The main purpose of this page is to gather some representative case studies for the way the WP:MEDRS guideline is applied.
The preliminary resources immediately below build up accounts of the normal situation in medical referencing. Case studies should also exhibit edge cases, where they occur, against a realistic background.
"Biomedical information is information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health. Generally speaking, such information should be supported by a reputable biomedical source, such as review articles, higher-level medical textbooks, and professional reference works."
Ideal sources for biomedical material include literature reviews or systematic reviews in reliable, third-party, published secondary sources (such as reputable medical journals), recognised standard textbooks by experts in a field, or medical guidelines and position statements from national or international expert bodies.
Sources should be used to make verifiable statements, but they should not be discussed by themselves in an article.
Do not provide a detailed analysis of an individual study unless the analysis itself is taken from a published reliable source. Wikipedia should concisely state facts about a subject. It should not discuss the underlying literature at any length. Generally speaking, the facts will be found in the conclusions or results section of a study, not in the detailed methodology. Articles that rely on secondary sources are less likely to fall into the trap of discussing the size of a single study, its methodology, its biases, and so forth. Thus, "washing hands after defecating reduces the incidence of diarrhea in the wilderness", not "An uncontrolled survey involving 132 experienced long-distance backpackers on the Appalachian trail in 1997 concluded that washing hands after defecating reduces the incidence of diarrhea in the wilderness."
Do not hype a study by listing the names, credentials, institutions, or other "qualifications" of their authors. The text of the article should not needlessly duplicate the names, dates, titles, and other information about the source that you list in the citation. Always omit professional titles and academic degrees: use "Smith" or "Jones" rather than "Dr Smith" or "Prof Jones". It is necessary to specifically include such information only when a specific individual is being cited as an example of a person holding a minority view: You might write, "The AIDS Denialist Society says that HIV is entirely harmless", but just use a plain statement for the widely accepted fact, "HIV causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome."
"Original research" (say breaches of the WP:OR content policy requiring referencing, and possibly WP:SYNTH for aggregation);
Relying on outdated references, see WP:MEDDATE, "In many topics, a review that was conducted more than five or so years ago will have been superseded by more up-to-date ones [...]".
See Talk:Exercise. The page is tagged with {{WikiProject Medicine |class=c |importance=High |cardiology=yes |cardiology-imp=low}}, meaning that it comes within the scope of MEDRS. The potential inclusion of material on animal exercise (i.e. for non-humans) has led to dispute on whether and how MEDRS might apply to such material. There is a formal record at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 163#Talk:Exercise.
This discussion walks through the "health food" or treatment implications of the literature on kava tea. It was argued that:
A "double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study" is to be treated as "a limited short-term study on a small number of subjects", not qualifying for WP:MEDSCI and WP:MEDASSESS.
ACochrane review reference, at that time 14 years old, passed muster.
A WHO guideline from 2005 was stated (in 2014) to be reliable source (provided it is not contradicted by a newer Cochrane review), there being then no newer guideline that applied from the WHO.
The application of this guideline was criticized for use in chiropractic, in alternative medicine, on the basis that it was "written for the WHO by a bunch of industry insiders, largely in response to political pressure".
The main point at issue was the safety of chiropractic. This paper, a systematic review, was stated to be the only paper on the topic within the five-year limit. It was stated to be inconclusive.
NB There is a long history of contention here. See Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-08-23/Chiropractic. But one should note also that MEDRS is not static, and comments there about the "review cycle" are absent from the current version.
See Talk:Bacon#Health risks. The issue is the due handling of health risk from eating bacon. Points raised:
Specificity: The health risk for bacon should be discussed independently of the risk for processed meat in general.
Type of source: not journalism. At the time of this writing, on the other hand, the article contains a reference to the BBC website, tagged with {{unreliable medical source}}, and dealing with the health risk, that cites the WHO.
Prominence: Does the health risk warrant a mention in the lead section?
Tagging of an article talk page by {{Ds/talk notice|acu}} and/or {{Ds/talk notice|ps}} gives standing to the classification of the topic as alternative and complementary medicineorpseudoscience. (The tagging will be on the actual talk page, and is not applied to archives of talk pages.)
Science-Based Medicine, which is a blog, is customarily considered a reliable source for matters covered by WP:FRINGE. While blogposts as a general rule are not accepted as reliable sources, the general guideline at WP:RSSELF admits some special cases.
