Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adverse effects of fluoroquinolones


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   merge to Quinolone. Although we don't typically delete AND merge (due to potential licensing issues), it seems that most favor a merge back to Quinolone, and consensus on that target is free to determine just how much of the existing content, if any, is integrated into that article. slakr \ talk / 09:09, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Adverse effects of fluoroquinolones

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This article is a redundant fork with the Quinolones article. All of the articles on fluoroquinolone antibiotics, including Ciprofloxacin, Levofloxacin, Quinolones, Moxifloxacin were re-written in 2009, primarily by User:Davidtfull, the president of the now disbanded Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Research Foundation. Per the organization's website (no longer available), its purpose was to "support those seeking financial compensation for injuries caused by fluoroquinolone drugs". At that time, all of these articles became lengthy diatribes listing pretty much every case report, in vitro study, and animal study existing in the literature that cast these drugs in a negative light. At one point the ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin articles dedicated only 2-3 sentences each to describing what the drugs were used for.

Davidfull disappeared from Wikipedia in early 2011, about the time the FQTRF website disappeared. Since that time, I've gradually rewritten the main articles of this series. Given by background as a former pharmaceutical scientist I've asked user:Jmh649, user:Jfdwolff, and user:Anypodetos to review this work for NPOV. I believe I have successfully captured all of the key MEDRS compliant and notable reports of adverse effects of these drugs in the Quinolones article as well as in the articles for the individual drugs. I've tried to do this carefully and concientiously, knowing that hundreds of people view these articles every day.

The largest difference between the adverse event descriptions in the Quinolone article and the Adverse Effects article is the absence in the former article of AEs for which I could not find MEDRS compliant sources. Bearing in mind that these articles are supposed to be summaries and not detailed treatises, I've focused on the key AEs, so its possible that there are some rare or non-serious AEs that have been left out. I've focused on the key ones of tendon damage, neurological adverse effects and Clostridium infections. So at this point the separate adverse events article seems to be a redundant fork, and I believe it is time to remove it. I'm 100% open to suggestions if anyone wants to put an extra set of eyes on this and suggest anything from Adverse Events that should be transferred over to Quinolones.

As the subject will likely be raised, I'd like to explicitly state that I have no COI with respect to any of these articles, and no history of employment with any of the manufacturers. Except for one relatively minor drug with modest sales, all of the fluoroquinolones are now generics, sold as commodities for pennies a pill. There is a small amount of litigation going on, but most of it has been settled, so to the best of my knowledge there is really not a lot of potential for COI around these drugs in any case. Formerly 98 (talk) 13:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:52, 1 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete per Formerly 98. POV forks run against policy anyways, and the individual articles on the different fluoroquinolones are better for discussing their adverse effects rather than trying discuss them under a broad umbrella article where you run the risk of WP:SYNTH where an individual drugs AEs may be falsely generalized to all fluoroquinolones. I'd also like to thank F98 for his work on this important class of articles.AioftheStorm (talk) 19:11, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * CommentYes at least all the primary sources needed to be cleaned up and then if there is not to much content it should be merged. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:25, 1 March 2014 (UTC)


 * If you would prefer to defer this discussion until I go through an cut all the primary references and otherwise badly sources material from the article, I can get it done in the next 24 hours or so. I was reluctant to do that because it will likely be a chain saw operation that reduces the content by 3/4, and since that is nearly equivalent to a delete, I did not want to proceed without some sort of consensus.


 * The 2009-2010 editors were sufficiently anxious to make their position known that almost everything in the "Adverse Effects" article was pasted word for word into the Quinolones, Ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin articles, so I'm reasonably confident that the process of hacking out the poorly referenced stuff will be a repeat of what I've done in editing the aforementioned articles. Just let me know what you want me to do. Formerly 98 (talk) 19:44, 1 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge the content that meets WP:MEDRS (i.e. supported by high-quality secondary sources), delete the rest. All antibiotics have side effects, and we have no articles about side effects of &beta;-lactam antibiotics, cefalosporins, macrolides, aminoglycosides, tetracyclines etc etc. JFW &#124; T@lk  21:25, 1 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge and delete, as discussed above. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:05, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge as discussed above --LT910001 (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge and delete, concur with above.  Seppi  333  (Insert 2¢ &#124; Maintained) 23:42, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment I've gone over this again and believe that everything salvageable from Adverse Effects has been transferred over to Quinolones. As I mentioned above, I'd welcome a second set of eyes on this, but otherwise believe that "Delete" and "Merge" are now operationally equivalent operations. Formerly 98 (talk) 12:19, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.