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Holistic health professionals are subjected to an online Inquisition when they attempt to edit false statements and libel out of their profiles only to have the
by UpshotKnothole 8y ago
Holistic health professionals are subjected to an online Inquisition when they attempt to edit false statements and libel out of their profiles only to have the edits immediately reverted and their life’s work dismissed. It was Dr. Gary Null’s investigation into this phenomenon that first alerted me that Wikipedia was playing fast and loose with the facts beyond of the political realm, and I use him here as an example not to sing his praises but because his case is such a clear example of the site’s bias. Null is a board-certified clinical nutritionist who has conducted over 40 clinical studies on lifestyle and diet, more than anyone else in his field. He hosts the longest-running daily non-commercial radio program in history and for 12 years ran the most popular show on WABC. He has published over 700 articles, many in peer-reviewed journals, and has been invited to present his findings at scientific conferences. His research showed humans could not only survive but thrive on a diet wholly devoid of animal protein. His documentaries, including Death by Medicine, the Drugging of Our Children, and Seeds of Death, have won more than 276 awards, placing him among the country’s top documentary filmmakers. He has counseled tens of thousands of people over his 50-year career, never charging a penny. None of these achievements are in his Wikipedia bio, which focuses instead on his divergence from medical orthodoxy and accuses him of quackery. I did not merely take Null’s word at face value when evaluating his statements against those of the Wikipedia page he has been wrestling with for the better part of a decade. Instead, my investigation revealed a pattern of systemic bias that has the entirety of Wikipedia’s medicine and science coverage in its thrall.
Some of this article raises known issues (Phillip Cross for example), but a lot of it just seems to amount to, “my biases are not adequately represented!”
- EvilTerran 8y agoThe author also neglected to mention that this Gary Null is a stablemate - a regular contributor to the very site this essay is published on, in fact: http://prn.fm/category/archives/gary-null-show/ http://prn.fm/category/archives/gary-null-show/ That's irresponsible failure to disclose possible conflict-of-interest, at best.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- systoll 8y agoGary Null is the founder of the site http://prn.fm/about/gary-null/ http://prn.fm/about/gary-null/ Its entire shop inventory is gary null media http://prn.fm/prn-store/page/1/ http://prn.fm/prn-store/page/1/ It's a little more than irresponsible.
- k1m 8y agoI posted the link to the article, having seen it on Twitter. I don't know anything about the author or Gary Null, and I agree that that should have been disclosed. I did help write some of the Philip Cross pieces which were discussed on HN, and are also referenced in this piece in the Philip Cross section. But the article submitted here also covers a lot more, for example how PR companies and even Wikimedia employees appear to have sold their Wikipedia-editing services. I found a lot of it interesting.