Talk:Hair analysis (alternative medicine)

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New article

Looks like a POV fork to me--TheNautilus 09:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It separates the subject into its extremely different elements. Right now the hair analysis article is a disambiguation page that causes confusion. The current content here should be removed from the other article, with only a mention and a link to this one left in place. -- Fyslee 10:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Now this article can concentrate on one aspect without any confusion. -- Fyslee 10:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think you should try to participate in writing a technically coherent hair analysis article before running off with a negative POV fork in an unfamiliar subject area. Then it will be less confusing.--TheNautilus 12:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quackery

This discussion is copied here from the Hair analysis article. -- Fyslee 10:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The quackery category could perhaps be applied to a theoretical hair analysis service article, but since the science supporting the validity of hair analysis in general is pretty much taken for granted, there's no reason to apply it to this article. In fact, the only criticism of hair analysis services is from over 20 years ago. --Lee Hunter 20:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this article only covers the subject very briefly, including the legitimate and illegitimate aspects, and doesn't focus exclusively on the current misuse of hair analysis (so the disputed categories stay off), which hasn't changed much in the last 20 years, except for getting more sofisticated and widespread. It is misused even more now, and in many situations.
Here are a few links with plenty of information:
The above policy is based on the following references:
  1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). Hair analysis -- not covered. Medicare Coverage Issues Manual §50-24. Baltimore, MD: HCFA; 2000.
  2. Lazar P. Hair analysis: What does it tell us? JAMA. 1974;229:1908-1909.
  3. Hambidge KM. Hair analyses: Worthless for vitamins, limited for minerals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1983;36:943-949.
  4. Klevay LM, Bistrian BR, Fleming CR, Neumann CG. Hair analysis in clinical and experimental medicine. Am J Clin Nutr. 1987;46(2):233-236.
  5. Barrett S. Commercial hair analysis: Science or scam? JAMA. 1985;254:1041-1045.
  6. Filipek PA, Accardo PJ, Ashwal S, et al. Practice parameter: Screening and diagnosis of autism. Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and the Child Neurology Society. Neurology. 2000;55(4):468-479.
  7. Kruse-Jarres JD. Limited usefulness of essential trace element analyses in hair. Am Clin Lab. 2000;19(5):8-10.
  8. Hu H. Exposure to metals. Prim Care. 2000;27(4):983-996.
  9. Hindmarsh JT. Caveats in hair analysis in chronic arsenic poisoning. Clin Biochem. 2002;35(1):1-11.
  10. Niggemann B, Gruber C. Unproven diagnostic procedures in IgE-mediated allergic diseases. Allergy. 2004;59(8):806-808.
  11. Tsatsakis A, Tutudaki M. Progress in pesticide and POPs hair analysis for the assessment of exposure. Forensic Sci Int. 2004;145(2-3):195-199.
  12. Dolan K, Rouen D, Kimber J. An overview of the use of urine, hair, sweat and saliva to detect drug use. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2004;23(2):213-217.
  13. Passalacqua G, Compalati E, Schiappoli M, Senna G. Complementary and alternative medicine for the treatment and diagnosis of asthma and allergic diseases. Monaldi Arch Chest Dis. 2005;63(1):47-54.
  14. Savvopoulos MA, Pallis E, Tzatzarakis MN, et al. Legal issues of addiction assessment: The experience with hair testing in Greece. J Appl Toxicol. 2005;25(2):143-152.
  15. Gambelunghe C, Rossi R, Ferranti C, et al. Hair analysis by GC/MS/MS to verify abuse of drugs. J Appl Toxicol. 2005;25(3):205-211.
-- Fyslee 20:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well you've certainly dumped a lot of information here. None of it, as far as I've waded through it, supports the category of "quackery" with the exception of the ubiquitous Mr. Barrett who runs a business based on describing EVERYTHING as quackery. The AETNA link says they cover it for certain things and not for others (well, duh). Filipek et al doesn't look at hair analysis specifically (aside from one brief comment), Kruse-Jarres says the usefulness is "limited" (a far cry from quackery). Hu says "the major long-term storage site for arsenic is keratin-rich tissues, such as skin, hair, and nails---making the measurement of arsenic in these biological specimens useful for estimating total arsenic burden and long-term exposure under certain circumstances." I'm not going to bother going through the rest as it's obvious you've just dumped a whole pile of crap you haven't read in the hopes that it will look impressive. --Lee Hunter 21:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A better reference to start from, including discussions about sampling, processing, analytical methods and some uses HAIR ANALYSIS PANEL DISCUSSION: EXPLORING THE STATE OF THE SCIENCE; June 12—13, 2001. This meeting brought together anti- and labs in a very controlled format *to start* to address issues & reconcile them. Must have been fun.--TheNautilus 01:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. That is much better. Especially this page [1] I think the main point is that hair analysis is of some benefit in certain situations and not in others. Calling it quackery is not at all accurate or helpful to the reader. --Lee Hunter 02:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also Hair analysis (alternative medicine) looks like a dubious POV fork to me--TheNautilus 09:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is standard practice with disambiguation pages. This article is confusing because it contains widely different elements. Now the aspects related to alternative medicine practices are collected in one article and can be examined there. -- Fyslee 10:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How eagar. This new article appears to pile a POV fork upon obsolete misinformation. This sounds more like a theory of convenience, I have seen you advocate precisely the opposite for much more divergent topics in the merge and delete tactics on altmed. Some of Barrett's, etc less meritous points were gently addressed in 2001 ATSDR report at CDC. I really suggest you pick through it before you go any further. Alternative medicine's use of hair analysis may have had some economic problems like a number of conventional medical procedures that have been determined to be 50-90% unnecessary or even ca 100% retrospectively; interlab variations may be nonstandardized but still useful, and some labs/practitioners may have had problems, but all the themes are central to the subject hair analysis. Its science and technology amongst various fields are likely to converge and standardize in the no-so-distant future for good economic reasons. A less charitable interpretation would be that QWrs might support QW-related negative stmts in other articles since negative hair analysis references seems to be a recurring favorite. I think that it is time to focus on one neutral, encyclopedic, technically sound and informative article and have made some suggestions[2]. This POV fork is not even close. If you are confused by the article, try to write a better (less confusing) article or study more chemistry and analytical methods.--TheNautilus 12:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Holmes

Is this new addition a letter to the editor? If so it doesn't qualify as a (WP:RS) good source, since anyone can do that. I have letters in the BMJ! -- Fyslee 23:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is a Letter to the Editor. The person adding it says it is peer reviewed, and I see the reference shows the article to be 8 pages long. Although I've not looked at it (It was published in a 2003 edition) it seems likely to me that it is a full article. Pzavon 01:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. It is a published study, that has been debunked here: Part 1 and Part 2
Even if it had been a well-done study, we have to decide if it is appropriate for this article, or if it applies more to some other articles, such as Controversies in autism, Vaccine controversy, Thiomersal controversy, or related articles. For relevance to this article it only shows (IF we could trust it, which I doubt) that hair analysis is not reliable "as a measure of total mercury exposure in a subset of the population":
  • "These data cast doubt on the efficacy of traditional hair analysis as a measure of total mercury exposure in a subset of the population. In light of the biological plausibility of mercury's role in neurodevelopmental disorders, the present study provides further insight into one possible mechanism by which early mercury exposures could increase the risk of autism."[3]
Even those researchers (several of them, and especially Safeminds, raises red flags) use weasel words to avoid getting into too much trouble: "cast doubt", "plausibility", "one possible", and "could", which are weasel words that aren't necessarily inappropriate (one can rarely be absolutely certain....;-). Yes, mercury certainly could cause neurological disorders, and in fact is proven to cause some serious conditions. The debate over whether dental amalgams, or the Thimerosal some vaccines have previously contained, are a common cause of autism (my son has Aspergers Syndrome) is not for this article. -- Fyslee 11:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New Title

Would it not be wise to rename this article? It was separated from the main article on uses of hair analysis on which there is a broad consensus. I believe that it will grow beyond hair analysis in alternative medicine, where there undoubtedly is some quackery, to also include the use of hair analysis in scientific research. Generally new medical techniques do not immediately make it from the inventor's lab to everyday practice overnight. Doing this would allow a much finer differentiation between what he know does work, what we know doesn't work, and allow us to include techniques and rationales in the grey areas between these two extremes, which we could then deliberately list and examine.

I would propose a title such as "Hair Analysis in Alternative Medicine and Medical Research." If we must then fork the article again, we could split it into "Unproven uses of Hair Analysis in Alternative Medicine and Medical Research" and "Disproven Uses of Hair Analysis in Alternative Medicine and Medical Research." --Alterrabe 20:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend populating both Hair anaylsis articles to ~40-60kb length first, and then consider spinning off neutral technical specialty articles for some segments instead. The problems of inappropriate marketing, premature, or unfounded uses don't really require huge summaries of what appears to having continuing recognized, biologically based research and development, federal support at some level, and significant laboratory professionalization.--TheNautilus 22:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer Alterrabe's suggestion to the current HA(altmed) title but am willing to wait a little while for a confirmation or suggestion from Fyslee.--TheNautilus 22:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please excuse me if I was rash in renaming this article. It will need to be capitalized. Some of the contributors to this page have made changes to my changes within 2 minutes of my making changes; I assumed that this page was on a watch list, that all concerned were well aware of my suggestion, and that they had chosen to answer by remaining silent. I also believe that unforking the articles would be the best alternative for now. But a new (properly capitalized) title does seem to be more accurate than the old one.--Alterrabe 16:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It came as somewhat of a shock. Properly it should have gone through an RfD review, with input from many editors and admins. This is not proper. I've never seen it done before. -- Fyslee 22:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I moved it back, as all changes Alterrabe made, other than the addition of the two peer-reviewed studies, seem to be improper — mostly clear bias, making conclusions, or adding clearly unsourced statements. The only other plausible addition was the rebuttal to the study showing that hair analysis is unreliable, which was sourced at one point, but the source was found to be unreliable. I feel those two studies should be moved to the main article Hair analysis, but that's still not entirely clear.
Please open a request at WP:RM if you still feel the article should be at the new name. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 08:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dead link

This link is dead:

I removed it. Others may wish to update it.--Alterrabe 11:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found the new location and have added it. It's better to find the new link (or use the Internet Archives), than to undo or delete links. We're here to build up, not tear down, articles. -- Fyslee 22:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fyslee, I deliberately put the url of Aetna's policies and the fact that I was removing it onto the talk page. Even if I had found an new URL (making sure that bad data is not in the article takes a precedence over finding good data) I would not have wanted to go to the trouble of making sure that Aetna still stands by their policy. There is a lot of outdated information on the internet, sometimes even on corporate homepages.--Alterrabe 13:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How stupid of me

I just realized that Tamari (George Tamari. Unreliability of hair analysis. Letter to the editor: Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, May, 2004) is a letter to the editor. As such, as dicussed in "Holmes" vide supra it is not (WP:RS). Out it goes.--Alterrabe 12:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wennig Article

The Wenig article footnote #6 in the article is about the use of hair analysis in toxicology, i.e. assays of drugs and drug metabolites in the hair. This is described in Hair Analysis main article. Furthermore the article does not say that it doesn't work, but that it "needs further research."

Does anyone believe that an article about the use hair analysis in toxicology has anything to do with the an article on practitioners of alternative medicine measuring hair minerals?--Alterrabe 20:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unreliable and inconsistent results?

The Shamberger study appears to explain the apparently unreliable and inconsistent results. I would suggest we rename this section to "Apparently unreliable and inconsistent results and possible explanations." If this is too long, we could go for "Questions about hair analysis". I am very open to suggestions.--Alterrabe 20:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this thing on? In any case a recent edit added claims that consistent results have be obtained in other tests, but no references are given:
Specifics:
  1. The claim that hair analysis is used by athletic and legal authorities as "proof" of drug or steroid use, is, for the most part, due to the fact that the law/regulations are written to make having having the hair traces illegal, without regard for scientific evidence. For a more accepted, but still unscientific, instrument, California law makes it illegal to drive while having a blood alcohol level Breathalyzer reading of 0.08%, regardless of actual blood alcohol level.
  2. That hair isotopic analysis works to determine location (presumably by looking at H1 to H2, O16 to O18, C12 to C13, and possibly Nitrogen isotope ratios) seems quite plausible, and is completely independent of any credibility of chemical analysis.
I think the section needs to be reverted. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:20, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I pared it down pretty significantly. The user who added those paragraphs is pretty new, and added the reference for correlating isotopic fingerprint with geographic location as plain text. The article only talks about differential evaporation by 16
O
, but I left it open since other isotopic ratios vary for other reasons. This leaves us with two dubious and uncited claims, and one cited claim whose relevance to alternative medicine is not readily apparent. My thought (sorry, I made the edit before noticing this thread) was to leave it for a little while to see if it gets expanded. If we hold out small hope for that possibility, however, feel free to go ahead and remove it. - Eldereft (cont.) 02:31, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting studies

Brangifer (talk) 07:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What testing methods should be used?

The article says that hair testing is unreliable, but doesn't say what testing is reliable for determining vitamin and mineral deficiencies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.9.155 (talk) 15:33, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blood tests can be reliable for some nutrients; in some cases, if nutrients are excreted, it indicates too much is being taken in, but, for most, there are no reliable tests. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:41, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is biased

Hair analysis is supported by vast amount of literature and the references given in the article are no more scientific than the ones available to support Hair analysis. It is also used by institutions and universities to assess toxic metal exposure. I have also noticed that a significantly large part of the article was deleted throughout the article's history and only the section with 'Inconsistent results' and a very small section describing its use has been left. A good article should assess all the information available and to have a section named criticism or anything similar which would present to the reader an overall look about the topic. Besides this, the practitioners who use this screening tool also use other information to obtain the patients nutritional requirements. Its unfortunate to see that an excellent screening tool is biased to this extend when people with not enough knowledge about the subject label it as fraud or unscientific. Its known that many controversial studies are the result of poor statistics and/or poor science. Hair analysis has undergone a lot of research especially by Dr. David Watts and its ridiculous to that is compared with forms of 'alternative medicine' such as homeopathy, acupuncture, etc. The information on the article is biased and I am willing to edit this page and also flag this to the other authors which seem to provide only little view of this screening test. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cypts1 (talk • contribs) 01:20, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User Yobol seems to be trying to overlook any evidence in front of him that would compromise his views and opinions about the particular subject. I am not trying to 'convince' anyone. Reality has nothing to do with opinions, thoughts or beliefs; and science, for which its purpose is to uncover reality, has no place for any of that or any nonsense. I have no contact/correlation with Hair analysis laboratories and I have nothing to do with them at all. I do not care what they do or how they claim to treat people based on the Hair analysis but this does not make Hair analysis itself unscientific or unreliable. I am quite certain that you have not spent adequate time to evaluate this to come into deductive conclusions. It seems to me that when any of you hear about 'alternative' medicine, it does't matter what it is and you will label it as unscientific just because 96% of all 'alternative' medicine is indeed unscientific; but what about the other 4% have you ever thought about that? In fact, the most crazy of them all is that the validity and value of Hair analysis has nothing to do with the commercial laboratories who use it; just because many people may have died last year in a bmw car accident, doesn't make bmw's unsafe to drive; its not about those commercial laboratories but it is about Hair analysis. It also came to my attention that many of you use quackwatch.com as a reference site, are you ridiculous or trying to be super biased?!. I am a student doing Biomedical Science and I can tell you that things are delivered to us with no sense of logic. Everything is taught and students simply accept things.

Some references that a reasonable, logical, scientific mind should consider are the following:

Although you are undoubtedly the same person, the problem is that this article is a WP:POVFORK of Hair analysis, being used only to refer to the uses which have no medical reliable sources, having spun off from main article describing the justified uses in medicine, both non-alternative (any word I use will offend some people), and alternative. The only clean approach is to combine them, and then possibly split off an article based on different characterizations. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that the article is short enough that a merge back to Hair analysis would be feasible. Yobol (talk) 17:34, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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