Pharmacology
This page is within the scope of WikiProject Pharmacology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pharmacology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PharmacologyWikipedia:WikiProject PharmacologyTemplate:WikiProject Pharmacologypharmacology

Archives:

• WikiProject Drugs archived discussion
• WikiProject Pharmacology archive before merge

As you should hopefully know, there has been discussion of this merger for quite some time now. In any case, welcome to the New WikiProject Pharmacology, which is a merged WikiProject Drugs and WikiProject Pharmacology. The purpose of this merge was to enhance each WikiProject; WP Drugs gets the benefit of a wider scope and an article scale system in place, whereas WP Pharm gets the benefit of more members and more structure for work. All members of WikiProject Drugs are now members of WikiProject Pharmacology. While all the pages are now under the new name of WikiProject Pharmacology, not all the text may be. Please make corrections as you see pages that need to be updated. I know the categorization and templates need to be updated; I will handle that myself. If you have any questions, I would like to hear them. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 17:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good work, MessedRocker - looks great! :) I've taken the liberty to update the project userbox information and to move it from {{User Drugs}} to {{User WikiProject Pharmacology}} which is also more WikiProject compliant. I already de-redirected everyone's userpage - Alison^✍ 00:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Luckily, the merger was easy since nothing overlapped. Anyways, I'll get the bot to tag some articles for WikiProject Pharmacology, and we can all take a field day and assess the hell out of them! :) —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 00:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kewl! Bring 'em on :) I've also created the shortcut WP:WPPH which is also a little more WikiProject compliant. We still get to keep WP:DRUGS - I've added both to the project main page - Alison^✍ 00:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looking good! I thought of creating a boilerplate message to notify participants of the merger. Any thoughts? Fvasconcellos 02:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. That'll get folks moving on updating/evaluating stubs and stuff. Plenty to do! :) - Alison^✍ 04:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would anyone object if I were to take my bot and have it sleuth throughout the categories related to drugs and pharmacology and have it automatically tag article talk pages with the WikiProject banner? —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 03:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should Category:Psychoactive drug stubs be bot-tagged too? --Galaxiaad 09:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again! Just letting you all know that I cleaned up this WikiProject's documentation. For example, there is now a style guide which merges three naming guidelines. Additionally, I created a workspace, which allows for collaborations on things that are not articles. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 12:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Up for FA here. Comments, edits and suggestions are welcome. TimVickers 05:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for notifying us! I created a section on the WikiProject main page for listing articles up for evaluation of some kind. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 11:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would any of the participants be interested in Collaboration of the month system, in which we try to bring an article to FA quality? --Parker007 23:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely! - Alison^✍ 23:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can create one. Hold on. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 02:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There, a nice collaboration page with a smooth process (that is, it's smoother than WP:ACID's). By the way, feel free to use the workspace anytime; it's like an experimentation/development zone for this WikiProject. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 03:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice idea. Now we have a week to start thinking of articles to nominate... Fvasconcellos 14:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let's focus on the articles that are top/high importance yet are not even good articles. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 15:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think yet another thing this project should do is work on the pharmacology requested articles (here). Some of the terms in the general medical section would fall under this project too. Looks like several members already work on it, but it could be mentioned on the project page. --Galaxiaad 09:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. I work on Wikipedia:Requested articles/list of missing pharmacology whenever I can (i.e. not very often ;)—most of it can be cleared by judicious redirecting. I think this should have a prominent place in the Project main page, and maybe we could add a note to the top of the list saying WP:PHARM can handle such requests? Fvasconcellos 14:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has been moved to Talk:Heroin. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 11:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could the kind editors of this WikiProject please take a look at Levonorgestrel. The first paragraph is pack full of jargon. Lead sections usually are not supposed to have jargon, or at least fancy terms are supposed to be explained. Could someone translate that paragraph into a little bit simpler language please? Thanks for your consideration.-Andrew c 00:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I just hacked it around a bit. Can you take a look at it now and see what you think? The article is a bit sparse on data still and needs fleshing out (some of the other progestins are only one-liners plus a drugbox!!) - Alison^☺ 01:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've just created a stub on this investigational kinase inhibitor being tested by AstraZeneca, previously on the list of requested Pharmacology articles. There are some interesting papers on PubMed, but most are restricted access. If anyone has any ideas on how to expand or improve the article, they'd be greatly appreciated! Fvasconcellos 21:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all. An anon editor went over the Fluoxetine article and marked it for NPOV and cites. There's a comment on the talk page. I'm in agreement here; the article looks POV-laden and is missing many critical cites/refs. I've done a small tidy-up on it but could someone more knowledgeable possibly look it over and add some refs or clean out the POV/cruft? - Alison^☺ 17:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. I found a lot of copyvio, as did User:Fvasconcellos, copied verbatim from papers in PubMed (not just quotes) and other sources. Pulled the shutters down on the article until it can be properly reviewed and cleared. Looks like it might need to be scratch-written. I'll expose the DrugBox and a few other bits for the moment as this is proven to be ours. Can we try to rebulid this article, preferably without all the cruft and POV this time?? :) - Alison^☺ 00:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted it as a copyright violation. Let's start the article over again. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 02:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not so fast!! There's lots of good stuff in there that's verifiably okay. It was all here --> Talk:Fluoxetine/Temp - stuff like the drugbox / references / links / cats, and the initial header were all verified (by me, at least) to be okay - Alison^☺ 02:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is an ongoing problem -- more so with the less attended drug articles. I saw one article deleted that did not take any text from the source that was referenced on the speedy tag. Fluoxetine is a major article and should not be deleted every time someone posts some copyrighted material. I mean, if I were to copy some text from cnn.com's home page to CNN I don't think any admin would delete the CNN article. There was a lot of text that was not copyrighted on this page. Remember that ideas cannot be copyrighted, in pharmacological jargon, there are only so many ways to say the same thing. --Selket ^Talk 16:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've reinstated the non-copyvio content. Couldn't we have moved the article content, copyvio and all, out of mainspace (i.e. to the WP:PHARM workspace) so it could be collaboratively rewritten? I'm not knocking the value of the proverbial clean slate, but that's gonna be a lot of hard work :) Fvasconcellos 16:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's in google cache but, yes. That's a fair point. However, copyrighted text may be a problem in the article's edit history. Best move the bad article, build up a new, quarintined one from the old, then deleted the moved one. Problem with copyvio is that the text may leave Wikipedia legally vulnerable, hence the 'terminate with extreme prejudice' that MessedRocker showed. - Alison^☺ 18:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nicely put, and point taken :) Fvasconcellos 23:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With the recent identification of this compound in the Menu Foods pet food recall, the article could use some work by knowledgable contributors. Thanks! --Dfred 23:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody changed Bupropion article category from pharmaceuticals to chemicals. Can it be changed back?Paul gene 12:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean the project banner on the Talk page? Bupropion is a chemical, so I think it falls under the scope of WP:CHEM. I've assessed it for this project as well, so now all your bupropion are belong to us :) Fvasconcellos 14:34, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. A discussion is proceeding on the Talk:Antioxidant page about the validity of a recent review of clinical trials of antioxidant supplements. Expert advice would be much appreciated. Thank you. TimVickers 15:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is Off-licenced drug a synonym for another class of drug within Pharmacology? If so, should a redirect or merge be in order?

From the article: "An off-licenced drug does not have a licence for human use for any indication or age group (in that country)."

Thanks for your help. Guroadrunner 11:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not super-knowledgeable about this (please correct me on any of these things), but it looks like in the U.S. it's probably illegal to prescribe, dispense, manufacture, or import FDA-unapproved drugs. The only times it's definitely OK are in clinical trials and under some special programs for cancer (and other rare diseases, I think).[1]

Obviously this is related to off-label prescription, which is legal in the U.S., but kind of perversely it doesn't seem like the FDA regulates that at all, as long as the drug is approved for something, whereas each new product, even if it has the same active ingredient as a previous approved medication, has to go through the whole process of proving safety and efficacy.[2]

Drugs imported from other countries are definitely not legal until they've been approved by the FDA, as evidenced by their warnings about online pharmacies.[3] And compounding something that isn't available as an approved formulation is OK (as long as the active ingredient is used in approved medications, etc.)[4]

Anyway, that's what I know/could find... I feel like this is a legal issue that will differ by country so it's odd that that article says things like "should". (Also, grammatically shouldn't it be "off-licence drug"?) Other comments?

Finally, this is actually a question of pharmacy/pharmacy law, not pharmacology, and you might find more help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Clinical medicine. --Galaxiaad 17:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• There's gotta be another name for that. "Off-licenced drug" only gets 56 ghits; less than ten when you -Wikipedia. ♠PMC♠ 20:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support a merge/redirect to Off-label use. Sounds a bit like "Fair-use image" which doesn't really exist either (as a noun) Colin°^Talk 22:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sorry, I forgot to say in my comment but I assumed (partially from the spelling of license) it was a non-U.S. legal issue. The lack of Google hits makes the whole thing dubious though. --Galaxiaad 23:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the technical aspects of this issue, but I've wikified the article (as part of the wikification drive) in the hope that it will help someone decide whether to keep, redirect or merge. Smalljim 18:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd propose a move to unlicensed drug (or unlicenced), which gets far more Google hits, including [5] and [6], which I found quite interesting; the latter even defines a distinction between "unlicensed" and "off-label". Also, I can't help but think people may be coming to the article at its present location looking for Off-licence... Fvasconcellos 18:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for those links. The first is particularly helpful and shows that there is a noun. The Off-licenced drug article is getting the object and the usage confused in parts (and may also have got the off/un confused too). I'd prefer Unlicensed medicine rather than Unlicensed drug. Perhaps the distinction isn't there (the dictionary defines drug=medicine) but to my mind the drug is the active ingredient and the medicine is the tangible thing you take (syrup, tablet, etc). One can take a licensed medicine such as a tablet and crush it into a syrup suspension to form an unlicensed medicine. The drug remains the same. BTW: the article also currently appears to give advice ("should"). Colin°^Talk 19:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about "unlicensed product"? We could then distinguish unlicensed drugs (i.e., c:ompounds for which there is no human use indication) and unlicensed preparations. It's just an idea, and is it just me or am I sounding ORish? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fvasconcellos (talk • contribs) 20:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I've added {{unreferenced}} and {{expert-verify}} tags to the article in case someone comes across it (unlikely, I know) and takes its content as gospel. Should have thought of this when I wikified it. BTW, I don't like "Unlicensed product", that could refer to any field (bootleg CDs, for instance). Smalljim 22:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice point :) Fvasconcellos 22:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cannabis rescheduling in the United States has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The references are an absolute mess, but I'm more concerned by the neutrality tag and reason why it was brought to FAR. Is there a POV dispute or not? (and I do mean dispute, not an objection to the article's neutrality) Fvasconcellos 23:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New navigational template. Feedback welcome! Fvasconcellos 17:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed guideline WP:MEDMOS has been declared "historical" due to lack of activity. Please can we push towards consensus and make it a formal guideline. If we think it is close, we can advertise on the Village pump. Discuss on the talk page. Colin°^Talk 15:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) is a proposed guideline discussed and developed over recent months. Please visit the talk page to indicate whether you support or oppose Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) becoming a guideline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there fellow WP:PHARM members. I've been working on orlistat for a while now, and intend to put it up for GA status soon. Any comments or suggestions, either here or on the article Talk page, would be much appreciated. Thanks, Fvasconcellos 20:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Up for GA now. Fvasconcellos 00:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are many drugs (and other compounds) that are in conjugate base form, and the naming for the articles of these drugs is pretty shoddy in some places. (for example, amobarbital vs. sodium amytal). It makes no sense to talk about anything except the anion, in the case of the barbiturates (and in the case of any other drugs). I take issue with Sodium thiopental. Sure, that's what it's most commonly known as, but really, what the article is about is the thiopental anion. There could be potassium thiopental, or thiopentic acid (if that's what it's called, I don't know). The point is, the cation is unimportant. It's the anion that has all of the pharmacological properties, and that should be what the article is about. I'm sure there are other cases of this out there. Not to mention MSG, glutamate and glutamic acid are not at all properly explained. Glutamate is the free anion; glutamic acid is the conjugate acid, and MSG is the conjugate base. Fuzzform 01:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I get what you're trying to say, that's what I try to do when editing—cf. butylscopolamine, to which I just added a Drugbox, and my moves of bisphosphonate articles (such as etidronate → etidronic acid). However, in some compounds (I can't think of any off the top of my head), the anion/cation is not the INN. What should we do about those? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Etidronate vs. etidronic acid is a borderline case. The salt form is likely the form that is administered orally to strengthen bones, whereas only the acid has chelate properties. Fuzzform 23:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't changing the cation have consequences for the ion content of the body generally? For example, potassium chloride is used in lethal injections to stop the heart, whereas sodium chloride is obviously good old salt. I accept the wider point that the anion has the pharmacological properties ascribed to the chemical as a whole but the cation is surely important. As an even stronger example, you could equally have Lithium pentothal, and Lithium pharmacology is used for depression.87.80.209.34 20:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it would most likely change the body's ion content. But in the cases I have mentioned, the cation is not important; i.e. it does not have pharmacological significance. However, in the one case you mention, this rule of thumb doesn't hold: lithium itself has pharmacological effects. See articles hydrochloride and zwitterion. Fuzzform 23:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. The categorization taskforce is trying to find WikiProjects interested in using the bot of Alai to identify pharmacology stub articles which do not currently have a category (besides the stub category of course). If the project is interested, we could create something like Category:Uncategorized pharmacology stubs (amounting to roughly 250 articles) which could then be categorized by people knowledgeable in the subject, thus reducing the risk of improper categorization. Please let us know on the taskforce's talk page if you're interested. Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 00:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this would be a great idea. Any objections? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of which, why is hard clam's talk page listed as part of WikiProject Pharmacology anyway? I don't see any real reason for quahogs to be pharmaceuticals. If this is a mistake, somebody should correct this. If you want me to do it, you can contact me on my talk page. Thanks. -Fifth Rider 02:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd ask User:RCP, who added the template. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've created Category:Uncategorised pharmacology articles, I'll begin populating it soon. Alai 04:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. We'll start working on it. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't yet joined any Wikiprojects, and as a novice I'd feel uncomfortable about trying to assess and assign significance to articles I've edited. But I think these articles should be of considerable interest to this group - the one having a much longer history than I'd imagined, and the other being the basis of what might just turn out to be the aspirin of 2020. These articles aren't anywhere near finished, mind you, but I think some second opinions would help them out. Mike Serfas 16:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Both tagged as interesting to the project and assessed. If I may be bold, I think what you're going for here is actually peer review, not project assessment—you may want to have a look over there for an overview of the process, as WP:PHARM doesn't provide project-only peer review (unlike some projects such as WP:MILHIST). Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Now that Opium has reached B-class, a peer review is a good idea. But before I put it up for that I want to get rid of the "unsourced" tag I put on it, and unfortunately that requires fixing the unsourced claims first. Plus it would be nice to fix the Eurocentrism a bit (i.e. put in something about the Arabic period from 400 to 1500 AD). The early Chinese prohibition (1729) should be explored better as well, though it's a complex subject and maybe a peer review would provide better insight. Mike Serfas 16:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well first, I better introduce myself, I'm Ryan - a final year undergraduate studying pharmacology. I'd like to help with this project, I have an interest in cardiovascular and anti-arrhythmic pharmacology, would anyone like to give me a prod and point me in the direction of articles that need attention!? Ryan Postlethwaite 23:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there, and welcome! Well, you could always check Category:Antiarrhythmic agents and subcategories for individual drug articles. As a single suggestion off the top of my head, calcium channel blocker could use some expansion, references (as an admin I presume you're familiar with WP:V ;) and a more formal tone.

If you're interested in assessing articles, you could also hang around Category:Unassessed pharmacology articles and Category:Unknown-importance pharmacology articles and, of course, Category:Pharmacology articles needing expert attention. A quick browse of the navigation templates will also invariably lead you to some individual drug articles needing some TLC. Again, welcome, good luck and good work—the project could use more activity! Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Calcium channel blockers would be an extremely good theme for me to work on (Just handed in my undergraduate thesis on the comparison of NCX knockout mice with NCX wild types with respect to arrhythmias!), I'll check out everything you've noted tomorrow. Lets hope I can put my expertise to good use :-) Ryan Postlethwaite 23:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All right then. Care to work on Sodium-calcium exchanger as well? Happy editing, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Ryan - welcome to the project. Nice to have you on-board. (your reputation precedes you :) ) - Alison ☺ 00:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are peoeple that keep wiping out Beclomethasone's page and putting a "redirect" to Beclometasone dipropionate simply because INN has decided to name the latter the same way as the former. I don't know the reasons behind that call (i tried to get some "free text" articles from PubMet about the metabolism of BDP to see if it gets converted to beclomethasone once it is inside the cells but couldn't get any, all they talk is about the effects) but these two are very different compounds - BDP has 2 additional propyl groups, which make it not only heavier bit also more lipophilic as they prevent the formation of 2 H-bonds that beclomethasone does. Now all we need to figure out if the information on the Beclomethasone's page describes Beclomethasone pharmacological properties or it actually describes BDP ones. -- Boris 16:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beclometasone itself is never used clinically in UK, but it is an accepted generic name that refers to Beclometasone dipropionate which is used as a cream, nasal spray and inhaler (hence the description of Beclometasone being the INN). "Beclometasone" is thus not notable in itself (ie does not need separate article) but should (as in its clinical use) redirect to BDP. The selection of a single article about a clinical entity is similar to Betamethasone which is a single article about various salts, but none of the salts per se are notable (ie being a diproponate, valerate or sodium phosphate is not the issue - whereas being a salt of Betamethasone is). The difference in these two cases is that Betamethasone is used as a number of different salts, so the article chosen is Betamethasone (rather than any specific salt), whereas "Beclometasone" only ever clinically implies Beclomethasone dipropionate, hence the choice as to which is the article and which should be teh redirect. David Ruben ^Talk 11:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dave, beclometasone dipropionate and betamethasone dipropionate are ESTERS of propionic acid with beclometasone and betamethasone respectively, not another salt of beclometasone and betamethasone respectively. -- Boris 21:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - I stand corrected - but I had taken this from Betamethasone which in thw lead-in current says "It is available as a number of salts:" David Ruben ^Talk 22:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The project tag continues to appear on the talk pages of strangely unrelated articles (often involving mollusks). Please keep an eye out for any inappropriately tagged articles. Cheers everyone. Fuzzform 19:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone update the information in the progress section? Fuzzform 20:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done by a bot every two days. Hey, nice work :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've proposed a number of new subtypes of {{pharmacology-stub}}, here. (The categorisation of these seems a lot better now, for which I'm sure this project deserves the credit.) Someone knowledgeable might want to look in, and check that they don't overlap unreasonably, might be useful as sub-topics, etc. Alai 23:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is the policy on allowing drug products to be categorised by company? A new user, User:G716 (contribs) has created Category:Gilead Sciences, which includes compounds like Oseltamivir (Tamiflu). On the one hand, when I look at the Viagra article I don't see a category like "Category:Pfizer pharmacuticals"; however, in other commercial products such as cars it is common to have such categories (such as Category:Ford vehicles). Should we allow such categories, or not? Walkerma 05:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I wouldn't object to such a categorization, particularly for medications not available as generics, but I do foresee the potential for some issues. How notable should a manufacturer be to warrant its own category? Should we include only "blockbuster drugs" or everything a certain company manufactures/markets? What about drugs developed by one company, then marketed by another? My personal take: Category:Lilly's been around for a long time, and I never objected to its presence in articles such as tadalafil or atomoxetine. (As for the Viagra article—sildenafil, cough, cough—we do have Category:Pfizer brands, by the way.) I'd appreciate others' thoughts on this matter :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi I'm reviewing theobromine for GA status. I've put it on hold for now. One of the reasons is that it seems to be missing rather a lot of the headings on Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Style guide. Could you let me know whether I'm being too idealistic, but I'm assuming that if you as a group feel that these headings should be covered in all drug articles, then an article shouldn't be promoted to good until they're covered. --Peter cohen 01:08, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they obviously should not be present if there isn't enough information to fill them out :) Ideally an article should be pretty comprehensive and follow a certain "template", but the "guideline" is unofficial and there should probably be some leeway in this particular article, as theobromine is probably more notable for its presence in chocolate than any pharmaceutical use. I won't get too much into this, though, as I reviewed the article for GA the first time around :) Best of luck, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I did pick this article to review because I immediately thought "chocolate". So I shan't argue with that point. --Peter cohen 08:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Just be careful not to encourage too much informality or undue weight :) (mmm...chocolate) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:31, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been there for a while and today i kinda stumbled upon it and it struck me how poor the page looked considering the ammount of members and the ammount of articles this project takes care off, so I decided to upgrade the design by applying the one created by User:ClockworkSoul and used in MCB. If some of you can take a look at it and see if there is anything else that needs to be done (i bet there is) to get it completed. -- Boris 02:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! I've made some tweaks, to make the links point to the right places etc. and also added a shamelessly self-promotional picture, since I don't think we have any featured pictures :( Anyone have any extra ideas? BTW, we are seriously behind on collaborations, request pages... Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've proposed a merge, in line with standard practice on combining chemistry, pharmacology, history, and sociology into single articles. Outside input is welcome. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks sensible to me and I've voted for it. BTW The talk page of the poppers article is dominated by arguments about an alleged AIDS link. The presence of people who understand scientific articles would be beneficial in helping raise the level of evidence used. A merge might achieve that --Peter cohen 21:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this is the right place to bring this up. At what stage of development does a compound become notable? Should a drug only merit mention in wikipedia once it is commercially available? Or should it be once it is used on humans (in clinical trials)? Or may be once used on animals? Or even earlier sitting in a test-tube in a laboratory? Or perhaps even earlier, in a patent or in the literature? Is it dependant on development stage at all? I was just wondering how notability applies and if this topic been discussed before. Cheers. Pgr94 12:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is an easy answer to that question, but here are a few of my thoughts. I would certainly say that all marketed drugs are notable because medical need is a prerequisite for drug approval (theoretically, at least) and Wikipedia should be a good source of neutral information about all forms of medical treatment. I think drugs in clinical trials are notable if they represent a novel mechanism of action, or have the potential to be a "blockbuster", or are "first-in-class", or have gotten attention in the popular news media, etc. But beyond that, I would say that Wikipedia's general guidelines for notability (such as non-trivial media attention, published clinical data in reliable sources, etc.) can give direction as to whether an experimental drug should be mentioned in Wikipedia or not. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this has ever been officially discussed before. I agree with Ed that there is no easy answer, and that all marketed drugs are notable as there is a potential that readers will turn to Wikipedia for information on them, but for experimental drugs there is no "cutoff". With regard to including, say, information on an experimental drug into the article on the disease it is intended to treat or help manage, if I observe and recall correctly the members of our medicine projects seem to use Phase III trials as this cutoff. We do, however, have articles on drugs which are not yet at this stage of development, such as some drugs mentioned in the NCI's Cancer Dictionary. In my humble opinion, if there is enough information from reliable, scholarly sources to build a comprehensive, accurate article, not violating our guideline of not being a crystal ball and not misleading potential readers, then it could be covered, even if at earlier stages of development. I'd say it is a matter of common sense and should be looked at on a case-by-case basis; no notability guideline is applicable in all circumstances. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Pgr94 for raising this thread, the articles previously queried to me were Pralatrexate, Ocrelizumab, CHHIP, Apolizumab, Beraprost, CytRx. Now CHHIP as an oncology trial seems notable, in as much as most cancer patients are in some form of trial as the field of oncology constantly develops. Also CHHIP is "out there" in the real world being applied to large number of patients; but I would agree that that article needs properly sourcing and citing. What though of the other articles in this list ? David Ruben ^Talk 18:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so here are some of key criteria for drug notability mentioned above:

• phase III or later, including marketed drugs (and presumably ex-marketed drugs)
• blockbuster/first-in-class/novel mechanism of action or patented (can't be patented without being novel)
• popular news media

These criteria are very inclusive and most drug candidates satisfy at least one (e.g. few drugs reach trials without patent protection). Perhaps it is useful to ask the inverse question: when is a drug not notable? Reversing the above conditions suggests generics/bioequivalents that haven't made it to phase III and that haven't attracted media attention. Is that a sensible criterion? Will it cover many drug candidates? Is there a problem with simply allowing all drug candidates - are there going to be so many as to be unuseful? Pgr94 12:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think these criteria exclude most drug candidates. Every new drug candidate will be patented (very few exceptions) - so I don't think this should affect whether it's notable enough or not for Wikipedia. However, a majority of drug candidates that enter clinical trials never become marketed drugs (in some areas such as CNS, the success rate is ~10%). A majority of drug candidates will fall out of development before they get any significant media attention. And, of course, most drugs are not first in class. As to the issue of generics - we typically have articles based on the active drug substance which will include the branded drug and also later generic/bioequivalents. --Ed (Edgar181) 12:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As Ed said, WP articles are (or should be) on the active substance, so generics and all relevant formulations should be covered by the one article. We do break this rule sometimes (e.g. Actiq and fentanyl) and should probably look into such "forks" eventually. I do think allowing all drug candidates would be a bit much—since the drug discovery/development process is lengthy and few will ever make it to the market, many articles of little interest (specialist or otherwise) would be left. The question is, how little interest is enough interest? Some drug candidates will of course be notable precisely for their failure to ever reach marketing status, such as torcetrapib and TGN1412.

Before writing an article on a drug, although I've started few, the first question that comes to my mind is "has it been assigned an INN?" I usually think, if it's only still known by its codename, it's probably too early to have an article on it. That may be quite naïve on my part, and hasn't stopped me from creating articles such as AZD2171 (still in Phase I) but I like "quick and dirty" criteria. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Patented is irrelevant to notability IMO. Colin°^Talk 14:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Has anyone ever heard of this? I haven't, my usual sources turn up nothing, and the drugbox has apparently been copied from heroin. Based on the creator's contributions, I'm thinking of sending it to AfD as a hoax. Perhaps it was a typo (thinking of diamorphine?) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Yep. I parsed it as Diamorphine & had to read it twice. Looks like it meets WP:CSD#G1 - Alison ☺ 20:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per your reasoning and comments at WP:CHEM (cross-posted there, forgot to notify here—sorry!), I'm tempted to redirect it to heroin as a typo of diamorphine. One could then argue for CSD R3, but I am of the opinion that redirects are cheap :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yep. I say do it, so - Alison ☺ 02:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Feeling BOLD today :) Redirected. It looks like the chemists agree & nothing links directly to it - Alison ☺ 02:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the psychiatric articles are laid out in completely different orders and discuss different topics. It is difficult to compare the medications because you can't go to one page, notice a side effect and then go to the next and look at the same section to see how it differs.

Many of these articles have been filled by anonymous contributors, sometimes with a rather anti-psychopharmacological agenda. I should think that a restructuring of these articles should be accompanied by a pruning of biased waffle. JFW | T@lk 13:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find many primary sources on this novel oral anticoagulant being developed by Bristol-Myers-Squibb. Does anyone have access on its synthetic history (e.g. is it chemically related to rivaroxaban) and recent trials being conducted? JFW | T@lk 13:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apixaban is a factor Xa inhbitor that is structurally similar to rivaroxaban (it has the phenyl-morpholinone portion in common). It is in clinical trials (not sure at what stage, but rivaroxaban is further ahead). I can give you a list of literature/patent references if you would like. --Ed (Edgar181) 19:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would love some literature. Please dump it on my talkpage... Cheers. JFW | T@lk 23:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since it's a bit long I put it on a user subpage here. As far as I know, it's a complete list from Chem Abstr. of references that mention "apixaban". --Ed (Edgar181) 12:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. Will work on it... Don't have it deleted. Do you mind if I move it to my own userspace? JFW | T@lk 15:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to copy or move it. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Would you like me to kill off the resultant redirect? JFW | T@lk 14:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I recently started and partially developed the article mitotic inhibitor. I beleive it has a high importance to this project, because of its extreme importance in the research and treatment of cancer. I am new to wikipedia, so any help writing and formatting the article up to wikipedias standards would be very helpful. Also, at the moment, there is still a lot to be said about mitotic inhibitors. It would be great if someone could assess the article for quality and importance. Dancanm 18:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, and welcome. I've assessed the article—very nice work, by the way—and done some minor cleanup. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's WikiProject Pharmacology's position on including advertisements in articles about drugs (see Diazepam, Fluphenazine, Trifluoperazine)? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:25, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, IMHO this meets Wikipedia's non-free content criteria. I can't say they're really necessary or add that much to the articles; historical ads could be very appropriate to illustrate, say, a History section (as in diazepam, although that image is unacceptably large) as opposed to just "being" in an article with very little content (such as fluphenazine). I am also slightly bothered by the images' high resolution, and by the presence of two ads in fluphenazine where one would suffice. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The images need rationales, by the way. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:53, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the advertisements provide some historical context. I've been arguing that the inclusion of pharma ads is akin to e.g. including the ads for Coca-Cola article. Andrew73 11:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the specific articles discussed the marketing history of the product, I would be more likely to agree with you. But right now they just appear as old advertisements with little to no context in the article as a whole. So I would vote to remove them unless there was some specific reason why that ad was significant and if it was, then it should state so in the caption and in the article's text. Remember 14:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I do feel (as I mentioned above) that they are appropriate for and can enrich the History sections of articles. Granted, as U.S. ads one may argue that they also add geographical bias, etc. No-one has raised this point, but I don't think such...historical ads could ever be construed as an endorsement of the product? If they meet WP:NFCC I personally see no reason to remove them all. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If they're used to illustrate a discussion of the history of the drug, then that would probably be OK. As it now stands, I am disputing whether or not the images used in Diazepam, Fluphenazine, and Trifluoperazine are acceptable. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Remember the dot, plus I like his name. Remember 17:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the one on diazepam is certainly acceptable; IMHO it perfectly accompanies the statement "Diazepam was the top-selling pharmaceutical in the United States from 1969 to 1982, with peak sales in 1978 of 2.3 billion pills." Unfortunately, the resolution is very high and, right now, the image is following the drugbox; if the History section were moved to the bottom of the article (contrary to WP:MEDMOS, but MEDMOS is not set in stone) it would be a great fit.

I wouldn't object to the removal of the other images, or to their deletion—it doesn't look like these articles will be expanded anytime soon, and I've no time at the moment to do it myself :( Any takers? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:13, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the urgency to delete these images. For example, take the ads for fluphenazine. The themes and images used in the ad typify the views of schizophrenia and its treatment at the time (this ad is from the 1980s). You could contrast that with ads for e.g. Zyprexa, etc. I'll add the appropriate information for fair use. Andrew73 22:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have been working on it for a while. I thought that it could help us a bit when making searches for articles about organic compounds, as Wikipedia does not have it or at least i'm not aware if there is one. It is in a very basic form right now and contains only 229 entries but i've been adding new features almost every other weekend (some of them you will find quite familiar) and i will continue to do it, plus i'm constantly adding new entries as well, so nothing is final and there is plenty of room for improvement - for an example a "Search" can be done only for the different identifiers (PubChem, CAS, etc), for a string in the name and synonyms, and for the chemical composition which are all in the "General" tab of the "Search" form - the form opens up after moving the mouse over the "Actions" in the navigation row, and the clicking on "Search" in the pull down menu that pops out.

I hope you find it usefull. Any "how to be improved" feedback would be welcomed.

P.S. It DOES NOT work in Dumxplorer. Once i used to take my time to make the javascript code run on Dumxplorer too but i just got tired of it and now i stubbornly refuse to do it. Opera (I recommend it) and Firefox run it fine. -- Boris 10:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Attention, fellow WP:PHARM members :) I've proposed the creation of a new template to be used in articles on combination medications (such as co-trimoxazole and ampicillin/sulbactam). Discussion is here. Input is welcome :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion on Talk:Psychoactive_drug - a Venn diagram on Psychoactive_drug which some editors feel constitutes OR and is incorrect. Would be good to get some pharmacologists and or medicos in on it. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was today again confronted with a horrible case of drug-bashing. Duloxetine is another case of a poorly organised page on a psychopharmacological substance written almost entirely by anons and loaded from beginning to end with doubtful criticism. That includes case reports on possible side effects (generally very poor sources on actual drug safety) and so on.

Which brings me to Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction. This equally hair-raising article sprung to life a few months after I'd had a very long argument on the same subject with Shibidee (talk · contribs). A careful literature search at that point showed that this was a non-existent entity that was being promulgated heavily on blogs and forums. (Hmm, depression also causes sexual dysfunction. How on earth are you going to distinguish between the two?) I'm very reluctant to get personally involved, but I feel it is high time that we start applying very strict criteria to the articles on psychopharmacological drugs. Isn't it rather odd that these claims are by and large only made on psychopharmaca? (Yes, I know about Roaccutane and interferon.) JFW | T@lk 11:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank goodness we can change these pages, am I right? I will see if I can do anything to fix up these articles. MessedRocker (talk) 13:14, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned that one anonymous user is repeatedly adding material to Isotretinoin which isn't supported by research. The user is claiming that low dose treatment is just as effective as FDA-approved treatment without citing sources. diff

I would like another voice in this discussion as I'm confident that this anonymous user is adding original research. Rhobite 10:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like it. They also removed sources (whether intentionally or otherwise), and additions such as the following are IMHO unacceptable with or without a citation:

In countries that do not restrict distribution of isotretinoin, pharmacists recommend 5mg to 10mg per day, since at lower dosages many of the adverse effects are diminished or non-existent.

Which countries? Who are these pharmacists? Is this reduction in adverse effects anecdotal? Has it been published? Sorry to be abrupt, but that's OR until proven otherwise, and thus—fortunately of unfortunately—inadmissible. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bupropion is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bupropion. The Pharm project might want to add {{MCOTWannounce}} to its mainpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've recently begun going through the list of unassessed articles, assessing each one for class (quality) and importance. For quality, I am rating each one using the standard wikipedia grading scale (stub < start < B < GA < A < FA). Of course, GA & FA require nominations, but I don't have to worry about that since 99.9% of these articles are falling under the first three quality classes, and not the developed ones,... I guess we got a lot of work to do.

For the importance assessment, I'm trying to fit everything into the following general scale: