Wikipedia: The Flawed Non-Encyclopedia

Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD

Progressive Radio Network, May 13, 2020

 

At this very moment, there are highly respected physicians, epidemiologists, medical biostaticians, forensic experts and other scientists coming forth to voice concerns over the information being disseminated in the mainstream media about the COVID-19 pandemic.  In many cases their own professional assessments are at odds with what we hear from the World Health Organization, the CDC, and Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.  In their estimation, these institutions are conveying inaccurate or exaggerated analyses and evaluations that are representative of the nation's poor public healthcare system. Seemingly, every day a new voice joins this choir, which compels us to critically reexamine the entrenched medical establishment's unequivocal statements.

Never before have we been so inundated with fake news, conspiratorial musings, and ideological rants that frequently appear more hallucinatory than factual.  Subjective opinion, biases, and hidden agendas are rampant, and readers and viewers need to be increasingly on their guard to discern truth from fiction. The early scandals in medical journals, which were publishing junk research to favor private pharmaceutical drugs and interests, resulted in rules for authors to list their conflicts of interests with drug companies and other profit-driven institutions. That did not curtail the publication of biased research, which is still endemic;  nevertheless, conflicts were identified and flagged for readers to determine for themselves the papers' accuracy. Medical journals thereby became more transparent.

Similarly, there are hundreds of thousands of voices, including leaders in a variety of medical and health professions, who are voicing warnings about the reliability of information found on the world's most referenced encyclopedia, Wikipedia.  Large segments of the Wikipedia's pages on medical modalities are grossly inaccurate. Worse, much is mean spirited, laced with unbridled vindictive and this presents a very real danger to the public health worldwide.