User talk:Zad68/thiomersal

[ the following conversation is from User:Zad68's talk page ]

Zad, poor quality and low relevance???

The Burbacher primate studies are the absolute gold standard, and, the closest thing to irrefutable fact that one (anyone) can look to on this subject.

And the many erroneous errors in the article [ re: a total misrepresentation of the biochemistry of thimerosal in the blood and brain, it's formation of Inorganic mercury in brain tissues, inorganic mercury's extremely long half-life (in brain tissue) -- text book facts re mercury and tissue -- and this, text book science, being precisely the heart of mercury-autism hypothesis for more than 10 years now... ] [ the article's misrepresentations ] [28 10 2012] are not supported by chemistry, logic, or any resources anywhere.

I encourage you to investigate the underlying science of the (poorly referenced) claims made in that [bull] paragraph (which I quoted from). And, moreover / similarly, I invite you to find me any detailed sources that contradict the (Burbacher primate, et c) disproportionately large long-term contribution to brain-Hg loads (on account of it's large I-Hg brain tissue contributions) facts, which I intend to galvanize consensus around.

And, I encourage you to respond on my talk page, at your convenience. (No rush.)

All the best, Seipjere (talk) 14:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not interested in getting into a detailed article content conversation here on my Talk page or on your Talk page. Would it be OK if we move this conversation to the article Talk page? Just say Yes here and I will move the text. Zad68 14:47, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zad, I'd gladly acquiesce if the thimerosal talk page wasn't such a convoluted cluster-frac...

Besides, one-on-one cooler heads prevail.

A. t. b., Seipjere (talk) 02:32, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's give it a shot here, although I'm not very hopeful. I believe in and respect the Wikipedia content policies, so the issues with your proposed content changes to the article are as follows:

• You need to support your claims with independent, reliable secondary medical sources.
• The Burbacher primate study involved 24 monkeys. According to the WP:MEDRS guideline, this study falls very low on the Wikipedia quality of evidence scale: 1) It is a WP:PRIMARY study; 2) It was on a small number of subjects (17 in the intervention group); 3) It was not conducted on humans.
• If the Burbacher study is the "gold standard," meaning the best there is regarding this subject, the content you are proposing stands no chance of inclusion in the article.
• The burden of proof is on you to find acceptable sources, it is not on me to find sources that contradict Burbacher.
• It looks like you are trying to use the results of this one study to create some sort of synthesis implicating a negative effect of thiomersal in humans.
• A "fifth pillar" exception does not apply for what you are trying to do.
• If you want to continue this discussion, I require that you do not use any bold or italic text, and that you absolutely do not engage in any personal attacks.

That's basically it. If you do not wish to continue this discussion with me here, that is fine. If you do not wish to continue this discussion, or you are not willing to discuss with me on the terms I have laid out, I will request that this page be deleted out of my user space. Either way, I will continue to keep this page and the main article page on my watchlist. Zad68 03:38, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zad, all but the burden of proof bit sounds reasonable to me.

After all: 24 primates are 24 more than zero;

Inorganic mercury's long (long) brain-tissue half-life is supported by every single shred of empirical data on the subject (since Vahter, 1995);

And, more to the biochemical point: even if we presume that I-Hg were only half as toxic as methyl Hg, this margin of "safety" is thoroughly trounced by the 10 fold increase in half-life ( m-Hg to I-Hg ) and Burbacher's 5 fold increase in thimerosal I-brain-burdens (34% to 7 %).

In otherwords, "although the question may still be open-in sum, the evidence favors a link." (DeSotto & Hitlanby, 2010)

(... Don't shoot the messenger.)

ps: (re. the specifics of my changes) I'll gladly keep that discussion, on the article's talk page.)

A. t. b., Seipjere (talk) 13:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1) Do you understand the difference between a medical WP:PRIMARY and WP:SECONDARY source? Yes/no answer please.

2) Have you read WP:MEDRS, and specifically WP:MEDASSESS? Yes/no answer please.

Zad68 16:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and yes.

"Speculative proposals and early-stage research should not be cited in ways that suggest wide acceptance".

Now do you understand that every claim that "there is no evidence for harm" (re thimerosal) is false, outdated, and based entirely on the sort of shoddy preliminary research that you purport to guard against?

(Again, d.s.t.m.) Seipjere (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update / Correction: The Burbacher study demonstrated Hg++ ratios of 2:1 (or more); i.e. brain E-Hg++ to brain Methyl-Hg++, NOT 5 as I said earlier. (The percentages are for Hg++ to total brain Hg; and since more methyl-Hg goes to the brain - as does more ethyl-Hg to the kidneys and liver - it was overzealous and foolish on my part to jump to my '5 times' conclusion.

That said, the more I delve into the source material, the clearer the picture emerges that inorganic Hg++ tissue burdens might well be (as in, probably are?) the toxic modus operandi in most longer term cases of organic Hg poisoning. (This idea is supported by basic reactive chemistry, as well as the "mysterious latency period" in acute organic Hg exposures; i.e. frequently a peak organic Hg exposure has little or no immediate effect, but becomes fatally toxic only in the days weeks and months thereafter; presumably as the balanced organic-Hg is broken down, and Hg++ cations accumulate in the organs.) Seipjere (talk) 15:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]