Talk:Bill Frist

Activities of the children
I'm really new to Wikipedia, so please forgive me if I am not following protocol. Can someone please explain to me why we would want to put the activities of three adult children in this section. How are they relevant at all. They have never been involved in politics. They have no impact on his stature or non-stature. It certainly does not reflect on his character in any way. I am just confused. Thanks. (Above comment by User talk:Paradise Daytona Beach) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin451 (talk • contribs) 02:13, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I may have been a little overzealous in reverting you, but it looked like you were just trying to remove negative information from the article. Probably the kids criminal records are not really relevant to their father's article. It's often helpful to use edit summaries to explain why you are making a particular edit. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:15, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

fixed Foetusized mass deletion of SOURCED highly relevant biographical facts. perhaps this page needs edit restrictions
Foetusized please note the rules for sourced material are: (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability) "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source to show that it is not original research,"

Therefore I fixed your only legitimate complaint by Foetusized of headlines all caps as it appeared in original article.

Restored SOURCED material form IMPECCABLE SOURCES such as the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT and CREW who field the FEC compalint about frist's and Frist's family company's legal problems as well as the Charlie ROSe show link discussed about first lobbying as an non republican non registered lobbyist.

ALL of which were wiped by Foetusized under the NON APPLYING guise of unsourced material concerning living persons.

Foetusized do not begin an edit war. You may not simply delete multiple separate edited facts you don't like if they are sourced.

If you have a particular edit change make it ONLY to one edit at a time.

furthermore remember that changes that are simply made because of your bias are not allowed.

Mass wholesale deletion of ALL NEGATIVE FACTS implies partiality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geopilotwiki (talk • contribs) 00:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Fine. I'll just start removing your inane, poorly written "facts" one at a time -- Foetusized (talk) 02:44, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * seems to me all the facts are clearly sourced,extremely relevant to the man's public positions since they show his commercial interests regarding those positions and are the source of his wealth and occupied a large portion of time on the boards of such companies often while his brother was CEO of the company during a large portion of his life, and no one disputes the facts. It seems Foetusized that your edits are merely political in nature and not concerned with accurate protrayals in the biography. Reminder that your edit war is in violation of wiki rules and your reason for deletion of these well and reputably sourced facts (such as form the US Justice department itself that comply with wiki requirements are also in violation of wiki rules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.99.36 (talk) 20:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just trying to keep the article within the Biographies of living persons guidelines, and readable. You just can't link to a Charlie Rose show video clip, and use that for your source for your opinion about the clip and Frist. To be honest, I really don't understand some of what you are trying to say due to your poor writing, and I see no need to leave that unclear writing in the article, especially when I don't understand it enough to be able to try to fix it.  I still have no idea what Frist not being a licensed lobbyist had to do with that interview, for instance.  That's the only sentence I've had the time to review your source for, so far.  You need to stop edit warring, and try to fix these problems before adding challenged content back into the article.
 * You should also take a look at Assume good faith too. I've got some ideas about where your political positions lay based on your edits, but I'm keeping them to myself instead of ranting about them here -- Foetusized (talk) 02:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I've removed more troublesome content today, with explanations for each removal. Please take these comments into consideration.  Thanks -- Foetusized (talk) 20:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

discussion of Frist's father as a "doctor" is improper without including he founded the largest for profit hospital chain.
added sourced info about the his father's founding HCA and his brother who was chairman of HCA becuase frist family and sibling were mentioned about his childhood. You can't mention some parts of his family and not all. These are not a family of "country doctors". his father wasn't just a "doctor". That is completely misleading. He ran the largest healthcare organization asdid his brother and frist to some degree.

this article needs to be closely watched. It is extremely suspicious that sourced info about Frist is being deleted in violation of Wiki guidlines and some family members are being mentioned while others heavily involved in the family healthcare business are not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geopilotwiki (talk • contribs) 00:50, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Drrll deletion of well sourced negative information about Frist
Drrll, I see you removed all mention of Bill Frist's convicted violations of campaign finance laws and of being fined by the Federal Election Commission because "Facts supported only by partisan source CREW; find BLP-worthy sources if you want to keep"

I'm looking at the cited article http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/newsrelease.php?view=134

I'm trying to keep an open mind here and also assuming good intent on your part, but seriously, it's a well documented fact that Frist violated election law and was fined by the FEC and the CREW article does a decent job of portraying that. I don't believe you can go through wikipedia and remove any sections you don't like just because you object to the CREW web site. I just don't see it as a valid reason for deletion of such publicly substantiated information. The facts are not at all in question and I feel CREW is a completely reasonable citation.

Obviously the sections are going to be restored, the only question here is your assertion that the CREW citation is inadequate. I would like you to justify this assertion.

I would also like to request that in the future instead of a delete-and-run that perhaps you might flag a section you feel could use better citation and giving citizens adequate time to respond rather than arbitrarily deleting content. DavesPlanet (talk) 13:26, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

In fact I am going to restore the sections at this time while we continue the debate about the citation, it is not appropriate for it to be removed, it was possibly appropriate for the citation to be questioned (pending justification). DavesPlanet (talk) 13:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If it's well-documented, then well-document it with a high-quality source. This is a biography of a living person, where policy requires higher standards for these articles and and where immediate deletion is called for:
 * "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high quality sources...Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion."
 * CREW is frequently described in good reliable sources as "liberal" and "Democratic-leaning". It is an activist organization, not a news organization.  In the years that it listed Frist as one of the most corrupt members of Congress, it assigned that designation to over 5 times  as many Republicans than Democrats. Congressional Quarterly said of CREW in 2006, "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has taken aim almost exclusively at GOP members of Congress. Since its founding in 2003, it [helped] investigate 21 lawmakers, only one of them a Democrat."
 * Also keep in mind that FEC violations are hardly rare for high-profile politicians, so I would be curious if high-quality sources that mention Frist in detail actually describe his violations as a major item. Drrll (talk) 19:11, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I strenuously object to your immediate re-removal of material after posting to the discussion page. A discussion is about working out differences, an intention you have not demonstrated well. I will take the moral high ground here and leave your deletions in place until I have time to research additional references. DavesPlanet (talk) 03:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Large chunks of what Drrll deleted concerning illicit stock trading were substantiated by the included reference to a Washington post article! In any case I have found an article at the New York Times substantiating what Drrll deleted concerning FEC violations and will have additional citations shortly. Lastly, the unambiguous fact that Frist was declared one of the most corrupt politicians by the major political watchdog group CREW is supported by a link to Huffington Post, since Drrll arbitrarily deletes content from political pages that are only supported by references to the CREW web site. DavesPlanet (talk) 05:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I see that you have restored the exact same material, but sourced it to different sources. When I have the time, I'm going to make sure that the new sources source all the claims. Please see my response to your edit warring notice on that noticeboard.  Please note that this material can be removed in the future on the basis of WP:UNDUE, since it is hardly unusual for politicians to violate FEC rules and since it is hardly unusual for CREW to call Republican & conservative members of Congress "corrupt," even if a left-leaning source like the Huffington Post reports it. Drrll (talk) 11:31, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Attempting to come up with multiple rationale to remove relevant and well sourced political content makes it clear that you are pursuing an agenda here and are not attempting neutral edits. DavesPlanet (talk) 13:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but if there are multiple policy problems with the material in a BLP, that's just the way it is and it's not going to make it go away by saying that I am "attempting to come up with multiple rationale." As you can clearly see, I brought the issue of WP:UNDUE in my first post in this section yesterday by saying that it's hardly unusual for high-profile politicians to have FEC violations. I just didn't use the magic word "undue." Drrll (talk) 22:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of relevance of corruption and FEC violations
Looking over search results from Google News Archive, it is obvious that FEC violations for high-profile politicians are the rule, not the exception. Since the burden for inclusion of material (especially in BLPs) is with the editor wanting to add/restore it, I suggest that you demonstrate from reliable sources that Frist's violations were noteworthy in comparison to the multitudes of similar violations by other politicians. Similarly, the designation of "most corrupt" by the partisan group CREW needs to demonstrated as noteworthy by reliable sources, not just mentioned briefly in an article or two. If you don't provide such justification, I will again remove the material on the basis of WP:UNDUE. Drrll (talk) 16:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

"If you don't provide such justification, I will again remove" - I prefer a tone of moderation and cooperation rather than ultimatums. I'm quite willing to discuss the issue but removal of accurate, verifiable, and relevant information in the face of an ongoing fruitful discussion will result in further complaints against you and a request for moderation. Try to keep the discussion neutral and open minded and try to assume good faith. So, as I understand your first argument, violations of federal election law is so rampant in congress that we should not mention specific occurrences of it? Frist misappropriated well over a million dollars and got caught, it was a public scandal, I see it as completely relevant and an important addition to a page that exists because of his prominence as a congressman. It isn't an overwhelming addition, just a short paragraph in the Controversies section, it isn't being given undue weight, I'm not seeing a convincing argument for it's removal and ask that you refrain from deleting this content until a clear public consensus can be reached. Oh, good job on the UNDUE notation on the actual page, that's good, hopefully we'll get some good discussion from that. Regarding the CREW designation "Most Corrupt" I already found a credible third party web site with a full story about the CREW designation as "Most Corrupt" (since you object to links directly to CREW, though you haven't actually justified that yet). Additionally there are 100 members of the senate, 3% of those were listed by CREW as most corrupt. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives, fewer than 4% of those members that year received the designation "Most Corrupt", this seems to be a well targeted and relevant designation. Additionally, of the 12 Representatives designated "Most Corrupt" a third of that number were Democrats - Alan Mollohan (D-WV), William Jefferson (D-LA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), John Murtha (D-PA). I find it very relevant that a major watchdog group which designates fewer than 4% of politicians each year as their "Most Corrupt" would put Frist on their list. Finally, we are re-hashing a public discussion that has already taken place, April of 2010 was when foetusized tried to delete this material, the challenge failed at that time and you are not presenting compelling new evidence to overturn that year-old decision. DavesPlanet (talk) 17:52, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I base my statement about removing on BLP policy: "The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests with the person who adds or restores material." It's no more of an ultimatum than you saying that restoring "will result in further complaints against you." I will attempt to assume good faith, as I hope you will (your earlier comments didn't appear to do so). Not only are FEC violations commonplace for members of Congress, they are commonplace for presidential candidates. Can you point to many examples of other BLPs of prominent politicians that mention specific FEC violations that didn't result in criminal prosecution? I follow politics pretty closely and I think that if this FEC violation by such a prominent Republican politician was "a public scandal" as you say, I think I would remember such a public scandal (I'm willing to be convinced otherwise by reliable sources--for example, multiple Page One stories in The Washington Post and The New York Times).


 * Just like the issue of the FEC violation, the issue of the CREW designation requires demonstration of its importance/noteworthiness. If we would include items in this BLP solely because some source reports something about Frist, his BLP would be dozens, if not hundreds, of pages long. Both reliable sources (e.g. "liberal", "Democratic-leaning") and the simple numbers bear out how partisan/ideological CREW is. In the two years that CREW designated Frist as corrupt, over 5 times as many Republicans were tagged this than Democrats.  Do you honestly believe that Republicans are 5 times more likely than Democrats to be corrupt?  It also "happens" to turn out that of the Democrats that they designate as corrupt, a much higher percentage of them are conservative Democrats than their proportional representation among their colleagues. Again, are conservative Democrats much more likely to be corrupt than their non-conservative Democratic counterparts (the liberal Democrats that they list are so high-profile in their ethical allegations that skipping them would be obvious)?


 * As far as a "re-hashing" goes, I see nothing in that discussion about this material and I see a discussion that only occurred with a single other participant than Foetusized. Drrll (talk) 19:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I find myself being swayed somewhat in your direction with your compelling CREW arguments. I still find the CREW information to be interesting, if I were reading about Frist I would want to see this, if I were writing a paper on Frist I would expect this to be included, but it does appear to need some disclaimers. If what you say is accurate (and I have no reason to doubt it) then I concede that CREW is clearly a partisan source. From there I find myself digging through the BLP regs to see if there are grounds to keep the CREW info. I see Criticism_and_praise seems to be the most relevant guidelines. I am also looking at Search_engine_test where I find a Google search for bill+frist+"most+corrupt" returns about 800 results. I'm not sure the clearly partisan nature of CREW is a reason to exclude it. The Democratic Party web site would be more than adequate for a reference, and there is no argument that they are partisan. Would a clear disclaimer that the CREW site is a liberal leaning organization be an adequate resolution to this issue? DavesPlanet (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Regarding the FEC facts, you are just not ringing my bell there. If the FEC had findings against every single member of congress, I would expect to go to each congressional members page and see at least a blurb about that members FEC infractions. Additionally I have trouble believing that a large fraction of political figures have such severe and substantiated FEC violations. DavesPlanet (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for having an open mind about the issue of whether CREW is a partisan organization. I'd be willing to include the CREW designation in the article if we identify CREW as "liberal" and "Democratic leaning", sourced to good reliable sources. A better source for reporting on Frist's inclusion on the CREW list is here in The Los Angeles Times.


 * As far as the FEC violation, if you can demonstrate by good reliable sources that what he did was so severe and noteworthy, then I'd support inclusion of that as well. Drrll (talk) 14:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the LA Times link, I updated the CREW references and included the agreed upon verbiage. I will research various FEC violations looking at what percentages of congressmen are convicted of what offenses and get back to you. DavesPlanet (talk) 17:44, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I appreciate you adding "liberal" & "Democratic leaning." I can provide sources for these if you feel we need them. Drrll (talk) 18:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Maturity level on Wikipedia
I'm somewhat impressed that nobody made a post at the top of this talk page saying "FRIST!". Or did it get deleted already? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.148.191.45 (talk) 02:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Controversies section
This entire section needs to be rewritten, or else deleted. A section about a politician's controversial activities is almost a given, but it shouldn't be written in the tone of a ideological opponent. Particularly the Internet Gambling section has to go. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.225.118 (talk) 07:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Whoah, no way the UIGA is not a hot button interesting item, especially after the recent crackdowns, subsequent fallout, and intense negative opinion of millions of poker players. There is absolutely no compelling interest in removing the UIGA section and every reason it should stay. In fact it could be expanded to include the facts that casinos were among Frists top donors and that passing the UIGA caused a jump in casino stocks worth billions. DavesPlanet (talk) 19:48, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Yet there's a blaring double standard when it comes to what constitutes a "controversy." Frist's political position on internet gambling may be deemed controversial by opponents, yet Tom Daschle's failure to pay taxes and illegal receipt of tax deductions is not deemed controversial in his biography. Nor is Nancy Pelosi's allegations of insider trading reported in a "Controversy" section, while John Boehner's allegations of connections to lobbyists is deemed appropriate for a "Controversies" section. If you're going to have "Controversies" sections, you must be fair and maintain neutrality. Conservative figures are far more likely to be slapped with a "Controversies" section than their liberal counterparts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.110.179.229 (talk) 19:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I heartily agree, go forth and fix those other articles. The best and only cure for corruption and self interest is the bright light of the public spotlight. DavesPlanet (talk) 13:22, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

active white washing of clearly supported information without supportive discussion
In less thna 20 min (suggesting a PR companies automated notifiying link to changes in this articel) Fat & Happy removed all supported and referenced information added to this page that was not in a "positive" light - specifically the added references to Frist dealings in the HCA fraud, his positions in that company during times of activites that later lead to fraud charges, activites regarding his blind trust that later showed not to be blind, his new position has a partner in a firm investing in healthcare comapnies he formerly wrote legislation for and on and on. This is the most aggretious sort of white washing imaginable.

The enteries and there sourced references were deleted en mass.

This is typical of what has been happening to this article and others.

Those deletions should be reversed and Fat & Happy put on watch or banned from editing. Clearly that account is a front. Merely 20mins from changes to deletion! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.229.208 (talk) 03:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There's no conspiracy. Wikipedia has a feature called a watch list.  One subscribes to articles, and then can see on one's watchlist when they are edited.  It makes it easy to see when poorly-written violations of the Biographies of Living Persons policy are added to articles, so they can be easily reverted -- Foetusized (talk) 03:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Excessively partisan language
Wow. I just clicked on "talk" to post a quick note about some egregiously partisan language in the article. I didn't realize this was a running fight.

The language in question is the addition of "liberal" and "Democratic leaning" to the phrase "government watchdog group". It's obvious that those gratuitously partisan labels are intended to discredit CREW's judgment without addressing its factual basis. As the paragraph goes on to say, Frist landed on CREW's most-corrupt list "for ethics inquiries stemming from his troubles with the FEC and an investigation by the SEC." The Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are not partisan groups. This is not exactly arguable. The article itself makes it clear that there were startling irregularities in Frist's handling of his campaign finances. Besides, the article mentions individuals and organizations from all over the political spectrum, but they aren't all labeled in this fashion. CREW shouldn't be either. Those well-poisoning adjectives should be removed.

If I may speak briefly to the larger issue, Foetusized should not be defending individual corruption as though it were a partisan issue. It isn't. Bill Frist wasn't being corrupt on behalf of the Republican Party, or participating in corruption as part of a conservative agenda. Frist was playing fast and loose with his finances on his own account, for his own benefit. There's nothing ideological about that. It's just corruption. Foetusized isn't fighting against partisanship. He's injecting partisanship into a part of the article where it doesn't belong. 67.244.76.130 (talk) 17:35, 18 April 2012 (UTC)TNH (Teresa Nielsen Hayden)

While I originally opposed the addition of this language, Drrll made very convincing arguments that CREW has a distinct liberal bias. I'm not saying their accusations against Republicans are right or wrong, or that they might be more balanced if they indited more Democrats, but as it stands they are a liberal organization and adding "liberal" and "democratic leaning" seems to be an agreeable compromise between removing the CREW information and leaving it in as though it were a neutral reference. DavesPlanet (talk) 18:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Use of "Controversies" Sections
I notice that many times "controversies" listed under an individual's biography are simply partisan positions, and not seemingly controversial to their aligned party. To selectively label party positions as controversial seems to me to be dishonest. Many times, controversies sections appear to be contrived, and many times attached to conservative figures, while similar disputes for more liberal figures are not given a separate section entitled "Controversies." Bill Frist has a "Controversies" section with 4 subheadings, 2 of which are political positions (internet gambling and Schiavo), 1 is an ethical action (cat experiments), and another is a campaign finance violation which was settled resulting in no legal action or punishment (which goes unmentioned in the description). At the same time, Frist's Senate counterpart, Tom Daschle failed to pay taxes on income received as a consultant, and took tax deductions for a charity that wasn't deemed tax deductible. These indiscretions were innocuously placed under the "Post Senate Career" section of his biography. Similarly, John Boehner has a "Controversies" section attached to his biography, which describe connections to lobbyists and opposition to a Smithsonian exhibit. At the same time, Nancy Pelosi does not have a "Controversies" section, but rather her allegations of insider trading are subtlety placed under her "Post-Speakership Role" section. I believe this reflects a double standard found all too commonly within Wikipedia articles. The term "Controversies" violates neutrality to begin with, and many articles seem to hold varying definitions of what is deemed controversial and whether or not this constitutes the need for a separate section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.110.179.229 (talk) 19:45, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Issues
I have just reorganized and condensed the article. It needed it; the article was disjointed and contained a ton of unsourced material. The article still needs a bunch more sources, which is unfortunate given that it has been tagged since 2014. Some of its cited sources are not reliable. Frist's Senate elections and career could use additional attention. Even after these improvements, the article still does not meet the requirements for B-class, so I have reclassified it as C-class. SunCrow (talk) 14:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Theranos
The article on Theranos lists Bill Frist among the men brought onto the Board of Directors by George Schulz, but there is nothing in this article about his involvement. Given that he is supposed to have taken a degree in health care policy at Princeton before going to Harvard Medical School, he must have been one of the few people on that board able to understand what Theranos was doing. Has he commented in public on this? NRPanikker (talk) 22:52, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Good question, there were not many people on the board with a medical background. DKEdwards (talk) 20:13, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

2003 Ricin Letters
Bill Frist was targeted in the 2003 ricin letters. I was surprised this isn't noted anywhere on this page. Maybe someone could add it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.140.90.186 (talk) 16:10, 23 November 2021 (UTC)