Talk:Johanna Budwig

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Video Talk:Johanna Budwig

Johanna Budwig: RfC

I would welcome some wise heads to look at the issue of what I believe to be undue prominence in this article by the inclusion of comprehensive lists of all known papers, letters, articles, foreign language translations by a subject involved in pseudo-medical theories. Almost all references appear not to be due to the marginal notability of the subject and so look like some form of WP:PUFF. Twiga Kali (talk) 00:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Normally , in a list of works of an academic, we includes all the books of an author, with full publication data, in the original as well as in translations, including as many languages as we can find. Whether they are in print is totally irrelevant. Such a bibliography is not a list of references, and there is no reason to prefer English. We generally do not include a list of all the papers by an author, but we do include the most important ones, which are usually defined by he ones most cited; unfortunately, for the journals she published in and the time period in which she worked, there are no citation indexes. A better way of handling hem in this case would simply to use them as references to the text, saying that she studied thus and so, with the reference being the paper--they are unquestionably legitimate references; I think it would do better than a list for them. The books can also be used as references in this manner, as well as being listed in the bibliography of her works. Normally we do not include book chapters, [pamphlets, and other miscellaneous publications, unless for some reason they are important, or relevant as references. DGG ( talk ) 01:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree that listing an academic's work isn't unreasonable. My worry, however, and where I agree with Twiga Kali, is that the secondary sources for Johanna Budwig herself are pretty minimal on the page - all we have is a reference to the America Cancer Society website, which itself lacks in-line citations for its claims about Budwig. I suspect would be a much stronger artice if we had a couple of strong references about the subject of the article. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. That then does indeed look like a good guideline for way forward. The problems then to be anticipated are that a) it does not look as if there are any reliable secondary sources (and that is why I have questioned the notability of the subject) and b), the books are not academic books but subjects on a fringe pseudomedical hypothesis that is unsupported by evidence, and c) it will be difficult to weave the papers she did write into the text as they are not notable, or connected with her marginal notability and, as stated, unavailable as abstracts are not indexed. These is more subtle problems need to be resolved amongst a more experienced set of editors. Twiga Kali (talk) 07:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

So as a proposal, the book lists are a reasonable stay. The papers though are doubtful. The first is definitely not a paper, but a letter to the journal. The other three have undetermined status as their are no abstracts for them. It looks most likely that these too are articles and not papers describing original research. As DGG describes above, they may be suitable if they could be woven into the article narative, but otherwise there would appear to be no justification for keeping them here. Twiga Kali (talk) 15:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I've done a quick GoogleBook and GoogleScholar search; there are plenty of secondary sources out there for Budwig which would support the statement "Budwig is notable as an alternative medical therapist, who designed the Budwig diet in the 1950s..."; the conventional, vice alternative, sources I could find noted that she had claimed to "cure" cancers, with the cure in speech marks, and drew attention to the lack of evidence, potentially supporting the possibility of stating that "...but her claims to be able to "cure" cancers have not been widely accepted within the conventional medical community". There may be more conventional sources out there, of course; I'm not claiming to be a medical expert! Hchc2009 (talk) 07:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It would be useful if you could list such sources as, yes, there are a lot of sources out there, but finding reliable source is very hard - and comprehensive rs, impossible. I would also be troubled about using a phrase such as 'conventional sources' as this implies their beliefs are by convention rather on the basis of scientific evidence. Twiga Kali (talk) 18:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Notability

We had a week (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Johanna Budwig) discussing Budwig's notability. Only the proposer of the deletion opined that she was not notable. This matter should be closed.

References in general

There's a general problem in that most online articles about Budwig are by her proponents and are of variable reliability. (See Nobel Prize canard below.)

American Cancer Society references

Editor Rod57 added in two references from the American Cancer Society as references for this sentence:

"She developed and promoted (from 1952) the Budwig protocol/Budwig diet, which is based on the regular consumption of foods rich in linolenic and linoleic acids, such as Flaxseed oil, low fat cottage cheese and vegetable juices. Budwig claimed this diet would cure or prevent many forms of cancers."

The relevant passages in the references read

"A German biochemist, Johanna Budwig, first brought attention to flaxseed oil as a treatment in the 1950s through a diet she devised for cancer patients. The diet was a strict regimen that avoided sugar, animal fats, salad oil, meats, butter, and margarine. The patients were given flaxseed oil, mixed with cottage cheese and milk, and meals high in fruits, vegetables, and fiber. She claimed that within 3 months, some patients on this diet had smaller tumors, some had no tumors left, and all felt better."

and

"In the 1950s, a German scientist named Johanna Budwig, PhD, discovered essential fatty acids and developed a diet that she said would fight cancer. Dr. Budwig claimed that many of her patients experienced tumor reduction within 3 months, and she stated that some experienced even more dramatic results. Dr. Budwig has reportedly used omega-3 fatty acids in combination with other nutrients to treat thousands of people with cancer and other diseases."

Both these passages are neutral in tone and hardly a gushing endorsement of Budwig.

The proposer of the deletion continually kept deleting both these references on the ground that "discovered essential fatty acids" is untrue. This is clearly poorly phrased: Budwig investigated essential fatty acids, but did not discover them. However, the Wikipedia article does not make the discovery claim but was using them as a reference for the diet. The American Cancer Society pages are as good references as we're likely to find in the near future and I propose we reinstate both.

Books

Listing the books written by, or about, a subject is standard practice in all Wikipedia articles.

The proposer of the deletion has continually kept deleting some or all of Budwig's books from the Wikipedia article.

The latest argument seems to have been that although Budwig was a German who wrote 11 books in German, we should only list the four books that have been translated into English. Absurd.

Another argument seems to be that the article should only list books in print. Given that many Wikipedia articles are about people who died a long time ago, many books by, or about, a subject will be out of print. To use that as a criterion is equally absurd.

Papers in PubMed

There's a general problem as Budwig did her work in German as long as 58 years ago. Therefore, the PubMed database does not give us abstracts.

The proposer of the deletion has continually kept deleting all Budwig's papers from the Wikipedia article on some ground of irrelevance.

However, if we look at the translated titles, these include:

• Remarks on Homann and Otto's, Treatment of cancer patients with positive-pressure ether
• Cytostatic or cytodynamic control of cancer?
• Photo-elements of life as an anti-carcinoma factor, successful as a preventive and in the progressive state of the illness
• Zur Biologie der Fette V: Die Papier-Chromatographie der Blutlipoide, Geschwulstproblem und Fettforschung [The biology of fat V: The paper chromatography of Blutlipoide, tumor problem and fat research]

These are all relevant to Budwig's work in the fats and cancer field. This last paper

(Prof. Dr. H. P. Kaufmann, Dr. J. Budwig: Zur Biologie der Fette V: Die Papier-Chromatographie der Blutlipoide, Geschwulstproblem und Fettforschung Chemischen Landes-Untersuchungsamt Nordrhein-Westfalen und dem Deutschen Institut für Fettforschung. Münster i. W., Artikel erschienen in Fette und Seifen Nr. 54, S. 156-165, 1952.)

also establishes that she had a doctorate and that she worked for the Deutschen Institut für Fettforschung. [German Institute for Lipid Research].

The proposer of the deletion further asserts that these are not papers at all but merely "letters" or some such. However, if we look at the page ranges listed in the citations (156-165, 600-1, 605-12, 115-7 and 34-6), these are generally quite long articles. (Letters rarely exceed a page.)

Nobel Prize canard

The almost certainly false assertion that Budwig was nominated for a Nobel Prize keeps being re-added to this article. This assertion has been made on several occasions, including 29 April 2005, 23 July 2006, 6 July 2007, 27 October 2007, 5 May 2008 and most recently by Flaxeater on 23 December 2009 (which I reverted).

(Claims like this are not uncommon in 'alternative' health circles. It's claimed for Joel D. Wallach and neatly debunked at Joel D. Wallach, the "mineral doctor"). The 'nomination' in these cases often amounts to getting your mates to send a letter to Stockholm.

It is inevitable that some Budwig enthusiast will add in this assertion again* so it is better if this article tackles the issue head-on.

• It's been added in again today, (20 April 2010) the reference being an advertisement in a newspaper. I've reverted this bit.

I therefore added in the following text:

Proponents of the Budwig protocol often claim that she was nominated for a Nobel Prize either six or seven times. However, the names of the nominees are never publicly announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the Prize. All nomination records for a prize are sealed for 50 years from the awarding of that prize.

which is as near as you can get to saying it's false. (It is, of course, impossible to prove that she wasn't nominated for a Nobel Prize until 50 years after her death (2053).)

I propose that we reinstate something like the above text to forestall people from adding in this canard again.

I'm sorry, I didn't notice the advertisement bit when I added it in. There's also this. Silverseren^C 18:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it is 50 years from the time of nomination, not 50 years from the time of death. So might not have to wait until 2053 ;) See here 129.78.233.212 (talk) 05:49, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

References

Nunquam Dormio (talk) 09:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment

Quick thoughts. The issues I'm seeing raised above seem to me to be:

• Is Budwig notable? My view is yes; she is widely cited in secondary sources, and this has been debated before.
• Should all her books and major articles be referenced? I'd argue yes, but I'd also argue that if there's a debate over whether something was a letter or an article, it would be good if we could find someone who'd read it. (NB: I'd agree that 9 pages sounds like an article; two pages doesn't to me, but I'd still feel happier if we could find someone who'd read the items concerned.)
• Was she nominated for a Nobel Prize? None of us really knows, I'd suggest a variant on the wording above, namely: "Proponents of the Budwig protocol claim that she was nominated for a Nobel Prize either six or seven times, although the nature of the nomination process means that this cannot be confirmed." That would neutrally capture the fact of the belief by many of her supporters that she was nominated, without asserting the event itself to be fact.
• Did Budwig create a diet and claim that it would cure cancers? I'm seeing a lot of references asserting that she did create such a diet and did claim that it would cure cancer, and not a lot suggesting otherwise. Could we perhaps cite an article or two from the American Cancer site? (e.g. "Basch E, Bent S, Collins J, Dacey C, Hammerness P, Harrison M, Smith M, Szapary P, Ulbricht C, Vora M, Weissner W.... cited in American Cancer... etc.)? (unless one of us has read the originals, which I haven't)
• Did her diet actually cure cancer? I haven't seen anything so far that looks like that. Do some alternative practitioners (NB: accepting that the term can be challenged) claim that it does? Probably yes.

Happy to be contradicted!

Hchc2009 (talk) 19:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. We have had two weeks of discussion now so I'll start to make changes that reflect the above. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 12:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Maps Talk:Johanna Budwig

Further discussion

A problem with this article is a lack of reliable secondary sources. If none can be found then I suggest merging the article with flaxseed, where there is a section of nutrients and clinical research.[1] TFD (talk) 23:12, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You mean all of the links show in this version of the article, that were all recently removed by User:Nunquam Dormio. Not to mention the references that are shown in the section above? I do not believe this article should be merged, there are sources for it, people just keep removing them. Silverseren^C 00:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

None of the sources I removed were really top-grade: indeed two of them were advertisements. Other than to prove that her diet still has its supporters, they don't add much. The Four Deuces, I can't see merging a biographical article with one about flaxseed is ever going to be an option. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 15:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

src: www.budwigcenter.com

Budwig and Light

Can something be made of this? Silverseren^C 04:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

And this. Silverseren^C 04:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Another. Silverseren^C 04:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

And another. Silverseren^C 04:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

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Funny thing

how http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-help/about-cancer/cancer-questions/what-is-the-budwig-diet can claim there's no proof of diet/cancer relation as if they reviewed all the published work. here's a simple counter example: Prof Campbell, a Cornell University academic who grew up milking cows and slaughtering animals on his family's Virginia farm, began his research to back up his belief that traditional Western diets rich in protein from dairy and meat "was the best you could get". Instead, he told The Sunday Telegraph, after studying diets, lifestyle and disease in 2,800 counties across China and Taiwan, he concluded the opposite - that plant-based diets dramatically and rapidly reduce heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity. [2] 178.221.220.214 (talk) 07:30, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

They "claim" no such thing. Quack/altmed diets don't work, but there's a well-acknowledged interplay between diet and cancer generally. See here for example. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:37, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

(Add) And we have an entire article on the subject: Diet and cancer. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:41, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

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