Progressive Commentary Hour - Wikipedia's Culture of Institutional Bias

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Wikipedia's Culture of Institutional Bias
 
Richard Gale and Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, June 11, 2019
 
Weekly, millions of people Google their concerns about their health and a large variety of illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, etc.  They expect, with speed and accuracy, to find the current scientifically based and clinically proven information. The majority of people begin to approach a personal health crisis by turning exclusively to established medical, drug-based protocols. However, these treatments do not always relieve symptoms nor reverse disease. Certainly they do not prevent it.
 
Increasingly people are seeking second and third opinions. More often than not Google will take a person immediately to Wikipedia. There is an assumption and a reasonable expectation that the information we find on Wikipedia is 1) accurate, 2) soundly researched and referenced from high quality and reliable resources, 3) written by credentialed writers and editors with expertise in the subject, 4) unbiased, and finally 5) object and balanced. Therefore it is at minimal assumed that at least the content on Wikipedia is scientifically validated and would appear on the National Institutes of Health PubMed database for medical information and research. Whether it is pharmaceutical, surgical or radiological approach, or perhaps a more natural medical modality such as lifestyle change, nutrition, medical botanicals, Chiropractic and Chinese Medicine, it is expected the information will be accurately provided and described. Then using our freedom of choice and informed consent, we can select the medical route that we believe would be most safe and effective.
 
Unfortunately, our two year investigation into Wikipedia's treatment of health issues reveals exactly the opposite. In fact, there are many individuals with outstanding credentials who are terrified of having their biographies appear on the open-source encyclopedia. Once a person's biography is added they will never have control over its content. Often he or she will be faced with slander, character assassination and denigration about their careers and life's work. All efforts by attorneys and experts in their field will not be able to change a single syllable on a Wikipedia page. Their biographies are frozen as if confined in a Russian gulag for a political crime. They will seek redress by reaching out to the media; but the media too is fully compromised.  They may seek open hearings on Wikipedia's back side to expose unfair behavior and misinformation but will be met either by deafening silence or censorship. They may even seek redress from the IRS or state's attorney generals for Wikipedia's gross serial violations of its non-profit status. Consequently, it becomes political and assumingly nothing will happen to correct the errors.
 
As a result, a relatively small group of uncredentialed, hate-filled individuals commonly known as Skeptics, empowered by Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, have been using the encyclopedia as a social media platform to condemn all non-conventional and alternative medical therapies and its practitioners, even those who seek to benefit from these therapies.
 
There are hundreds of thousands of clinical trials, research papers and review analyses confirming the authenticity and effectiveness of these natural medical systems. However, for the Skeptics who control and edit these Wikipedia pages, knowing full well that they have Jimmy Wales’ unerring support, the truth is irrelevant. Today Wikipedia succeeds the worst of McCarthyism's witch hunts in the 1950s where there is no proper channel for redress. Even attorneys representing the Silicon Valley titans, Wikipedia among them, have gamed the system.
 
Should we ask the media -- 20-20, Nightline, 60 Minutes, the New York Times and all the other leading newspapers and magazines -- why they fail to protect the American and global public from misinformation on a social platform and indulge in a shameful complicity to permit Wikipedia’s deception to continue without proper review and public exposure? Yet none have the guts to undertake an objective investigation to uncover the truth.
 
Below is a detailed review about what we have uncovered. For deeper investigations about how Wikipedia is on all accounts an enemy of public health, we invite readers to read more thorough articles at http://prn.fm/garys-wiki-articles/
 
Wikipedia and the Medical Profession
 
In 2012, Americans spent $14.7 billion on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and non-conventional medical services, such as chiropractors, massage therapies, acupuncturists, and energy medical practitioners and healers. This is almost a third of what is personally spent on conventional medical services. In addition, $12.8 billion was spent on natural supplements, accounting for approximately 25% of what Americans spend