Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 July 12

= July 12 =

Diabetic Prime Ministers
Is Theresa May the first Type-I diabetic to become Prime Minister of a G-7 nation? RomanSpa (talk) 22:10, 12 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Does it matter?--86.187.170.21 (talk) 22:56, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * It does to my Type-I diabetic nephew. RomanSpa (talk) 00:50, 13 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Your selection seems extraordinarily specific. I assume the Chancellor of Germany is counted as the Prime Minister, but you're still excluding the President of the US and any US leader. And for France, you're including the Prime Minister of France but not the President of France. In addition, it's not clear whether you want to include the G7 countries during the time they were G7+1 or G8 or before they were G7. This source does claim that she's the first world leader, but I somewhat doubt they'be actually looked into every world leader for the past 50-100 years. (Of course if you go back far enough, it will not be clear if it was type 1 or 2. 2 may be more likely but Theresa May herself perhaps illustrates the risk of assuming which one by factors such as age rather than a proper diagnosis.) Nil Einne (talk) 05:51, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I selected the G-7 because it restricted the search area to a manageable size, and because I did not want to precipitate one of the Reference Desk's discussions on "what would constitute a 'major' country". If you wish to include non-Prime Ministerial heads of government, that would be helpful. RomanSpa (talk) 00:53, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Trouble is selecting G7 doesn't explain the time frame and it also doesn't explain what to do when the there was no G7 but G8 etc. Also, nonr of this explains the reason to limit it to Prime Ministers. Nil Einne (talk) 02:54, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * While perhaps the RD can be excessively pedantic at times, this seems to be a clear cut example of why we seek clarity when questions are unclear or strange. I don't think there's ever a time since say 1960 that I would personally have included the Italian PM as a world leader but not include the Indian or Chinese let alone Soviet Union/Russia (who were only ever a member of the G7+1 and G8 never the G7) leaders as world leaders. There's nothing wrong if your view is different but simply asking "world leaders" would easily lead to answers which aren't what you're looking for simply because people will have different views. G7 may help slightly but as I explained above, it's still fairly unclear as a recent organisation which has changed over time what you're referring to. A better question would be to list the countries or say the current G7 membership and give a time period since realisticly countries have changed (including Germany very recently which ideally should be dealt with) and more importanly as explained it's difficult to know if someone 200 years ago had type 1 diabetes. The other issue which this questions also exemplifies is that while we can take a question at face value, sometimes their nature suggests the implications haven't really been thought through. like excluding the US. So it's often resonable to ask if this is really what was meant. We risk fault every way. E.g. If we include the US perhaps we get blamed for giving an unwanted answer as this was excluded intentionally. If we exclude the US we get blamed for being excessively pedantic and following the question as worded rather than what was supposedly obviously meant. If we ask before answering we get faulted in a similar way. Nil Einne (talk) 04:38, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Several Soviet/Russian premiers had diabetes - mostly type 2, but it's unclear what type Yuri Andropov had. Russia is currently suspended from the G7/8, and of course was not a member when the Soviet Union was still around. This list of politicians with diabetes may help. Smurrayinchester 09:34, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this list. As you said, many of these appear to be Type-2, but (although not a Prime Minister) it was interesting to read that Sonia Sotomayor is the first Type-1 Supreme Court Justice. RomanSpa (talk) 01:01, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * According to diabetes.org.uk, diabetes.co.uk and jdrf.org.uk she is the first world leader with type 1 and not just a G7 PM. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 01:23, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, this is exactly what I wanted to know. In case you're interested, my nephew now has a picture of Theresa May pinned to his bedroom wall! Thank you for your help with this. RomanSpa (talk) 10:39, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Well I linked to the JRDF site above but as I also said I would be very hesitant to trust such a sweeping statement. Diabetes.co.uk doesn't seem any better. I fairly doubt they've actually looked at every single world leader including determining the best evidence for those who had diabetes but the type is unknown. The privacy of health issues also varies from person to person, and place to place even within the G7. E.g. Not G7 but I see some mention of diabetes in relation to Jacob Zuma but can't seem to find any sources confirming he has been diagnosed with diabetes or whether it pre-diabetec or the sources are simply wrong. Let alone what sort of diabetes he has. (As said above it's likely we either don't know e.g. Yuri Andropov seems an example of this. Or even what we think we know is wrong simply because rather than a proper diagnosis, assumption were made e.g are we sure we would know May was type 1 40-50 years ago?) I fairly doubt the JRDF would have been able to find much more abour Zuma, let alone know abour health issues of any of the 3 Kims and these are just two examples. The JRDF may have more success with the G7, but how much effort did they really spend particularly since they said all and weren't restricting thrmselves to G7? And even if we restrict it to when the G7 existed (so excluding G8 time), maybe the nature of the UK politics means all would have been known. Are we sure this applies to Germany or France? For France at least, history has shown various things can remain private if no one thinks it matters even if plenty in the media etc know. Maybe you don't care if your nephew believes this even if the evidence is very unreliable and that's none of our business but since this is the reference desk I think it's fair to ask ourselves whether we actually have reliable references and the answer IMO remains no. To put it a different way, if someone was trying to add this to an article based on available sourcing I would be strongly opposed. Nil Einne (talk) 02:54, 17 July 2016 (UTC)