Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leo Galland


 * 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. Discussion shows that there are sources to show notability of this person, regardless of whether his medical claims are accepted science. RL0919 (talk) 04:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Leo Galland

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Nominating on behalf of, who considers that the sources to not amount to notability. See Fringe_theories/Noticeboard for previous discussion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Notability depends upon influence or significance documented in reliable sources, and this is a medical topic, for which we really have to be careful when deciding what reliable means. Indeed, it crosses over into fringe topics, where we have to be the most careful of all. What we'd need are serious evaluations of his work and career; what we've got is fluff. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:35, 8 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:GNG. This is a human, not a biomedical topic, so WP:MEDRS is a red-herring. Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article. Non-trivial press coverage in reliable journalistic sources over many years allows a complete and neutral biography, even if short, regardless of the veracity of any of his views. Stating that he may hold fringe views is different from promoting fringe views. WP:FRINGE states: Just because an idea is not accepted by most experts does not mean it should be removed from Wikipedia. and Ideas supported only by a tiny minority may be explained in articles devoted to those ideas if they are notable.  Within the field of functional medicine he is known for developing the concept of "patient-centered diagnosis",  for which he was awarded the Linus Pauling Functional Medicine Award in 2000.  Beyond this he has significant coverage in reliable independent sources, for example:
 * (dedicated article about Galland. Intro: "By using a highly specific new test, a New York internist has found that many people believed to be suffering from irritable bowel syndrome actually have the common intestinal parasitic disease giardiasis. When properly treated with drugs that kill the pesky parasite, Giardia lamblia, symptoms of bowel distress disappeared, the doctor reported yesterday at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in New Orleans. The internist, Dr. Leo Galland, explained in an interview that the new test uses a special dye that makes the tiny cysts of the parasite easier to detect. He said it was far better able to detect the organism than a routine stool examination.")
 * (Dedicated profile of Galland)
 * (Profile of Galland and The Four Pillars of Healing: "Dr. Leo Galland is a medical detective who uses his extensive training (at Harvard University and New York University Medical School) to search for answers to real-life medical mysteries. His patients have problems that defy standard treatment. But then, Galland is not your standard physician...")
 * ("Dr. Leo Galland makes an unlikely apostle for alternative medicine. Schooled in conventional medicine, he's a no-nonsense doc who specializes in treating undiagnosed and hard-to-treat illnesses at his private practice in New York City. You won't find him posing with a bundle of herbs and a mud-smeared face as one of his contemporaries, Dr. Andrew Weil, recently did in Time magazine. But in his just-published new book, The Four Pillars of Healing (Random House), Galland, 54, makes a passionate case for the fusion of alternative and conventional medicine."}}
 * (Galland one of several physicians quoted discussing autoimmune disorders, introduced as: "Dr. Leo Galland, director of the Foundation for Integrated Medicine, which is based in New York, an award-winning clinician and the author of several highly acclaimed books."
 * (book review of The Fat Resistance Diet)
 * (book review of The Four Pillars of Healing)
 * (Interview with introductory biographical content).
 * (book review of The Four Pillars of Healing)
 * (Extensive analysis of Gallard's The Four Pillars of Healing, e.g.: I begin with a model of healing developed by a leading New York based practitioner of allopathic medicine, Leo Galland. Galland has specialised in treating patients who are at wit's end, that is, their treatment by other physicians has proved to little or no avail and they come to him as a "last resort"... Galland, however, has developed a model of diagnosis that attempts to put the patient back into the picture of health care. Following a summary of Galland's model of diagnosis, I will suggest how treatment protocols of some medical practitioners in the present appear to be responsive to the emphases of his diagnostic model... Galland has done us the service of setting out a "big picture" that portrays how the patient, "eclipsed" from most contemporary allopathy, can be put back into the picture of health and healing... Galland espouses traditional biomedical assumptions about medicine as premised mostly upon rationalism and Darwinism (and, to a lesser degree, empiricism).)
 * (2-page book review of The Four Pillar of Healing)
 * (Book review: "Internist and nutritionist Galland (Power Healing) has devised a three-part weight-loss plan based on recent studies of the hormone leptin, which regulates weight. He claims that inflammation caused by poor eating habits, stress, and other factors leads to leptin resistance and encourages weight gain. To reduce inflammation and enable leptin to do its job properly, readers are supplied with many appealing recipes and weekly menus featuring foods rich in omega-3 oils, antioxidants, fiber, and phytonutrients. Galland's research is impressive, although his theories have been tested only at his own practice. It would seem that further trials are warranted, but his eating plan remains remarkably well rounded, with none of the faddish elements that mar such well-known diets as the Atkins and Ornish plans. A welcome change from the most recent diet fashions, Galland's book deserves a wide readership.")
 * (Book review: "Galland, a pioneer in integrated medicine and a specialist in treating undiagnosed or difficult-to-treat illnesses, describes in detail a new model for disease causation known as "Patient-Centered Diagnosis"...)
 * (Book review of Superimmunity for Kids)
 * (Book review of The Four Pillars of Healing)
 * (book review of Power Healing: "Power Healing represents the true vortex of alternative healing and conventional medicine presaged by such co-luminaries as Abram Hoffer, Jeffrey Bland, William Crook, Bernie Siegel, and Andrew Weil..."
 * --Animalparty! (talk) 18:14, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * (book review of Power Healing: "Power Healing represents the true vortex of alternative healing and conventional medicine presaged by such co-luminaries as Abram Hoffer, Jeffrey Bland, William Crook, Bernie Siegel, and Andrew Weil..."
 * --Animalparty! (talk) 18:14, 11 December 2021 (UTC)


 * How is WP:MEDRS a "red herring" when the entirety of the article is about "research" and writings on medical topics? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:16, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "WP:MEDRS begins: "Biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources...", linking to Biomedical information. Nothing in the section What is biomedical information? addresses biographies. The section What is not biomedical information? however explicitly includes Beliefs, as well as the statement "For biographical information, use a source that is reliable for biographical information". Biographical information is not biomedical information, and thus WP:MEDRS is largely irrelevant. Saying "He wrote a book about diet" is not biomedical information. Summarizing what secondary sources have written about the books and views he's known for is neither biomedical information nor WP:PROFRINGE. And again please look to the sources, not the current or former state of this Wikipedia article. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've looked at the sources and been unimpressed. Expanding the article would necessarily make the problem worse by inserting more medical claims. And what is the benefit to the reader of merely listing the books that he has written? We're not WorldCat. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You could ask what is the benefit of listing books by Michael Pollan and summarizing his theses? You seem to presume that what Galland writes is inherently bad or fringe, and be afraid that merely stating what Galland claims, as nearly every source I've provided does, will trick people into thinking it's the gospel truth. This is a patronizing and paternalistic view in my opinion. If medical skeptics haven't yet been so aggrieved to denounce or dissect any of Galland's works, then maybe you should reexamine your preconceptions. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:27, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not being paternalistic; I'm sticking to policy. If reliable sources don't exist, we can't write about a topic. WP:MEDRS sets the standard for what "reliable" means regarding medical claims. This article is nothing but medical claims. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:31, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The question is, can a neutral, encyclopedic article be constructed from these sources? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:21, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think so (neutral & encyclopedic need not equate to long and overstuffed). I've neither read nor cited a single book, paper, or blog post by Galland, but from the existing sources, it becomes apparent that Galland is known for several things: using conventional and alternative therapies, treating patients with undiagnosed or hard-to-treat illnesses (several sources call him a "medical detective"); The Four Pillars of Healing (originally/alternatively titled Power Healing), in which his pillars seem to be are rather unshocking recommendations: Relationships (have a good social network and relationship with your doctor), Diet (avoid junk food, and exercise more), Environmental hygiene (avoid allergens, pesticides), and Detoxification; "Since publishing Superimmunity for Kids in 1989, Galland has been championing anti-inflammatory eating, which means a nutrient-dense diet made up mostly of whole foods with plenty of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds and other healthy proteins."; authoring The Fat Resistance Diet, in which he recommends an anti-inflammatory diet, arguing leptin resistance is a primary cause of obesity, although the link between diet and leptin resistance is unsubstantiated. While I recognize the depth of coverage in any individual source is rather limited, and we don't have a juicy in-depth diatribe by Science-Based Medicine to quote verbatim, a short paragraph or two could be made from existing sources that state what Galland is known for without making it a showcase promoting his views.  We need not extoll his every dietary recommendation, every patient story in articles about him, nor exhaustively list his conference talks or media appearances. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If the depth of coverage in any individual source is rather limited, that sounds like we don't have significant coverage. This isn't a situation where he meets some criterion that makes an article worth having no matter how short it's going to be. (For example, there are prizes and fellowships which are significant enough that the encyclopedia should cover all their winners in order to be systematic, even if some winners might not have much biographical detail.) If he's just a humdrum example of somebody repackaging diet and exercise as "complementary" or "alternative", then there's no reason to write about him; if he's mixing that with more substantive claims, then we need medical evaluation of those claims to avoid passing along bad information relevant to human health. Given the available sources, not limited to those presently in the article, that sounds like a lose-lose situation to me. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per Animalparty's extensive argument. Binksternet (talk) 23:03, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment - "His research includes nutrition,[5] chronic allergies,[6] leaky-gut syndrome, [7] and Lyme disease." leaky-gut syndrome is not an actual thing and much of Lyme disease is claims and quackery, especially the "long term" variant that has nothing to do with the actual disease. Are sources sufficient to provide better coverage?  If not, it's a good reason to delete.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 19:00, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I added those statements after an editor gutted the article of all existing sources and tried to pull a Prod blp. You know that notability is never based on the content of an article, but the existence of reliable secondary sources. Articles can always be improved, and I welcome good faith attempts to do so. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:51, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, BD2412  T 03:51, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article needs improvement, but the individual has notability. Sources are out there, and it's not like those are self-published books. Doczilla  @SUPERHEROLOGIST 20:39, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. --Animalparty! (talk) 03:56, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per the obvious extensive coverage by the media. Let's remember that our own feelings about whatever a person is touting in the media should not affect our reasoning for inclusion of an article that describes the existence and notability of that person. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 17:32, 15 December 2021 (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.