Talk:Zidovudine

message: I'm opening up a dispute as to factual accuracy, neutrality, and the conclusions drawn from the sources used in this article. This article does not meet Wikipedia standards. It needs a rewrite.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.217.201.30 (talk) 05:32, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well you haven't really opened up a dispute, because you haven't explained your concerns in a way that's specific enough to be actionable.  Before you do so, you may wish to read Wikipedia's policy on neutrality, as well as our article on AIDS denialism and the FAQ at the top of Talk:HIV.  Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 06:48, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure it's appropriate to say that AZT has been "certified as non-carcinogenic". At the same time, we need to make an effort to be honest and scrupulous about describing the clinical impact of AZT on cancer. In people with HIV/AIDS, AZT-based antiretroviral therapy appears to clearly reduce the incidence of many cancers (most dramatically, that of Kaposi sarcoma; see for example , , ).I'm not clear on your second objection. The sentence is perhaps oversimplified but arguably reasonably accurate.As to primary sources, it's important to understand the relevant sourcing guideline. Primary sources are not categorically forbidden; however, they need to be used carefully, to illustrate the current state of knowledge rather than to rebut or undermine expert opinion. MastCell Talk 18:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

text: No, I'd like to actually discuss the question on the talk page and try to resolve it. I'm old-fashioned that way.The history of AZT as cancer chemotherapy is largely of interest to historians of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to AIDS denialists, but OK, I'll bite. AZT was tested as a cancer chemotherapeutic, but was never particularly effective against any type of cancer (hence its abandonment). The doses used to treat HIV/AIDS would have zero effect against a sarcoma. And non-AZT-containing HAART regimens similarly decrease the risk of Kaposi sarcoma. The common thread is immunodeficiency; if you treat the immunodeficiency with HAART, then people don't get Kaposi sarcoma. MastCell Talk 03:50, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure what you mean. AZT has been in continual use in HIV/AIDS since its introduction in the late 1980s, and remains a component of many HAART regimens. Could you elaborate? MastCell Talk 17:02, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

text: I'm sorry, I thought I was being clear. The upshot is that AZT, as used in modern clinical practice to treat HIV/AIDS, does not seem to be associated with an increased risk of cancer (if anything, the opposite; it can help reduce the risk of many cancers). Therefore, it's misleading at best to describe it as a "carcinogen" in isolation, because that leaves the reader with the incorrect inference that using AZT will increase their risk of developing cancer. MastCell Talk 19:06, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

text: This issue has been discussed at length. I think any responsible treatment of the carcinogenicity of AZT would need to acknowledge that it is not associated with any increased risk of cancer in HIV/AIDS patients, and in fact may decrease the risk of some cancers. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to highlight test-tube carcinogenicity while ignoring the huge volume of clinical data on the subject. MastCell Talk 16:43, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Dispute Tags

message: New to this, so sorry if this isn't quite how it's done.
I found this sentence confusing. "Consistent and proactive precautionary measures, such as the rigorous use of antiretroviral medications, cesarean section, face masks, heavy-duty rubber gloves, clinically segregated disposable diapers, and avoidance of mouth contact will further reduce child-attendant transmission of HIV to as little as 1–2%" 
It's under the HIV prophylaxis section. 
The paragraph talks about mother-child transmission. But the last sentence I believe is talking about child-mother transmission (one of the sources it cites is a blog that has a paper abstract about transmission to the mother through breastfeeding. I'm not sure why a BLOG is cited instead of the actual article). Also, one of the sources is a broken link. This is a bit confusing because the third citation is actually about mother to child transmission... 
Admittedly, I couldn't get access to the paper that the abstract was for, but I couldn't find any mention in any of the 3 sources of "heavy duty rubber gloves" or "face masks" and I don't really know what "mouth contact" means, because I'm pretty sure that just swapping saliva isn't supposed to be a means of transmission for HIV. (Actually, I think it's referring to infant-mother transmission through breastfeeding, but this is not really "mouth contact"). 
*edit*
also, the next paragraph talks about "parental and infant" deaths, which again seems to be referencing infant-mother transmission. But the article cited says nothing about this. The article talks about the effects AZT has had on people in general and on mother-infant transmission specifically. But nothing about parents specifically. 
74.111.185.23 (talk) 05:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  confusing sentence/inconsistent paragraph 

message: Hi there,
I'm part of a group of 4 pharmacy students at UCSF. We are planning on making slight edits to this page to improve content and readability. Here is a brief description of some of the changes we plan on making.
*Simplification of medical jargon, especially under adverse effects and pharmacokinetic properties.
*Review and update older sources from the 80s/90s.
*Correct grammatical issues such as run-on sentences, particularly under "HIV Treatment" and "HIV Prevention". 
*Add sources for claims without a source.
*The Viral Resistance section is simply a repeat of what was stated in the HIV Treatment section. 
*Mechanism of action is missing a citation. 
*Perhaps the page could benefit from splitting the discussion about AZT's toxicity to our own cells and specificity to HIV into two separate paragraphs.
*Maintain objective tone throughout the entire page.
*Society and Culture: The drug was featured heavily in the Matthew McConaughey movie, Dallas Buyers Club. 
*History: The short paragraph regarding 6MP may not be necessary/relevant. Also, there's a sentence explaining what reverse transcriptase is even though it is already linked and explained earlier.
*Address other issues brought up in the talk page, specifically the suggested edit in 2014 under "confusing sentence/inconsistent paragraph".
Iaminwillmart (talk) 18:18, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: That all seems great. Please make sure you use WP:MEDRS sources for all WP:Biomedical information and WP:RS for the rest.  Not too excited about the movie thin; there is no end to that sort of thing and it generally becomes a magnet for low quality additions. Jytdog (talk) 20:18, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plans to improve page 

message: Upon review, the overall structure of the edits is consistent with Wikipedia's manual of style for medicine-related articles.  The introduction is succinct and gives a great overview of the medication while not getting too specific in terms of topics that follow in later sections.  The flow of introduction --> Medical Uses --> Side effects --> Mechanism --> Chemistry --> History is logical with respect to formatting.  The only recommendations that I have are to change the title of" Side Effects" to "Adverse Effects" and "Mechanism" to "Mechanism of Action" to keep heading format consistent across medication-related wikipedia articles.
Mkw 09 (talk) 02:57, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: whether the structure is "logical" to you is irrelevant.  The structure complies with WP:MEDMOS and the lead complies with WP:LEAD.  You and the other students need to read WP:MEDRS, WP:MEDMOS, and the other policies and guidelines and base your review on them, and only on them.  We do not capitalize headers that way per the general manual of style, WP:MOS. Jytdog (talk) 03:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student Review #3 

message: STUDENT 2 – Are the points included verifiable with cited secondary sources that are freely accessible? If not, specify…
Yes majority of points included are verifiable with cited secondary sources that are freely accessible. Source #61 was a broken link and source #56 is not "freely accessible." Overall, the group utilized many reputable sources that are in fact freely accessible when editing the Zidovudine page.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceb333 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Removing a source because it is behind a paywall violates Wikipedia policy.  See WP:PAYWALL.  If you can find a ref that is as good or better (say a more recent review) that is free that is great and you can replace a paywalled article with that, but never reduce source quality or leave something unsourced due to the free/not free criterion. The most important thing is high-quality sourcing and content summarizing those sources accurately.  Jytdog (talk) 10:53, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student #2 

message: This article could do with a lot of work on the cultural history of AZT during the early part of the AIDS crisis, as well as more detail on its [lack of] efficacy as a monotherapy (as it was used through the 1980s) and the amount of research into it that went on under Tony Fauci's leadership of NIAID, to the exclusion of other therapies.
Hopefully someone can beat me to it, but David France's book How to Survive a Plague would be a good place to start and the Writings of Michael Callen could be useful (Michael Callen was strongly opposed to the initial — overdosed and toxic — use of AZT monotherapy in the 1980s, which was later shown to be of minimal therapeutic value); I would expect that Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On might also have useful information. I recently did a load of work on the biography of early AIDS activist Bobbi Campbell and some of the references I used there might also be helpful. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 14:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural history of AZT 

message: These two refs
https://books.google.ca/books?id=zNCJmuWgHAoC&pg=PA179#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://www.drugs.com/monograph/zidovudine.html
support the date as 1987 plus it being the first and are better than an old NYTs article which only supports part of it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:16, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: 1987