Talk:Medicinal plants/Archive 1

Archive 1

Proposal for wikiproject: Medicinal botany

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Medicinal botany

Project to organize botanical pharmaceutical research from traditional origins and modern science. This is to make it easier to document traditional medicines (Ayurveda, Amazonian, etc) that are passed down verbally and not written down. Mainly to preserve folk/traditional/passed down information on medicinal plants, while disclosing this. This rather than quickly erasing it, because the medical community says so, while keeping a focus on safety using modern unbiased research. Include ethnobotany, and modern science. There is no project covering this specific subject, and it would draw a lot of attention. - from page. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 19:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

A WikiProject is a group of people, not a topic. If you don't actually have a group of people, then you should consider merging with WP:WikiProject Alternative medicine, whose members are already interested in ethnobotany and related subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It was premature, sorry. It should be a taskforce under plants, medicine or alternative medicine and linked from the other two, and possibly from other projects. I addressed some concerns on the proposal page. I put the page on hold, and left it as a blueprint. Sidelight12 ^Talk 21:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Conversion to article

This can work out as an article rather than as a disambiguation page, although it may overlap with other articles. Sidelight12 ^Talk 19:34, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Overlap is fine - just about everything worth having an article about overlaps with other things worth having an article about. However, this is a great opportunity to show how different aspects of medicinal plants relate to one another, and have developed historically. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:41, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The more I researched and thought about it, the more it makes sense. The article Herbalism makes it sound as if it covers all of medicinal plants, which I think its just a major aspect and not the whole subject. Does anyone think they differ? Sidelight12 ^Talk 23:39, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Definition

Herb in herbalism has two different definitions:

"a seed plant that does not develop persistent woody tissue but dies down at the end of a growing season" - Websters

"a plant or plant part valued for its medicinal, savory, or aromatic qualities" - Websters

Whether or not herbalism and medicinal plants are the exact subject or not, it seems like medicinal plants is better suited for overall medicines. Sidelight12 ^Talk 00:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

on article

This shouldn't merge into herbalism, because that is the wrong name for the subject. Information got crammed into herbalism that belongs in medicinal plants or phytotherapy. Herbalism is the traditional use of plants in medicine, it doesn't cover modern phytotherapy. This page should either be a disambiguation page to the two topics of phytotherapy and herbalism; merge with phytotherapy; herbalism needs a name change or information from herbalism needs to be moved to an appropriate article. Sidelight12 ^Talk 04:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

This shouldn't merge into herbalism. It can possibly merge into phytotherapy. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 02:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Considering converting this back into a disambiguation page. Again, Herbalism is not the right page for a lot of the content in it, but its too much of a mess to fix with possible editor conflicts. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 14:53, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstand what a disambiguation page is. If there were an album titled Medicinal Plants and a town named "Medicinal Plants" and person named "Medicinal Plants", then it would be appropriate to have a disambiguation page because there would be multiple unrelated topic sharing the exact same name. That is what disambiguation pages are for, and is all they are for. See WP:DABCONCEPT; compare, e.g., Particle, which is an abstract concept, and has a page to describe the many ways in which something can be a "particle", but also has a separate disambiguation page to distinguish unrelated concepts with the same name, such as the rock band named "Particle". Cheers! bd2412 T 15:00, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I thought about the herbalism page some more. That page looks fine, and the only problem is its title. "herbalism" sounds like a hippie title, with no focus on modern medicine. But the page is also about modern medicinal plants, which I missed the first time I looked at it. This page could merged into that one, provided that the title changes. If the title stays as herbalism, no go. Phytotherapy is also equal weight, so it should also get the redirects to it. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 15:22, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Phytotherapy is probably the better target, as it is the more scientific treatment, and it already mentions herbalism. bd2412 T 15:30, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The herbalism page's content has content just like this page. It says how medicinal plants are used for modern pharmaceuticals, and so forth. The title is what irritates me, but if you look at the content its about medicinal plants in both modern and traditional use (I made the mistake of thinking it omitted modern medicine). The phytotherapy title is more respectable than herbalism. While phytotherapy is a highly scientific and good article, the content here matches better with the content in herbalism. It looks like phytotherapy is about individual extracts and not the plant as a whole. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 15:55, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

See restructuring discussions at talk:herbalism - Sidelight12 ^Talk 14:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Revert massive copyvio of 28 November 2013

I started to question the revert. Then I noticed how the text was copied line per line from at least one referenced source. I wish people knew proper editing etiquette, to avoid that. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 01:24, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with List of medicinal plants of the Herero people

Too short for its own article Wayne Jayes (talk) 15:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

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Previous merger

This edit merged material (some of it wrong) for elsewhere on Wikipedia without attribution.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:37, 25 April 2016 (UTC).

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article being hacked

If i remember this article (or similar) had contained plants used for local anesthetic or anti-inflammatory or both - which of course both of would be sought in ancient times.

I see a huge move on google and on wikipedia to REMOVE historic remedies and replace them with faulty chinese ones (known to be faulty/poisonous/unproven) - and replace this information with:

• charts suggesting grocery store herbs are what has medicinal value (ie to increase sales at grocery stores)

• MANY REFERENCES TO MARAJUANA and opium as medicinal (ie, in place of the more common plant actually used as anesthetic historically) - ie to hack in false history that marajuana has a historic medicinal record. it doesn't.

• missing charts on google of plants and what medications they are used to make

ie, what is anesthesia ? and how did anesthesia get it's name ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.207.25 (talk) 15:15, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

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Original research

What actually is a "medicinal plant"? The article doesn't say. There's lot of stuff about insect defenses (so, not "medicinal") and a lot of original research about chemicals (from sources that don't mention "medicinal plants"). Suggest a radical prune - anything that's left then can be merged to Herbalism. Alexbrn (talk) 05:46, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

The article is rather explicit on the matter, it's a plant with phytochemicals that are pharmacologically active and that can and often have been used medicinally, whether in traditional or modern medicine. Plants did not evolve in order to become medicinal, but to adapt to their environment: for example, many plants have acquired chemical defences in the form of substances with medicinal uses to defend themselves against herbivores (including herbivorous insects). The mention of defences is thus absolutely relevant and indeed central as a scientific explanation here. I believe these things are rather clearly stated in the article, but I'm absolutely open to improvements in clarity, and indeed in citation. There is certainly no cause for removing cited materials: when reliable sources are being quoted, there is no hint of original research. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:46, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't say that, but has weird phrases like "taking plants as medicine". If this just an article about plants from which extracted substances have had exposure in the field of medicine, then it's just phyotherapy - which is covered elsewhere on WP. You restored a load of content which is not in WP:SYNC with the main articles it references and has little to do with medicines, except through WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS, and the fancy of WP:FRINGE (ayurveda and aromatherapy, I ask you!). Alexbrn (talk) 19:58, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm happy to fix wording, which I don't find weird; and splashing "WP:" appellations about isn't specially helpful, or a substitute for understanding what the article is about. Herbalism and phytotherapy (which are basically two names for the same thing) involve one kind of use of medicinal plants: Western medicine is another, and aromatherapy, whatever its merits and demerits, is a third: and it too is covered by Wikipedia. Some forms of herbalism are scientific; some systems like ayurveda are ancient and have nothing to do with science, we agree, but they still make use of medicinal plants, and are rightly covered. The fact that traditional and fringe systems make use of certain plants does not mean that plants do not contain active substances which have been used medicinally for centuries, and in some cases which remain in use in Western medicine today. There is therefore a separation between the articles on various practices you mention such as ayurveda and herbalism, and the topic of this article which is the plants themselves. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

So if the article is merely about "plants themselves" which happen to have been used in phytochemistry/phytotherapy then the content doesn't reflect that. And I'm not convinced that topic is a distinct one covered in RS: the source don't seem to be about the topic you think this is (except through OR/syn) Alexbrn (talk) 20:10, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

It is normal and indeed necessary in an article on X to include sections on the uses of X and to provide links to such uses; similarly to the history of X, again with links; and to other (sub)topics of X that are widely considered relevant. I (and other editors) have not invented anything about medicinal plants, an ancient and well-established topic. Botanists and pharmacologists have studied medicinal plants intensively for over a century, because of their possible and sometimes demonstrated value to medicine, and a great deal is known about their properties: a little of that is summarized here. The reliably published scientific literature on medicinal plants is voluminous (indeed, the entire science of ethnobotany is concerned with them, and entire journals (e.g. [1], [2]) are devoted to them): it couldn't be further from WP:OR. The article here is intended to serve as a brief introduction to the history and science of the subject. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:18, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

So now you say it's not just about "the plants themselves" but also "the uses of" the plants themselves. Except it's not. it got content on alkaloids and so on, the derived substances, which despite a link to a "main article" are in fact not in WP:SYNC with those main article but are forks. In fact the whole super-section you restored claims to have phytochemistry as its main article, but complete fails to summarize that article. Material on phytochemicals should go in phytochemistry. Alexbrn (talk) 20:30, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Not at all. It's absolutely about the plants. But an article about bananas includes (go and look) sections on history, cultivation, nutrition, and culture, why should it not. An article on medicinal plants includes sections on what they contain (powerful pharmacologically active chemicals), and how they are used: of course it must. Good night, let's see what other editors have to say. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:06, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

If you use the {{main}} template, you imply that you are writing a summary article  – see WP:Summary style for details. This requires the section in this parent article to be a reasonable summary of the corresponding daughter article. If that's not what is intended, then a different template such as {{further}} or {{see also}} are better alternatives. In any case, I disagree with the summaries/content in the sections under Phytochemistry. For example, who has classified berberine as a medicine? Where's the MEDRS source for that? In what sense is tobacco a medicine? What is treated with psilocin? And so on. If a substance is not a medicine (definition: a substance or preparation used in treating disease), then this article has no business calling it a medicine, or medicinal. Even if some snake oil salesman recommends a substance to treat a condition, if it doesn't have any effectiveness in treatment, then it's still not a medicine. If you want an article on physiological effects of substances found in plants, try Phytochemistry, but that topic is not appropriate for inclusion in an article titled "Medicinal plants". I suggest that all of the phtyochemicals that have no MEDRS source for their effectiveness in treating a condition be removed from mention in this article. That ought to be a good first step in meeting the objections raised by Alexbrn. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 21:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. I have used 'further' links as you suggest. I have cited nicotine and berberine, both of which have a long history of medicinal use, and removed psilocin, which is active but not used as a medicine. I'll review further. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:50, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Good articles and featured articles on topics that have any number of subtopics use {{main}} to point to lower class articles that may or may not contain as great of a summary or body as the well written one. It may be "advisable" that these subtopic articles are improved first, but are we really going to force editors to improve articles in a certain order? Why are basic policy pages being thrown at an editor incredibly experienced in content creation as if they don't understand the concept of original research?

Perhaps the Phytochemistry section could be made into more of a summary and less of an all-encompassing list, but suggesting that specific compounds (perhaps, maybe just some examples that are well described) are unrelated to the article is silly. FA Diamond has a whole #Industry section, and I don't think that human industry and the human diamond market are more relevant to a diamond than phytochemicals are to plants—specifically an article about plants that contain them.

Maybe a "Modern criticism" section is what we're looking for to resolve concerns of undue weight, but throwing an OR maintenance tag on a recent GA that is completely sourced by primarily journal articles is absurd. (As is attempting to remove a well written and sourced section from a GA without some sort of consensus.) Whether or not one agrees with the scientific validity of every journal or book referenced in this article is not relevant to its verifiability. – Rhinopias (talk) 03:03, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. I've added a "Context" section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:50, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

The point is this is meant to be a topic about plants. If there's to be content about chemicals (and the effects of chemicals) then that should surely go in the phytochemistry article. Or should that article remain silent about such phytochemicals so they can all be lumped in here? Alexbrn (talk) 06:12, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

@Rhinopias: there's nothing silly about insisting that an article about medicinal plants deals solely with the plant-derived substances that treat medical conditions. That's the definition of "medicine". We have strong project-wide consensus that any biomedical claims are referenced to good quality secondary source, per WP:MEDRS. Anybody who writes medical content needs to be aware of our policies such as MEDRS, and you would also benefit from reading WP:Summary style before starting to pontificate about the {{main}} template. GAs and FAs especially are expected to following the documentation in that template which begins "This template is used after the heading of the summary, to link to the subtopic article that has been summarized". Do you honestly see the sections within Phytochemical basis as summaries of the articles that they point to? It's nothing to do with the class of the article, only to do with summarising. if the sub-articles are not being summarised (for whatever reason), then you don't use a {{main}} template. It's as simple as that. Why are you questioning the advice of a incredibly experienced all-round editor who is correctly explaining the MEDRS policy and the use of the {{main}} template as if I don't understand MEDRS and WP:SS?

No, we don't need a "Modern criticism" section. that's completely the wrong way round. If modern mainstream medicine is critical of the hogwash being claimed as medicine, then that's what the article needs to say. There's a case for including belief in the curative powers of non-effective plant extracts and that sort of nonsense in the "History" section, but we're not doing our readers any favours by trying to pretend that tobacco is useful to treat any known condition. It's time to bring this article into line with our policies and guidelines. --RexxS (talk) 13:58, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

My comments were not all directed at you, RexxS, so I apologize for making it seem so by indenting following your comment and not giving more context. The "basic policy pages being thrown" was a response to Alexbrn's linking of WP:OR, which I read as patronizing. Your MEDRS points are most definitely valid and I am in no way supporting the portrayal of pseudoscience as science anywhere. (Also, "modern criticism" was not a good section title to suggest—my thought was to add scientific context of this material, which Chiswick Chap interpreted.)

I agree that important points have been raised, and I do not have enough prior knowledge of or expertise in this subject to feel comfortable enough helping to resolve concerns. I disagree with the approach that Alexbrn has taken in drawing attention to this article's issues through multiple forums (perhaps unintentionally, but) in a frantic, dramatic manner instead of discussing with a recent contributor to the article their concerns relating to it. – Rhinopias (talk) 02:59, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

"Multiple forums"? You're wrong about that too. You're also wrong about it being wise to discuss issues with "a recent contributor" since this keeps the conversation away from many eyes and so does not allow proper formation of consensus. Alexbrn (talk) 03:52, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

This talk page and FT/N within two minutes of each other should count as "multiple" so I don't see how I'm wrong. Discussing the content of an article on its talk page seems like a good start to me to form a consensus about the specific article's content, but if all editors who would've disagreed with your edits to the article (and would have reverted them) were informed by you on this talk page of your concerns and agreed with you, no further consensus would be necessary?

You approached this article—which passed GA, so obviously someone had invested some level of energy into it—in a combative manner and did not assume good faith. (By "a recent contributor" I didn't mean an IP editor who made two quick changes, but someone who spent time finding and referencing all of these articles.) Maybe "I don't agree with the validity of the sources in XYZ sections per WP:MEDRS" instead of "… a lot of original research …" or "I don't think this content is relevant because X, but some of the information may be relevant in Phytochemical if sourced properly" instead of "Suggest a radical prune - anything that's left …" wouldn't have drawn my attention to this discussion. This discussing back and forth now isn't helpful when changes have been/are being made. I think I've said what I wanted to. – Rhinopias (talk) 05:08, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

This should not have been made GA, and I am considering listing it for review. There is a core of medicine in this topic that is not adequately addressed even now, and it fails NPOV because of that. Jytdog (talk) 05:26, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: What ought the article to say, then? I am absolutely non-partisan about medicine/alternative medicine, and am willing to write whatever is needed for balance. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:30, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I am not claiming any bad intentions, and figured you would reply just as you have. The work Alexbrn has been doing is going in that direction. I will try to add some as well. We just need to clearly distinguish between prescientific use in traditional medicine, the contemporary claims of alt med herbalists, the claims of dietary supplementary marketers, and what medical science actually has to say. There are four distinct buckets here. Jytdog (talk) 18:29, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. I've done some work in response to Alexbrn's concerns. I think the article is rather clear now on pre-sci trad and on the science; I've largely avoided alt med and supplement claims as WP:ADV and in any case mainly the domain of other articles: if we have to say anything on those, it will have to be extremely cautious. The main thing that is said is that if they work at all, it's via pharmacological effects, with all the risks that that implies: and that's carefully cited. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:47, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Berberine

May I use this as an example of the difficulties the current article has in considering the use of medicinal plants? Berberine, which can be derived from several plants, has potential as an agent to lower blood sugar and therefore may be a candidate as an Anti-diabetic medication in treating Diabetes mellitus type 2; in plant form, it has also undoubtedly been used as a folk medicine for thousands of years. The problem comes when our article states "Berberine is the main active component of an ancient Chinese herb Coptis chinensis French, which has been used to treat diabetes for thousands of years". I'm sorry, but there's no sound evidence that Berberine has ever been able to treat diabetes. I understand that there may be a difference of opinion in whether "to treat" should include uses where there is no effect, but we are misleading our readers if they are able to draw a conclusion that such uses were efficacious. I'll try another form of wording to lessen the chance of misinterpretation. The source pmid:18442638 is a single pilot study and although it may be usable to support the claim that Berberine has been used for millennia, it can't be used to imply that it was able to treat diabetes.

There will be other places where the article presents at face value claims made by traditional medicine uncritically, or reports historical uses without giving the modern perspective. The requirements of MEDRS are clear that any biomedical claim, explicit or implied, needs to be sourced to a high quality, published, reliable secondary source. --RexxS (talk) 15:25, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

All I intend to say here is historical, that Berberine has historically been used. The paper is a reliable source on the history and was quoted as such: I note that the paper's authors used the word "treat" to mean "treat traditionally": I don't believe this implies anything about the article as a whole, which does not adopt any kind of credulous attitude to folk claims: it just states that such claims were made. Since you've edited the quoted text, I've removed the quotation marks: it had been a literal quote from a paper.Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:34, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

This kind of content is really difficult. In my view it is fine to discuss traditional medicine in "history" or in "society and culture" sections in a purely descriptive way about what people X did at time Y, and to use non-MEDRS sources for this, but a) there are a lot of really bad sources so picking them needs to be done with great care, and b) the language needs to be really careful to avoid doing whig history or being anachronistic. What is being referred to by the word "diabetes" for say, people in ancient China using berberine, and also for people in China just 100 years ago? The word cannot mean the same thing for what they were "treating" as the clinical entity we mean when we say "diabetes" today. Even "treating" probably had a different meaning than what we mean when we say that word. Jytdog (talk) 15:50, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: My advancing years means that my eyesight is poor enough to miss quotation marks; thank you for fixing that. I would recommend though, that sources such as that are not quoted directly when they may be taken to make claims of a biomedical nature. Yin at al have assembled nowhere near enough evidence through that study to have the authority to claim that berberine is capable of treating diabetes. Even if you intend "treat" to mean "administer", once a reader can infer a reasonable alternate meaning (e.g. "to use drugs, exercises, etc. to cure a person of a disease or heal an injury"), then that meaning must also be supportable. In these cases, it can't be. HTH --RexxS (talk) 16:10, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks for the explanation. Certainly we must be careful here. I've added some clarifications to the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:17, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I've moved the (partial) list of chemicals over to Phytochemistry, which normalizes the content a bit. Alexbrn (talk) 05:27, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

No, that's utterly wrong, misguided, and against what consensus there is. It doesn't "normalize" anything, it breaks it. I'll willingly make a pass through the section to avoid "whiggishness" (not mine, actually), and to reword berberine accordingly, but removing the action of plants whose distinction is being pharmacologically/medically active is just illogical.

To be plain, humans are interested in medicinal plants because a) they are medicinal and b) they have been and still are used medicinally. Therefore, the article necessarily covers both (a) and (b). Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:42, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

You've reverted a lot of other stuff and left the content duplicated now in two article. You'll clean up properly I trust rather than just mashing the revert key. Anyway, since these are chemical they belong in the phytochemistry article (otherwise why do we have a template pointing to that article?) Alexbrn (talk) 07:45, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I haven't looked at other articles (just now) but for the sake of harmony I'll be happy to do so if you wish; my concern is for the moment here. As for the link, it has by consensus been changed to "further", i.e. there is related but not necessarily directly summarized material in the other article: that means we already agreed that the "main" link was not the right one here, you were correct about that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:35, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Wait - we've been discussing whether this article is redundant because of other articles; content and you haven't looked at them! Please confirm you're going to restore my wording improvements and remove the duplicate content too, otherwise you are creating an even worse problem than we have got now. Alexbrn (talk) 09:00, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I've absolutely studied them over the past year, I'm just not concerned with improving them at this moment. I will happily remove any duplicate content in other articles if there is anything superfluous there. The content in this article is I believe entirely appropriate to its topic, the pharmacological action of medicinal plants being one of the central planks of the article. Some overlap with related articles is inevitable and correct. Of course, if there are specific items that are not needed, we can discuss that and refine the text. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:19, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Facepalm but this is the entire point. I know you announced you would withdraw from the discussion at WP:FT/N but there are some useful thoughts there about needing a plan for this entire topic area. Not engaging with that problem makes it hard for solve the problems which pretty much everybody else seems to agree we face. Listing phytochemicals in an article about plants when we already have a (too sparse) article about phytochemicals looks unhelpful, to say the least. Alexbrn (talk) 09:35, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Before I reply on the technical matters, I would like to ask you please to tone down your replies and assume that I and other editors involved have made good faith, serious, and impartial efforts to improve the encyclopedia, and that they may perhaps have a small smattering of intelligence. Gestures, sudden actions, loud noises and symbols all bespeak a degree of emotionality which is not conducive to a constructive discussion. I intend to improve this article, indeed the discussion so far has already led to several consensus changes such as a new Context section, and I expect it to lead to more. So please, bear with those who disagree with you, and we will get a better article out of it.

If that's agreed, let me just say we absolutely aren't "listing phytochemicals" here, we are just sketching out a very brief summary of the major kinds of substance that make medicinal plants medicinal. I know of no needless redundancy with any other article, and "medicinal plants" is a major topic (with numerous scientific journals dedicated to it, as I mentioned already). The poor state of the other article is a shame, and I would love to work on it sometime, but that isn't our immediate concern here. The concern is to make the article clear, correct, and coherent. I think it's that already, but I'm perfectly willing to improve anything that needs attention. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

The consensus seems to be this is a poor article and the topic space needs to be rationalized. Doing that requires looking at the wider topic space. This is also being discussed at WT:MED, which you may wish to look at. You still haven't restored all the other changes I made (e.g. around the "allopathic" terminology), or do you disagree with every single one of those too? Alexbrn (talk) 10:00, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I've reluctantly replied at FT/N, and am sorry to hear there is now yet another forum: having three intertwined discussions is very unlikely to lead to an orderly process. I'll have a look at the "other" changes now, which I expect will be fine. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:08, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I've restored your small changes, which were very helpful, thank you. The claims you queried were from the named source, Smith-Hall: I've repeated the ref for clarity. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:16, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Context section

I and others wrote the context (a few days ago, in response to the comments made above) using Smith-Hall, which I cited. There is no close paraphrasing there, a serious and baseless allegation. A direct text-to-text comparison just now gave "Violation Unlikely 4.8% confidence", and the only matching phrases were "are tested for efficacy and side-effects" and "European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products", neither an issue for copyright. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:14, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

We can't avoid WP:CLOP/plagiarism problems just by changing the odd word here or there, juggling word order and inserting padding. Taking the authors' concept(s) from their source and asserting it, unattributed, in Wikipedia's voice is not on - and in this case since the source article is the proposal of the author's own "conceptual framework" , this is particularly so. This section could probably be re-cast as the views of Smith-Hall, Larsen & Pouliotof (but then would by undue?). Anyway in the current edit there's:

• Source: We distinguish three main types of benefits accruing from medicinal plant use: consumer, producer and society-wide benefits. ...
• WP: Medicinal plants provide three main kinds of benefit: health benefits to the people who consume them as medicines; financial benefits to people who harvest, process, and distribute them for sale; and society-wide benefits such as job opportunities, taxation income, and a healthier labour force

or,

• Source: Medicinal plants, defined as plants used for maintaining health and/or treating specific ailments, are used in a plethora of ways in both allopathic and traditional systems of medicine in countries across the world.
• WP: A medicinal plant is a plant that is used to maintain health, to treat a specific condition, or both, whether in modern (allopathic) medicine or in traditional systems of medicine.

or,

• Source: There is thus a medicinal plant reliance continuum: from people who consume solely allopathic medicine to users having no alternative to using medicinal plants for a majority of their health care treatments.
• WP: There is a continuous spectrum of plant use from fully allopathic medicine to almost total reliance on medicinal plants

I'm pinging Moonriddengirl for another pair of eyes, hoping I'm wrong. Alexbrn (talk) 12:47, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

No, you were right about the Context: goes to show the risks of editing hastily under violent controversy, something I'm not accustomed to. Many sources are available for this (frankly uncontroversial) section, and I doubt anybody in the field would disagree that medicinal plants are intended for use as treatments or to maintain health, really. I've attributed the health benefits section directly to Smith-Hall et al, and am rewriting the rest with fresh sources. I've cited and attributed the FAO, Royal Botanic Gardens and others. Hope you're happy with the result. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:39, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

"about why medicinal plants are useful"?

User:Chiswick Chap this edit note is troubling... it says focus: section is about why medicinal plants are useful, rm off that topic. Perhaps I am misinterpreting, but it sounds like you want this section to be WP:PROMO and not a neutral description. Jytdog (talk) 21:08, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. The answer is no, not at all, I have no axe to grind either for modern medicine or for herbalism (or nutraceuticals for that matter). All that's being said here is that the section's purpose in the article is to explain why mainstream science believes that medicinal plants are able to function, i.e. why do ethnobotanists bother to go out and collect plants to find new drug candidates, or why do some herbal medicines apparently work, etc: it's completely neutral. The section explains that this is because these plants contain chemicals of the described classes. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:16, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Ah, I hadn't seen you'd done a revert. I would like to remove that sentence as it seems to be off-topic - nothing to do with promo or non-promo, just not in any way relevant to that section of the article, which is the phytochemical basis of medicinal plants. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:27, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if you are familiar with drug discovery and the use of screens, but phytochemicals are very often discussed in the literature about that and there are hundreds of primary sources describing findings of activity in one assay or another. These primary sources are in turn very often cited by people who promote dietary supplements or food ingredients that contain phytochemicals. The fact is that many, many phytochemicals stick to everything and are pan-assay interference compounds. This is essential factual information. not off topic at all. Jytdog (talk) 21:30, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes indeed, you're absolutely correct about that subject, but you've made clear what I already believed, that it's also absolutely not the purpose of this section of the article, which is not "how does drug discovery work" but "why do medicinal plants work". It's just a matter of focus for this section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:41, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

But since we need to mention discovery also ... the sentence will be useful over there. I've moved it to where it fits, hope you're pleased with the result. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:14, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

GA

Just a small piece of info for anyone who comes in here. This article was discussed on the fringe theories notice board. While it was already officially a GA (good article), it had many issues imho. Chiswick Chap has done a great job fixing that and distinguishing this article from related articles, such as herbalism. Please feel free to ping me (or perhaps Chiswick Chap) for major issues with the article if any ever come up. PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 12:01, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Usage; drug discovery sections

The usage section is still sourced to FRINGE-hyping refs that need to be cleaned up. (calling pre-scientific herbal medicine "effective" as is quoted there violates the PSCI policy for example). Some of the content there belongs in the drug discovery section. I have to run; will try to clean this up tonight. Jytdog (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

I've removed the only 2 instances of the word "effective" from the article, though neither of them asserted that herbal medicines were that. The "Effectiveness" section doesn't say that they work either, rather the reverse, but the section ought to include a sentence or two on how plant-derived pharmaceuticals are tested for effectiveness (the same way as all other modern pharmaceuticals, of course), if you feel like doing that. On the sections you mention, nothing at all is said to talk up anything remotely fringe: no claims are made that any pharmacologist would have any trouble with, and indeed nearly everything in those sections is about conventional pharmaceuticals. If you feel like replacing sources with better ones, that's fine, but it's hard to think of any good reason for disputing any of the (very bland) claims made in those sections for non-medical matters. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:40, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, could you please clarify which sentences conflict with WP policies and link the policies. I've read the article from my personal scientific background and didn't notice these issues. PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 05:34, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I am in the middle of reworking the usage section based on WHO documents; the refs there are flakey like mad. And there is content there that belongs in the drug discovery section but needs better refs. working on it. Jytdog (talk) 05:38, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:13, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

WHO

The WHO has been doing a lot of work on this, which is interesting in that they are trying to remain scientifically rigorous but deal with the needs of people in poor countries as well as claims of countries like India and China that are wealthy/powerful enough to have pretty strong economies for their traditional medicines and desires to export them (and validate them, on their own bases). So... interesting, and a bit like working in Wikipedia.

I used Chan's 2015 address to a WHO-convened traditional medicine meeting as a ref as well as the mainpage link to IRCH. Other refs from the WHO (Their site constantly breaks its own internal links so it can be frustrating to navigate) that might be useful in this article include:

• "Traditional Medicine: Definitions". World Health Organization. 2000. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
• WHO herbal medicines published guidelines (all are pretty old, unfortunately)
• WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002–2005
• WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014-2023

-- Jytdog (talk) 22:15, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I've created a Regulation section, and added a paragraph there on the WHO strategy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:21, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

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