Talk:Physicians for Social Responsibility

Medicine Low‑importance

	Medicine portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine.MedicineWikipedia:WikiProject MedicineTemplate:WikiProject Medicinemedicine articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Anti-war Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Anti-war, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the anti-war movement 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.Anti-warWikipedia:WikiProject Anti-warTemplate:WikiProject Anti-warAnti-war articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Organizations Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Organizations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Organizations 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.OrganizationsWikipedia:WikiProject OrganizationsTemplate:WikiProject Organizationsorganization articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Environment Low‑importance

	Environment portal This environment-related article is part of the WikiProject Environment to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized. Read Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ and leave any messages at the project talk page.EnvironmentWikipedia:WikiProject EnvironmentTemplate:WikiProject EnvironmentEnvironment articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Energy Low‑importance

	Energy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Energy 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.EnergyWikipedia:WikiProject EnergyTemplate:WikiProject Energyenergy articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

It is requested that a photograph be included in this article to improve its quality.
The external tool WordPress Openverse may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

NPOV?[edit]

"Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is the largest physician-led organization in the country working to protect the public from the threats of..."

Whatever one's position may be on nuclear proliferation, climate change, and environmental toxins, that's hardly a NPOV lead. 190.92.40.9 (talk) 00:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. This entire article reads like a press release (and, understandably so, as every reference cited is a PRESS RELEASE!)JoelWhy (talk) 22:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added a POV tag.JoelWhy (talk) 22:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In reference to this edit... 21:31, 31 May 2011‎ 211.27.75.116 (talk)‎ . . (7,393 bytes) (+253)‎ . . (Trying to make it sound less biased, probably still needs a lot more work.) (undo)

  Previous sentence-- The ad was serendipitously published the day after Three Mile Island melted down attracting 500 new members.

  Current sentence--The ad was serendipitously published the day after Three Mile Island melted down without a single fatality attracting 500 new members.

WITHOUT A SINGLE FATALITY inserted in this sentence does not make sense within the context of this paragraph. Nor was it cited in the footnotes as to where this editor could definitively reference that claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.6.55 (talk) 02:33, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can some one provide a DOI ref for Caldecott's 1978 paper in NEJM, if it was published. I don't have access to copies that old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.213.62.224 (talk) 01:35, 13 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

According to PubMed, there are no publications in NEJM by Helen Caldicott [note spelling] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Caldicott%2C%20Helen[Author] --Nbauman (talk) 14:24, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NEJM 1962 citations[edit]

Some psychiatric and social aspects of the defense-shelter program.
LEIDERMAN PH, MENDELSON JH.
N Engl J Med. 1962 May 31;266:1149-55.
PMID: 14463836

You, your patients and radioactive fallout.
WARREN S.
N Engl J Med. 1962 May 31;266:1123-5.
PMID: 14005063

The medical consequences of thermonuclear war. II. The physician's role in the post-attack period.
SIDEL VW, GEIGER HJ, LOWN B.
N Engl J Med. 1962 May 31;266:1137-45.
PMID: 13912536

Human and ecologic effects in Massachusetts of an assumed thermonuclear attack on the United States.
ERVIN FR, GLAZIER JB, ARONOW S, NATHAN D, COLEMAN R, AVERY N, SHOHET S, LEEMAN C.
N Engl J Med. 1962 May 31;266:1127-37.
PMID: 13890707

A glossary of radiation terminology.
ARONOW S.
N Engl J Med. 1962 May 31;266:1145-9.
PMID: 13862503

--Nbauman (talk) 14:11, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NEJM 2015[edit]

OK article for background:

Perspective
Docs and Nukes — Still a Live Issue
Ira Helfand, M.D., and Victor W. Sidel, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2015; 373:1901-1903
November 12, 2015
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1509202

--Nbauman (talk) 14:15, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

highly effective?[edit]

As of 2017-12-01 the section on "Organizational history" begins, "PSR was founded in Boston in 1961 ... . PSR's initial reports on the real human, physical, social and environmental consequences of a nuclear war commanded immediate national attention and was followed by a sustained and highly effective campaign over the ensuing decades".

This is followed by a section entitled, "Rebirth of PSR in the late 1970s", which begins, "By 1973 the organization was not active and in effect ceased to exist."

If the organization's early work really "was followed by a sustained and highly effective campaign", it would not have "ceased to exist." I plan to end this sentence with "initial reports discussed the real human, social and environmental consequences of a nuclear war." This is more consistent with the acknowledgment in the next section that by "1973 the organization was not active and in effect ceased to exist." DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

{{Refimprove}}[edit]

PSR shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. Wikipedia needs an article about it.

However, as of 2017-12-02, this article no independent, credible sources. It has 6 "Reference". Two are to "CMAJ, 12 February 2009". I have no idea what that is nor how to find it. Two are to press releases -- hardly independent sources. The other two are undated links to PSR web pages. If PSR changes those pages, the links are broken with no easy way to find what the referenced page was like on the date they were created.

For these reasons, I added the {{Refimprove}} tag to the beginning of this article.

There surely exist credible, independent sources for much of what is said in this article. Some are given earlier on this Talk page. An apparently somewhat independent source is www.wagingpeace.org/prescription-for-survival. However, I would not be eager to cite this by itself, because it's a presentation by a PSR representative and does not itself cite its sources. Moreover, the claims in that presentation appear consistent with the apparent scientific consensus in the Wikipedia article on Nuclear winter: That article noted that several leading scientists including the well-known physicist Carl Sagan predicted a nuclear winter-type scenario if Iraq ignited 300 to 500 pressurized oil wells in the 1990-91 Gulf War. In March 1991 roughly 600 wells were ignited, and it took over eight months to extinguish them all. The incident generated no substantive global impact and no major atmospheric effects locally that lasted much beyond the fires.

Before I cited www.wagingpeace.org/prescription-for-survival in anything, I'd want to understand the superficial inconsistencies between it and the Wikipedia article on Nuclear winter. DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:40, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Categories[edit]

@Anomalous+0: I support your addition of the following categories:

However, I don't understand your deletions:

I'm restoring these last two. Please advise. Thanks for your efforts to make more knowledge more available to more people. DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:00, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing your concerns to the talk page, David. Let's take the easy one first: PSR is not even remotely a "Nuclear research institute". One glance at the contents of that category should suffice.

I'm citing Ira Helfand (November 2013), Nuclear famine: two billion people at risk? (2nd ed.), Wikidata Q63256454.

However, I don't find another such publication on their web site. One research report does not make it a "Nuclear research institute".

I just removed that category, to restore what you did. DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:34, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As for the other issue, basically it's a judgement call on which of the two categories is a better fit: "Advocacy groups" or "Political advocacy groups". But I think the real, underlying problem is that there really isn't a clear distinction between the two -- and if you compare the contents, I think it's fair to say that they are mostly selected pretty randomly. It might make sense to merge them, or perhaps rename them to clarify the distinction. In any event, I suppose we could leave PSR in both categories for now, until that larger issue is resolved. Regards, Anomalous+0 (talk) 23:24, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.

Creating and enforcing standards is a necessary but thankless task. DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:34, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

rewrote the lede[edit]

I just rewrote the lede to remove adjectives like "largest" and the numbers of staff and local and student chapters. User:Aminuy inserted "(really?)" before "largest". The term "largest" probably was at one time and probably still is true, but it would need a citation. And the numbers of staff and chapters are obsolete. DavidMCEddy (talk) 13:03, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]