Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Caroline Ford (medical researcher)


 * 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 keep. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:08, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Caroline Ford (medical researcher)

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As associate professor she does not meet WP:NPROF, her award as Emerging Leader in Science, Medicine & Health from a web site does not meet the award criteria in WP:ANYBIO. In a before search I found this but it is an WP:INTERVIEW  written by the communication director of an organisation that she belongs to. this looks like WP:TOOSOON Dom from Paris (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - A Google Scholar search results in 1346 citations and an h-index score of 19. Netherzone (talk) 13:39, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * In that list you have CC Ford CS Ford CE Ford C Ford, CP Ford and Caroline Ford, some of the articles are from before she started to publish (2005 according to her bio) with subjects as diverse as "Religion and popular culture in modern Europe" from 1993, "Altered Responsiveness of Rat Liver Epithelial Cells to Transforming Growth Factor β1following Their Transformation with v-raf" from 1990 "The Less Traveled Road: A Study of Robert Frost" from 1935 etc etc --Dom from Paris (talk) 14:39, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Dom from Paris I'm not sure we are looking at the same thing. If you do a more refined search in GS, look at CE Ford here; the citations (and stats) are her cancer research. Netherzone (talk) 15:27, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oops you are right, my apologies. --Dom from Paris (talk) 15:30, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak delete - According to SCOPUS her most cited work by far is this review with 239 citations. However, from my time looking at citations here it seems like reviews in biomedicine get cited way more than primary papers. So I'm not convinced a cited review indicates that a person's work has impacted the field in the same way that highly cited primary literature does. Her other most cited papers have 89 and 88 citations (with her as first author), and 53 citations (with her as last author). So while I think this is a bit of an edge case, I agree with nom that these citation counts are generally too low to demonstrate that the subject's "research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline". Happy to be persuaded otherwise by others. Cheers Ajpolino (talk) 21:18, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's great that you were able to find more sources! Do either the New Scientist or the The Australian pieces focus in any depth on Ford? Sadly I don't have access to either. I don't think she meets WP:NPROF, but I'm more than open to the argument that she meets WP:GNG; I just can't see a few of the sources. Thanks all! Ajpolino (talk) 17:35, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Here are the articles you mentioned. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Australian media, but the Sydney Morning Herald and the Adelaide Advertiser are state-wide papers, not just city papers. The New Scientist article has a history of research into breast cancer in mice and discovery of that virus in humans. The bits about Ford are:
 * "Over the following years, several other groups reported similar findings. In 2000, Polly Etkind at New York Medical College not only found MMTV sequences in human breast cancer tissue, but also found that some samples harboured more than one strain of MMTV, suggesting multiple recent infections. In 2003, Caroline Ford, now at Lund University in Malmö, Sweden, detected MMTV sequences in 42 per cent of breast tumour samples from Australian women, but in just 1.8 per cent (2 out of 111) of samples of normal breast tissue. Ford's team also found MMTV sequences in six of nine male breast tumours examined. And when Ford investigated the two samples of normal breast tissue that tested positive, she found one came from a woman who had had a tumour in the other breast, while the other came from a woman who developed a tumour after the sample was taken. ..... In Vietnam, just I per cent of women develop breast cancer, and when Ford looked at samples from Vietnamese women in her 2003 study, she found MMTV sequences in just 0.8 per cent of tumour samples and none in samples of normal breast tissue. ..... The most recent studies by Ford and others, however, have been based on looking for MMTV sequences in tumours that do not resemble any known HERVs. What's more, these sequences have not been found in normal tissue from the same individuals, as would be expected if they were HERVs. "This suggests a recent infection and integration of viral DNA," Ford says.
 * Other researchers are not convinced. No one has yet isolated the entire MMTV genome in one piece from a human cancer cell and shown that it yields viruses able to infect cells, points out Robert Weinberg of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, winner of a Nobel prize for his work on viruses and cancer. ........ None of the supporters of the MMTV hypothesis are claiming to have provided conclusive proof. "Our results, and those of others, only indicate an association and point to some possible implications," says Pogo. "We have not claimed causation in any of our papers." Ford agrees. "This work is preliminary, and the topic as a whole is still really in its infancy," she says.
 * The Australian is about someone else questioning her research and the award. It had a paragraph break after almost every sentence, so I've taken them out:
 * "A SYDNEY PhD student has found herself at the centre of a scientific cyber row after a national award led to her breast cancer research gaining international publicity. In the science world equivalent of David and Goliath, University of NSW student Caroline Ford finds herself pitted against 2003 Victoria Prize winner David Vaux. Apart from questioning the validity of Ms Ford's research, Dr Vaux has also attacked the structure of the Fresh Science award and called for changes to its format. Fresh Science is a national program to highlight work of young Australian scientists that has received no media attention. All nominated work must have undergone peer review and have been published academically, as the main criteria in selecting the winner is the candidate's ability to explain their research. After her win, Ms Ford's research, which highlighted a link between breast cancer and a virus, gained media exposure in the ABC, the BBC, international and national newspapers, and was picked up on wire services from Spain to Mexico. Dr Vaux, who has been honoured for his pioneering work in the molecular biology of cancer, believes her findings are 'most certainly wrong' and during the debate on the Australian Science Communicators email list branded them 'junk science'. He has called on her research team to repeat the study using a more recognised technique -- a move Ms Ford has rejected. He has also called for an expert panel to judge the science of the nominees in future Fresh Science events. But according to Fresh Science co-ordinator Niall Byrne, Ms Ford's science had been subject to peer review as part of her publication in the international journal Clinical Cancer Research. The validity of her results was an issue for that community, he told the HES, adding that he saw the dispute as a 'case of two reputable research teams having a dispute over technique and the interpretation of results'. Mr Byrne pointed to the example of Barry Marshall, whose work on the role of infectious agents in the cause of stomach ulcers was resisted by the medical community but later proven. 'This may lead nowhere, but we shouldn't hide the idea,' he said. Dr Vaux said he supported Mr Byrne's view that the public should know science was not perfect. However, Dr Vaux said that where public health was at stake, unconfirmed reports should not be reported. He pointed to the scare over the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine link to autism that sent immunisation rates plummeting. If Ms Ford's findings were right, he said, it meant breast cancer was contagious and that women with the disease should be quarantined to prevent its spread. 'I believe that scientists have a responsibility to challenge reports that they think are wrong when they are in the public domain and they think they have the potential of causing harm,' Dr Vaux said. Ms Ford told the HES she believed scientific debate was 'really important', but preferred not to comment further. However, in an email to the Australian Science Communicators, she said the 'pejorative and personal comments by Dr Vaux are inappropriate and unjustified scientifically'."
 * I haven't tried to find the Spanish, Mexican, etc, coverage of her 2003 findings that this article mentions. Hope this helps, cheers, RebeccaGreen (talk) 19:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep - article meets WP:GNG and WP:RS and given the overall lack of articles about female scientists generally on Wikipedia, if this is borderline for WP:NRPROF I'd be inclined to err on the side of keeping the article. Bookscale (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. IntoThinAir (talk) 23:40, 9 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete I agree if WP:GNG is satisfied this should be a keep, but I'm not seeing multiple articles in independent sources discussing her in detail.Pontificalibus 07:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - please note that this article was written as part of an edit-a-thon to celebrate women working in the STEMM area (particularly in Australia). The subjects were picked specifically because of coverage in various sources. I think it would be wise to show some good faith towards the creators of the articles. Please also note that the article has been improved with additional sources since the nomination. Bookscale (talk) 10:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't believe anyone has been accused of bad faith. Just because the article has been created as part of an edit-thon doesn't give it a pass on notability. I don't understand why a new user for whom this is their first edit gets a free pass on "confirmed user" status either. It would be far better IMHO to go through AFC. --Dom from Paris (talk) 10:19, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Calm down, I haven't accused anyone of acting in bad faith - I'm suggesting that it would be wise to do so in this instance by erring on the side of keeping the article. And although a new user created the article, it has since been improved by others. Bookscale (talk) 10:36, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice but you couldn't imagine just how calm I actually feel at the moment, something to do with the summer holidays I suppose! Asking people to show good faith suggests that maybe they weren't doing so before your advice, but that is by the by. I don't believe that we are doing anyone or the encyclopedia a service by erring on the side of keeping or for that matter deleting. As you said, when I reviewed and nominated it the article had already been edited by 8 different editors including 2 administrators so I really think the "showing good faith to a new editor" boat had already sailed as was less than a dot on the horizon so I honestly don't understand your comment. --Dom from Paris (talk) 11:48, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I have added more sources and some more information about her research. She, and her PhD research in 2003, gained national and international media attention after she won a national award. There has been more media attention on her recent research. I believe that she meets WP:GNG, or WP:BASIC ("If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability" - there is significant depth of coverage about her research, less about her personally, but plenty to confirm where she has worked and what she has worked on (and at least one that gives her age, though I haven't added that info to the article); or WP:NACADEMIC #7 "The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity." (Some of these sources are in Newspapers.com, and anyone with access should be able to use the hyperlinks; some are in EBSCO, where urls are specific to the institution I access it through, but anyone with EBSCO access should be able to find them from the details given.) RebeccaGreen (talk) 15:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per RebeccaGreen. In addition, I'd say that well-cited review articles are indeed an indication that someone is influential in their field, much as having written a standard textbook would be. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:47, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. Now meets basic notability requirements.--Ipigott (talk) 06:09, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per PROF c1. Although her research/citation record is not especially outstanding in her field (cancer), it exceeds what we typically consider borderline for academics. Although it is a SPA-created likely fan/vanity page, the article has been improved (as noted above). Agricola44 (talk) 15:09, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per RebeccaGreen. Article has been significantly developed and referenced since AfD lodged. Oronsay (talk) 20:07, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. GS citation record in this very highly cited field is to low to pass WP:Prof now: WP:Too soon. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:31, 14 August 2019 (UTC).
 * Keep per RebeccaGreen. Notable not citations but for Superstars in STEM, prizes and also for organising a global book club with ~3000 people. https://www.positive.news/society/the-book-clubs-that-are-uniting-stemminists-around-the-world/ DrPlantGenomics (DrPlantGenomics|talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:09, 15 August 2019 (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.