Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Herscu


 * 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   delete. Jenks24 (talk) 09:12, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Paul Herscu

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Weak referencing and dubious notability. Kurepalaku (talk) 08:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete Minimal citation at Google Scholar, so fails WP:ACADEMIC. Absolutely nothing found at Google News Archive, so fails WP:GNG. Appears to be simply a promotional article about a non-notable alternative medical practitioner. --MelanieN (talk) 00:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete I expressed concerns five years ago about the notability of Herscu. No independent sources have been presented.  The fact that an individual has published prolifically in low-impact journals does not make them notable; notability comes from reliably-sourced publications about the person.  I can't find anything that meets this standard.  Skinwalker (talk) 13:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Hello, My name is Paul Herscu. I have not really done this before in Wikipedia and am not sure if I am in the right place, so apologize ahead of time. After reading some background on Wikipedia process, and seeing as this is about a page of my work I thought I would write in. I wanted to provide more information for you, so that you can more accurately assess this page. And I am responding specifically to the comments above, but could add more if you need it. I was made aware that the page had a problem with the references. I then went to that page, and saw that there were requests for citations, explanations, etc. Since I had not put up this page in the first place, I had to work out the mechanics of how to do that. As a result, I have placed/made the following changes to the page:

First, I removed some words, such as 'extensive' and instead added a list of countries where I had taught, all verifiable by anyone searching the web. However, this now presents the page with a list of countries, which makes it look odd, but at least it answers that point.

Second, I added half a dozen references. I can see from the above comments that someone thought these references are weak and are in low impact journals. However, that is not accurate. Most are what is called a 1st tier journal. For example, Critical Care Medicine is the number one journal for emergency room physicians around the world. this is easily confirmed by anyone in medicine. For example, in the Critical Care Medicine article referenced, the editors took the opportunity to highlight this article are have a long editorial on its' level of importance to saving lives in the ED. The other journals are of a similar quality, which explains why the articles are referenced by others. There is some misconception in the above criticism about my wok and alternative medicine. However, most of what is on the page has little to do with that part of my work. Please note that this part of my work has nothing to do with complementary alternative medicine, but is read/practiced by ED physicians around the world, and diminishing the premier journal that all emergency room physicians read is, well...not actually correct. That article has begun a wave of new research in a branch of inflammatory life threatening pathways, and is therefore being referenced more and more. There are currently numerous trials occurring in animals models at a variety of institutions testing this single hypothesis. . However, we were the first to actually prove it in humans, and as result have worked through regulatory national agencies. Again, this is not alternative medicine, and any close read of this work will show the relevance within medicine. (I am sorry, but I do not know your medical knowledge.) Likewise, I posted another reference that focused on hospital admissions of a particular disease. this was published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. This journal is the top journal of the topic of Allergy, Asthma and immunology, and is published by the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology, the experts in the field. Characterizing this journal as a low impact journal is...well, you see my point I think. I added a third article which is a review article going in depth into a side effect of a medication, which was published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy, a top tier journal recognized around the world on the topic, and read by most allergists. Note also that these article are coauthored by the leaders in each of their specific fields of medicine. Note also that these articles then become referenced in other articles published in tier 1 journals, as for example,   , as well as blogs between physicians, as in. Note that these are just some references which are easy to find in any of the top medical journals. Since these are easy to verify, I hope I demonstrated that just with 1 or 2 articles, that were placed in the top journals in medicine are regularly referenced. I can add many more references here, but I hope I illustrated that some of the issues mentioned above are actually not correct.

Third, I have tried to create a balance between my various interests. Simply, my main interest is to help physicians find the right treatment, for each person, the first time out. I do that in the Complementary Alternative Medicine-CAM(referenced now), but I also do that in drug discovery pharmaceutical world (referenced now), and in clinical trials for a variety of diseases in some of the major hospitals around the country (referenced now). I know, on the face of it, it may seem that my interests are in conflict, as CAM might seem different from drugs, pharmaceuticals and hospitals, but if you read through my biography, you see that the main idea is the same, create systems that help clinicians find the appropriate therapy for their patients. If I had created this page, I probably would have placed that balance as it should be. However, it looks like this page was first created with a bias towards the CAM side of the equation. And if I read the string of comments here correctly, it looks like some people do not like CAM. Regarding CAM, I had already added references to a few articles. One was how to conduct good clinical trials in Influenza, if you are trying to test something in CAM. . While one may not understand or be biased by CAM approaches to medicine, the journal this article was published in is recognized as the top journal in CAM scientific approaches. Further, as can be seen by the authors and reviewers, some are in change of vaccinations in European countries. So from the authors and editors of this work, in this peer reviewed journal, I think they would find it incorrect to characterize the journal is a second rate one. Likewise, I had a paper on how to conduct a proper clinical trial in homeopathy in the only peer reviewed journal on the topic that is recognized in every university library, and in Pubmed and NIH. Likewise, when you look at the book reviews published about my books and interviews about me in peer reviewed journals that are recognized as leaders in their field, you find that I actually do qualify under the category: "1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources" When you look at the page titled Wikipedia Talk Page, found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines, one of the main points they make is the following: "This page in a nutshell: Talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia, not for expressing personal opinions on a subject or an editor." In other words, if a community of people in the CAM world have demonstrated the above premise, then even if you may not like CAM, it is you expressing opinion, rather than the facts on the ground. I can add more detail here if you need it, but I am trying to keep this short. Please let me know if you need more information.

My point is the following. I practice CAM in my office and write about it, with the point of reference of creating good science there and demonstrating efficacy or failure. I have written and taught on this and this is commonly attributed to my work by others around the world. However, I also work on non CAM endeavors, and in many respects spend much more time there. The page references a great deal on medicine, as practiced in hospitals, by specialists of the highest caliber. There too, I try to help them do better science, and have published a lot there, taught there, and there are clnical trials that are based on my work going on at this time, which I had also referenced, though I think it may be that on a quick read, one may have missed that this is hospital work, and thought it was CAM work. For example, as I referenced in the page, I have written on how to conduct drug trials in a more refined fashion, and that paper was again coauthored by one of the leaders in that field, and published in a leading pharmaceutical peer reviewed journal that every executive in the industry reads. The point of that article was how help trials be more effective and lead to better outcomes, and as a result of that work it too gets referenced by other authors, as in

What I have tried to do in the above is the following: address the issues mentioned above, namely that all I am is a "non-notable alternative medical practitioner". First, by the definitions in Wikipedia that I quoted, that does not apply in terms of notables, as my work is easily recognized in my community, but also that my work is much more than CAM, and that the majority of it is on some other topic, that seems to have been missed. That there are no papers or if they are they are minor papers in minor journals, which is blatently not the case. Look at the coauthors of the papers and you see them working in top hospitals and research centes, such as Harvard. They are in lead tier 1 journals and referenced. Regarding notables, I don't know if searching my name in Google matters as another bit of information, but here were over 30,000 hits, a minor point, but I am not sure how you make decisions, given the fact that, well, there are actual facts on the ground that differ greatly from your points above.

However, in light of the references and other changes that I added that create more balance in the page and may help you get a better sense of the overall work, I request that this request for deletion be withdrawn, and the topic closed, as the points raised were actually not fully representative of what is actually presented on the page or the verifyable truth. Please feel free to ask for any other information or details. As you can see, when I get interested in something, I dive right in. And at this moment I am interested on how this process actually works, in real life. Thank you, Sincerely, Paul Herscu — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.203.62 (talk) 04:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete Fails WP:ACADEMIC. Merely having publications isn't enough to meet Academic, the citation counts aren't exceptionally high. WP:BIO is also not met. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:46, 2 November 2012 (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.