kulldorffs work. I've mostly read his papers related to it, and was unaware of his involvement in the GBD before that. My personal research around vaccines, disease, and COVID-19 is not really close enough to what he talks about for me to spend a lot of time on it. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:54, 6 January 2025 (UTC)