Talk:Alcohol and cancer

message: It's incorrect to say no research on alcohol as a potential risk factor has been conducted on the cancers listed. In reality, both alcohol and tobacco are typically investigated. The lists of risk factors are precisely that -- lists of factors that have been identified as increasing risk. The discussions don't list those factors that have not been found to increase risk. If they did, the list of excluded factors would be very long for each cancer. Rblarrimer (talk) 16:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Incorrect and misleading heading

message: It may be helpful to insert a definition of moderate consumption into this article, as defined by the sources from which this article was developed.  --Uthbrian (talk) 20:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition of 'moderate consumption'

message: Reference: Duffy, S.W., and Sharples, L.D. Alcohol and cancer risk. In: Duffy, J.L., ed. Alcohol and Illness: The Epidemiological Viewpoint. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992. pp. 64-127. does not appear to be cited in the article. Anyone know anything about it? Nunquam Dormio 15:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It could be a general reference, or perhaps created when the article was very short.  My suggestion is to leave it, it can always serve as an external link if nothing else.  CaptainJ (t | c | e) 16:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duffy query 

message: "However, some research finds moderate drinking to reduce the risk of this cancer." (Ahlgren, J. D., et al. Epidemiology and risk factors in pancreatic cancer Seminars in Oncology, 1996, 23(2), 241-250.) When I look at the abstract, it says: "Alcohol and coffee consumption have been reported as possible risks in some (but not in most) studies." which is not quite the same thing. Has anyone got access to the full Ahlgren paper and could summarize what it says about alcohol? Nunquam Dormio 14:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ahlgren query 

message: This article isn't confroming to Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy. I only had to read the first sentence to figure that out. Minipie8 05:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That being "This article does not provide medical advice and none should be inferred." Nunquam Dormio 10:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: For me the following quote sounds like directly lifted from something like "How To Cheat With Statistics". I mean that to conclude cocarcinogenic activity you must compare not "None" and "Both" columns in your spreadsheet, but those marked "Compound 1", in this case "Tobacco", and "Both". 
In humans, the risk for mouth, tracheal, and esophageal cancer is 35 times greater for people who both smoke and drink than for people who neither smoke nor drink,[6] implying a cocarcinogenic interaction between alcohol and tobacco-related carcinogens.
--AgnosticMantis (talk) 04:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad science

message: It's obvious from the history and discussion pages that people have simply been pulling quotes from studies, putting them in the article and then arguing over what conclusions should be made. Nothing could be farther from the way scientific conclusions are made and it's led to conclusions inconsistent with those reached by science. This is unacceptable in an encyclopedia and a disservice to readers.
The scientific process involves first identifying all published research on the medical issue in question and then systematically and carefully examining each publication in detail to assess its quality and the weight that it should be given in making a scientific judgment.
Major criteria include the research design's strengths and weaknesses, the statistical alalyses used and their appropriateness, the quality of the publication in which the study is reported (usually based on its "impact factor," basically a measure of how often the publication
is referenced in other scientific publications), and many, many other considerations. Because of the diffuculties in making valid conclusions about causality, science focuses on research design and other indicators of quality and it's why high quality studies carry so much more weight in making scientific judgments.
Determining if something is a risk factor isn't a matter of simply counting how many studies report positive versus negative findings. Finding some studies inconsistent with most others is to be expected. At the 5% level of statistical confidence, about 5% of studies are expected to yield false positive results. The actual proportion will be much higher because of publication bias that greatly increases the proportion of false positive studies published. This has been recognized for over half a century. Many other things increasing the number of false positive studies are described in textbooks on research methods.
We can't create scientific medical consensus ourselves by arguing over studies. We have to identify any consensus, or lack of consensus, that has been reached among scientists by determining what major medical organizations have concluded.Linda,LCADC (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Identifying Consensus in Medical Science

message: There's nothing motley or irrelevant about the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the Prostate Canceer Foundation, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the American Lung Association, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Academy of Dermatology, the Mayo Clinic, the American Thyroid Association or the Pancreatic Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University Medical School.
They're among the world's more authoritative medical organizations and their conclusions about risk factors are highly relevant, being very objective scientific evaluations of the available reserch evidence. The conclusions of such organizations determine whether or not scientific medical consensus exists on specific risk factors.Linda,LCADC (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: They're Not Motley or Irrelevant

message: I have requested help of the wikipedia med project, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Alcohol_and_cancer. Hopefully they can help resolve the issues with this article.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 10:22, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested help

message: I removed the biopsy images, with edit summary "Gory biopsy images are not helpful to describe the role of alcohol in carcinogenesis and their shock value impairs NPOV. Removed." They were replaced by LiteratureGeek, who suggests "Cancer is gory and a not very pleasant disease. What POV are images violating? I can't think of a POV which has a favourable view of cancer" in his/her revert message, so I thought it might be useful to describe my rationale in further detail.
First, this article is about the role of alcohol in carcinogenesis. Excised tissue samples of tumors of unknown etiology and unusual appearance do not meaningfully contribute to or inform any discussion about alcohol's role in cancer -- they do not help a reader understand what the relationship between alcohol and cancer is. They tell you a lot about the gross pathology of cancer, but that's not what the article is about.
My second concern is that the tone of the article in general is presently very alarmist. Throwing gory images behind those claims is sort of akin to putting autopsy images of smoker's lungs on cigarette packs to discourage sales by scaring people straight, so to speak. This could be fine if the claims in the body of the article represented a solid consensus, but I've started digging into the article a little because some of the claims surprised me, and it looks like several sections are supported by references to uncited claims in tertiary literature that don't seem to have good science behind them. As it is, it looks a lot like the article is intended to dissuade alcohol consumption, and the irrelevant gory images contribute to that. "Look what will happen to you if you drink!," etc.
I that's why I think it's important to remove the images -- not only are they unhelpful, but they reinforce the general sense of alarm, which I think it would be helpful to mute until more satisfactory references can be found.
thanks, Mote (talk) 23:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds like we have similar views of the facts, at least, so that's a good start. I agree that there's no dispute that consuming lots of alcohol can contribute to a host of medical ills, including cancer. I think our point of disagreement is that I think it's Wikipedia's place to document that in a coolheaded, rational way, and not to use shocking or gory images or other emotional appeals. I also think that it's possible that a reader could acquire a mistaken impression of the relatively minimal risks of light consumption. I'm sympathetic to wanting to retain some images in the article, but on the other hand it's possible that there aren't good candidates -- I don't have any immediate ideas about what could be helpful. thanks, Mote (talk) 00:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

text: On another note, you say the "tone of the article in general is presently very alarmist". Could you point out any phrases that create an an alarmist tone or aren't justified by the scientific papers? (If you look through the history, this article was originally a cheerleading piece written by an alcohol lobbyist; in my view, the article is now not too bad, but needs attention from editors with specialist medical knowledge.) Nunquam Dormio (talk) 08:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biopsy images 

message: Ppl have been drawing their own conclusions instead of reporting the conclusions of scientific organizations. And their conclusions are inconsistent with those of medical bodies. That's the source of the bias. Linda,LCADC (talk) 18:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Please do. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 19:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original Research 

message: Do you REALLY need to show a picture of a severed breast?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.44.144 (talk) 04:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image 

message: Please help me understand what I'm doing wrong.FoeOfBigC (talk) 19:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, if you click on the history tab on the article page you can see an explaination for why your contribution was removed. I have also sent you a welcome message with links which are helpful for the newcomer. :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:23, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Help me understand

message: Is there any reason why this article should not be titled "Alcohol Consumption and Cancer"?
I don't see anything here indicating that topical use is carcinogenic or contributes to cancer development. Alcohol consumption is only one use of alcohol. I am making a list of carcinogenic compounds for a science lab. We use all kinds of alcohol in science labs; health care facilities also use alcohol frequently. There is nothing in the Material Safety Data Sheets about alcohol as carcinogens in the science lab. Unless there is a good reason for not changing the title, I will probably change it. Ileanadu (talk) 14:35, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There is very little information on alcohol as a carcinogen by other means (topical application, inhaling vapour). The IARC paper (Ref [14]} says, "One study in mice involving application of ethanol or residues of alcoholic beverages to the skin could also not be evaluated." The use of alcohol-based hand sanitisers in hospitals to fight MRSA &c suggests that topical application is not a problem (presumably as it evaporates quickly). I could imagine far-fetched scenarios where people ingested significant quantities of alcohol by other means, but for practical purposes, we are talking about ingestion of alcohol as part of the diet. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 19:31, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revise Article Title? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: — Assignment last updated by Wikichi2 (talk) 17:55, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: UCSF SOM Inquiry In Action-- Wikipedia Editing 2022

message: The term ROS is mentioned several times but there is no explanation for this acronym in the article. GrazzaD (talk) 14:14, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed, added plaintext definition of the abbreviation before the first instance, and added an internal link to the relevant article. I have removed the cleanup tag as well since this has been addressed. Lumberjane Lilly (talk) 19:39, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "ROS" definiton