Talk:Physicians for Social Responsibility

NPOV?
"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)


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

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)

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)


 * 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)

NEJM 1962 citations
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)

NEJM 2015
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)

highly effective?
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)

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 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)

Categories
I support your addition of the following categories:


 * Category:Anti-nuclear organizations based in the United States
 * Category:Climate change organizations based in the United States
 * Category:Medical and health organizations based in the United States
 * Category:Advocacy groups in the United States

However, I don't understand your deletions:


 * Category:Political advocacy groups in the United States
 * Category:Nuclear research institutes

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)


 * 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.
 * 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)


 * 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)


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

rewrote the lede
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)