Talk:Geoffrey Kabat

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The article “Geoffrey Kabat” is libelous and presents a one-sided and badly-distorted account of the controversy over the 2003 Enstrom and Kabat BMJ paper on passive smoking. Assuming that the editors of this article are open-minded and fair, the problem is that they are repeating the line taken by the American Cancer Society, whose Vice President for Epidemiology at the time, Michael J. Thun, came out and denounced our paper even before the paper was published online. He then orchestrated a campaign to smear the paper and its authors. The campaign had more to do with politics than with science or public health. The political nature of the attack is clear from the numerous references in the article to the District Court ruling by Judge Gladys Kessler citing our paper as an instance of tobacco industry influence — in fact, there was no tobacco industry influence. The American Cancer Society is a charity and an advocacy organization and has its own motivations and conflicts-of-interest. The charge that the paper came from the tobacco industry and was funded by the tobacco industry is false. This charge and other misrepresentations of the paper are addressed below. First, only the last 7 years of Enstrom’s 38-year follow-up of the California portion of the American Cancer Society cohort was funded with monies that originated from the tobacco industry. Funding was in the form of a grant from the Center for Indoor Air Quality (CIAR). This entity was a center for funding research on indoor air pollution (including passive smoking) using monies contributed by the tobacco industry. However, funding decisions were insulated from industry influence. Applications were reviewed by academic scientists and were judged on their scientific merit. The previous 31 years of follow-up had been funded by the State of California. Second, in analyzing and publishing their results, Enstrom and Kabat had no contact with the tobacco industry, which was not informed of the study and did not see the results until they were published. Third, the paper underwent the most stringent review by editors and statisticians at the British Medical Journal who determined that the study presented valuable data that had been carefully analyzed. (The entire publication history of the paper is posted on the BMJ website.) Fourth, in spite of the uproar caused by the American Cancer Society’s attack on the authors and the alleged “errors” in the paper, no one has identified any error that invalidates the results. In a letter to the editor, Enstrom and Kabat explained that some of the criticisms were factually wrong (such as the claim that in the 1950s and 1960s “everyone was exposed to tobacco smoke” and, therefore, there was no non-exposed group, while other criticisms did not invalidate the results (see page 504 below). Five, in spite of calls for the BMJ to retract the paper, the editor-in-chief, Richard Smith, defended publication of the paper, saying that when good work has been done, failure to publish it because the results are unpopular will distort the scientific record. Another editor at the BMJ, Alison Tonks, in a commentary on the letters to the editor pointed out that only 3% of the letters to the editor made any reference to actual data from the paper (see pdf below). Six, in the uproar, few critics took the time to read the 3,000-word paper with 10 tables. The fact that the authors showed that active smokers, even at low smoking levels (1-9 cigarettes per day), had increased risks of lung cancer and coronary heart disease got no attention.

In conclusion, the response to the paper was not about the science. It was about portraying two well-established scientists as shills for the tobacco industry in order to strengthen restrictions on smoking in public and advance the cause of discouraging smoking — something both authors are in favor of.

The controversy over the Enstrom and Kabat paper was more about politics than about science or public health.

Treatment of this controversy on Wikipedia demonstrates how well-intentioned people, who are not conversant with the discipline involved (i.e., epidemiology) can be badly misled by one-sided, bad-faith narratives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gkabat (talk • contribs) 13:51, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

First, thanks for coming to the talk page. I've been meaning to take a second look at this page for awhile, so I'll see if I can look through this at a later date.

The key thing between your comments here and proposed edits below is that biography articles should mostly be focused independent third-party discussion about the subject. I see you're including a lot of your papers below, but the most helpful sources are going to be independent ones not from any advocacy website, but scientific sources or sometimes newspapers (see WP:MEDPOP since that would apply to a lot of your work). Just for general background, your commentary above couldn't be used as a source, but journal editor comments you reference could be potential sources.

In the Scientific Work section of the current article, it does looks like it needs some general cleanup or restructuring. That said, we follow what's called due weight in sources. If The American Cancer Society criticized how one of your papers used their database (though the sourcing on that statement is currently incomplete and to an advocacy website that would need to be fixed), that does appear to be something that would be normally included in an article. However, that inclusion would also be in the context of trying to summarize how WP:MEDRS sources discuss (negatively or positively) that study. That's just to give you a general idea of how things work at Wikipedia without getting into specific edits yet. KoA (talk) 17:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks very much for this initial response. As I tried to convey in my opening block paragraph, and in a different way in my "revision" of the Geoffrey Kabat bio, it is actually tricky to determine what are valid sources to rely on. My main point is that the Wikipedia article selected 1 out of 155 peer-reviewed scientific papers from a 45-year career because it got some adverse publicity. The reason I included the details in both the intro para and the rewrite of the bio is because it is very easy to portray our paper as corrupt and influenced by the tobacco industry if one ignores all the information that is available and that I have packed into my write-up. I will be happy to lay out these points more clearly. But the fact that the journal didn't retract the paper under such tremendous public pressure and defended it in their comments (editor Alison Tonks) and editor-in-chief Richard Smith should be taken into account, no?

Let me point out something that became clear to me. If it weren't for the BMJ affair I believe there would be no Geoffrey Kabat Wikipedia page. This is because the driving reason behind the page is notoriety and the fact the ACS published their condemnation of the paper. It is just not fair or intellectually honest to leave things there and to only give credit to the ACS spokesman and disregard all of the positive evaluations of our work.

The point that became clear to me, as I started to say, is that my colleague epidemiologists -- even one who have published more than me and have made solid contributions to the field -- do NOT have Wikipedia pages. No one is interested in the day-to-day, year-to-year, work that constitutes normal science. So, I believe the only reason that this page was written about me is because of the BMJ brouhaha.

This page has been there since, as best I can tell, 2015, and it is utter slander and a hit-job, whether the person who wrote knows it or not. So, either this should be corrected and the full story laid out, of the page should be taken down.

Again, I really appreciate your looking into this and I will be happy to supply you with any information I can.

Geoffrey Kabat Gkabat (talk) 22:48, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I posted two statements on the “Talk” page for the “Geoffrey Kabat” bio on July 11 and July 12.  I received a preliminary response on July 12.  

Let me recap the situation.

I want to register a complaint regarding the “Geoffrey Kabat” Wikipedia page that appears to date from 24 March 2015. The bio presents a one-sided, distorted, and defamatory account of my 45-year career, and of our British Medical Journal (BMJ) paper in particular. The article relies on a couple of press releases by the American Cancer Society and political attacks by anti-smoking activists. Just because a functionary at a charity/advocacy organization issues a press release alleging certain claims concerning a subtle scientific question, this does not mean that it is a fair and accurate account of incident. By citing this politically-motived press release and ignoring all of the other relevant documented evidence, you present an egregiously distorted picture — one that amounts to defamation.

To date, I have not received any further acknowledgement or follow-up questions about my posts on the “Talk” page from July 11 and July 12.

This defamatory article has been online now for over 9 years. Wikipedia says that it takes seriously harm to the reputation of living people. But, in the present case, because of the involved technical issues (relating to the epidemiology of what is a weak risk factor) and because people assume that motives of functionaries at an organization like the American Cancer Society are decent, this travesty of the truth has been able to stand uncorrected for all these years.

As I wrote ten days ago, this bio would never have been written if it had not been for the controversy and headlines generated by our paper. I my 45-year career, my work has never been challenged on scientific grounds. I have a very good reputation as an epidemiologist, and my publication record puts me in the top 2 percent of scientists.

As I wrote ten days ago, Wikipedia should either take a look at the information and documentation I have provided and REVISE the current Geoffrey Kabat bio, or it should decide to take down any Geoffrey Kabat bio.  

However, I understand that, because there was a controversy, you will want to keep my bio. Therefore, under Wikipedia’s guidelines regarding damage to reputations caused by citing defamatory and distorted allegations, you have an obligation to do a better job of presenting the other side of the story, which is completely lacking.

I’ve tried to present some of the main points that are ignored in the current account. But this is a complicated story, and there is additional information that is relevant to a even-handed and accurate account. 2601:41:4300:F4E0:64F8:A414:1458:E3F7 (talk) 13:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

{{adminhelp}}

In July, I posted three posts on the Geoffrey Kabat “talk” page, on July 12 and July 23, 2024. Except for a preliminary response on July 12, I have heard nothing more.

Wikipedia says that it takes seriously defamatory content that damages the reputation of living people.

The second of the five pillars of Wikipedia states:

“We strive for articles with an impartial tone that document and explain major points of view, giving due weight for their prominence. We avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas there may be just one well-recognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as "the truth" or "the best view". All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy with citations based on reliable sources, especially when the topic is controversial or is about a living person. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong on Wikipedia.”

Since 2015 this Geoffrey Kabat page has been up on the Web with no corrections.

The opening paragraph reads, “Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American epidemiologist, cancer researcher, and author. He has been on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and State University of New York, Stony Brook. He was co-author of a discredited BMJ study funded by the tobacco industry, that erroneously said there was no association between secondhand smoke and health problems.”

The next paragraph goes on at length to discuss our BMJ paper.” The bolded sentence above and the entire discussion of this issue present a badly distorted picture based on lies and misstatements of the facts. The “sources” cited in the article are the result of smear campaign by the Michael Thun, the vice president for epidemiology at the American Cancer Society at the time our article was published in 2003.

Just because something is reported as news doesn’t mean that it is true. Ease of reference is not the arbiter of truth.

The exculpatory evidence may not have been published in a mainstream periodical, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

You have an obligation to tell the other, extensive, side of the story that has been left out. Taking into account the references given below would require a total reversal of the claim that our paper was “discredited” and that it was funded by or, in other ways, influenced by the tobacco industry.

If what Thun had said was true, the BMJ would have retracted the paper. But after careful scrutiny, the editors at BMJ refused to retract the paper. In fact, in the 21 years since the paper was published, no one has found serious errors or improprieties in the paper.

Below are several key documents to cite:  

Richard Smith, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) at the time

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC188406/?ref=quillette.com

Alison Tonks, editor at the BMJ at the time

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC188405/

Geoffrey Kabat

https://quillette.com/2023/09/15/dogmatism-data-and-public-health/ 2601:41:4300:F4E0:B5BA:EA69:992E:5E52 (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

You have stated a lot of things, so here is my attempt to break down everything into discrete elements. Please note that I genuinely want to help you navigate the polices and guidelines and precedents that have been well established for Wikipedia. I also have compassion for someone who feels like their entire life's work has been distilled into a single event. However, this is my attempt to help you navigate the reality of what Wikipedia is and is not, and perhaps in the process you can help provide us information that fits the requirements for inclusion into this article.

1. The article libelous: I can see how it feels this way, however everything in this article is based in well sourced, reliable, third party sources. You may disagree with their findings but Wikipedia represents what is verifiable, not truth.
2. Assuming ... open-minded and fair: I can see how you feel like there are editors in the traditional sense, but most editors are more like curators of verifiable information. The reality is that Wikipedia generally does not permit original synthesis or no original research. Thus there is nothing to be open-minded about, as we are not truth finders. That being said, one principle that is important is balance and weight on an issue, but still that is from the consideration of verifiable information that has been published. Not on the strength of one side's arguments. For example see WP:FRNG as it relates to "an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views" - and I think you can honestly agree that is what you're presenting here (an idea departing from mainstream views) - even if that mainstream view is incorrect or wrong.
3. American Cancer Society...District Court ruling: Again I would defer to verifiable, not truth -- it is not about what you know to be true, but rather what has been independently and reliably reported. The court records are indisputable -- you may disagree with what the courts found, but that doesn't make it untrue.
4. in fact, there was no tobacco industry influence: It would be one thing if the courts found that claim about influce to be false, but they did not. What can you specifically point to that meets the qualifications of WP:VERIFYOR?
5. ACS ... is an advocacy organization: Irrelevant - multiple independent sources have reported, and continue to report on this topic in an unfavorable light.
6. funded by the tobacco industry is false & First...Second...Third...Fourth... As with above, you simply need to prove it through reliable sources, not throughs self assertion. Also see WP:IKNOWITSTRUE.
7. calls for the BMJ to retract the paper while technically this falls under the above, just to mention that there are plenty of documents on the BMJ that have contradictory findings. Furthermore, Editor Smith (in the letter you cited) says specifically that "we are not in the truth business" but rather that they are "in the debate business". As such does not mean that the simple fact of peer reviewed publication fully establish it as wholly true and accurate. Furthermore to quote Smith, "...we are all aware of the extreme deficiencies of peer review". But it's mere continued existence does not mean that BMJ wholly agrees with your finds, nor does it mean they reject the claims against it. Neither Smith nor Tonks statements address the debate of who is ultimate correct on this matter, rather they both squarely sit in the "here is why we let this be published" while clearly demonstrating that it is controversial and that it might not be true.
8. In conclusion...The controversy over the Enstrom and Kabat paper was more about politics than about science yes, it is possible that this was simply a political smear campaign by the anti-tobacco entities -- which if true, they were extremely effective from the cursory look of it. However, Wikipedia is not the venue to correct these alleged wrongs, and I would suggest that if the courts didn't even side with you, there might more going on than what you're presenting here. Furthermore, I would suggest that looking beyond this single publication it does appear that you continue to be thrown in to the "big corporate biased scientist" boat even on more contemporary works. There seems to be enough reliable sources to continue the claims of your bias in more recent events, which might warrant inclusion now that you've brought it up to peoples attention, which I'm sure you really wouldn't like to see happen. This is why an article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing. And since this is not the correct venue to correct your public / professional image, it might be well worth your efforts to correct your professional image outside of Wikipedia, and when there are reliable sources that those might be included in this article in the future.
9. Treatment of this controversy on Wikipedia demonstrates... rather it simply demonstrates that you do not understand what role Wikipedia plays in disseminating reliable information, see WP:ABOUT and what Wikipedia is not. Additionally that you do not understand that this is not the forum for you to change your perception in the professional nor lay community. Don't look to Wikipedia to change your public image, as we will not lead the correction, but rather we follow, letting reliable sources make the novel connections and statements. As you might ask the volunteer editors to read through all of this information, respectfully we ask that you read through the policies and guidelines that have been shared with you already. No it is not a pre-requisite that everyone reads every word (just like you likely did not read the entire lawbooks regarding how to drive on the road, before you first stepped behind the wheel of a car), but it does mean that when problems and contention arise, the arbitor is the existing policies and guidelines which is why they're being represented to you for your review.

TiggerJay (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gkabat: - I recently became aware of this article through your request for assistance over at the helpdesk. Let me review this to see how I can help out. Just as a reminder there is no "corporation" nor "staff" behind Wikipedia per se (technically there is but not as it relates to the problems you're having with this article), but rather a huge number of volunteers who are taking time out of their lives to improve this encyclopedia. And if you are indeed the person this article is about, as you seem to present as, I can completely understand and sympathize with the realization that you're top search results includes this page which feels like it distills your life into primarily this one article from many years ago. Coupled with the fact that as you're trying to present a broader picture of yourself, that goes beyond a single famous or infamous moment, you are getting caught up in what feels like a wall of rules and regulations which do not appear to be working how you expect them to and if feels profoundly unfair. I get it! Let me encourage you that from what I've seen so far, nobody is biased against you, nor taking sides. Rather they are simply trying to follow the various policies and guidelines that have been laid for decades now to ensure the most fair outcomes. Even when it doesn't feel like it. Personal attacks, yelling and legal threats will get you precious little as far as results. Instead of insisting that you're "right" or that you've been "wronged", might I suggest that you take to heart what people are requesting of you and helping them to help your cause. The reality is that most people want to be viewed in a positive light, and even when they make mistakes they want to cover it with rationale or context. I will take some time to review this for you, but if you could also take the time to carefully read and review the following articles in totality, not just for finding how that specific article helps you. WP:NOTFALSE, WP:CRIT, WP:PROOF, WP:PRIMARY, WP:NPOV and of course WP:BLP. You will find very helpful information contained therein. And yes, it will likely feel "not fair" but that is simply because it is likly that well established policies and guidelines simply do not favor you in this specific situation. TiggerJay (talk) 06:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

As the 'first responder' here, I say: yes. It's a shame nobody took this up at BLPN. Although I've gone quiet here I have in fact done some source hunting behind the scenes and the situation seems to be that our hands are tied, simply by what's in the reliable sources Wikipedia is bound to reflect. Bon courage (talk) 06:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Yep I think that is likely the situation -- although I do want to give a more thorough look because I empathize with the individual, but it would seem that the circumstances are likely stacked against them given the parameters required for inclusion. There simply lacks any notable coverage to suggest that Geoffrey is either notable outside of this one instance WP:BLP1E, nor that there is sufficient non-WP:PRIMARY RS regarding the controversy to help right the weight of the article overall. TiggerJay (talk) 06:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh I think there is plenty of secondary sourcing. It just seems that this particular bit of research (over 20 years old now) has become established in the literature as a poster-child for improper industry influence of science. That's not something Wikipedia can fix. Bon courage (talk) 06:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. This page certainly follows the mountain of reliable, verifiable, secondary sources. My reference to secondary souring was regarding if there was enough sources to support his counter-claim against what he is accused of doing (eg his claim of a UNDUE weight), thus somehow adding some more support to his claim, but at cursory glance there appears to be precious little if any. If anything, it looks Kabat's improper industry bias persists in more recent work. TiggerJay (talk) 15:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like there's a bit of unrelated material that's reliably sourced and can be added; for example, here are two positive reviews of his second book. There's a third book in Croatian. It looks like he's been a columnist for the Genetic Literacy Project and Forbes, so maybe add a line about writing for the general public. There's another scientific paper that got some discussion in the Washington Post, and it looks like news sources sometimes turn to him for scientific discussions of cancer. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

question re: whether all of the sources are consistent with WP:BLP

Isn't the ACS press release a WP:SPS? WP:BLPSPS says never to use SPS for BLP articles. WP:BLPPRIMARY also says to "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources," and not to use court records, yet the article makes repeated use of Kessler's ruling. Are court rulings distinct from court records when it comes to BLPs? Raising this here before I edit these out of the article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:46, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

A press release from a major organization is not a SPS. Aren't the court document applying to scientific work, not a person? Bon courage (talk) 06:04, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Why isn't a press release from a major organization a SPS? It was written and published by the ACS itself, not by a secondary source, and WP:USESPS explicitly lists press releases as SPS. As for the court ruling, seems to me that it's still material about Kabat; if it weren't about him, it wouldn't be on his page. If we're unable to work this out here, we can ask someone at the WP:BLPN to weigh in. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe the intention behind court records is because it encourages WP:OR, as stated in WP:BLPPRIMARY "... to support assertions". However, I do not believe there is anything against using court records or even rulings as part of further establishing fact, such as specific findings of the court (eg establishing what the court through review of the evidence has established as true or factual).

Regarding WP:SPS, generally I have seen this in regards to establishing self-promotion or notability. Additionally, it says "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" - and I believe that ACS would qualify as such, as clearly someone who has been deeply and specifically involved in smoking and cancer, as well as being often cited and/or published by other generally reliable sources who are independent. TiggerJay (talk) 17:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: court rulings, I went looking in the talk pages for BLP and BLPN to see if this had been discussed, and the most relevant discussion that I found was the following recent summary on a closed discussion that proposed amending WP:BLPPRIMARY to allow court rulings to be used: "There is consensus against amending BLPPRIMARY to explicitly permit citation of published court judgements. While there is limited support for not having a categorical prohibition on citing court documents, most editors believe that judicial documents require interpretation, and the explicit permission of citing court documents would WP:NOR. Whether there should be a explicit prohibition on citing court documents may require additional discussion." I'm inclined to limit the sources on this page to secondary discussions of the court case that explicitly mention the paper.

Re: the press release, the last sentence in that paragraph that you quoted from says "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer." So I think the ACS press release should be excluded. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:10, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd support that too. It doesn't even mention Kabat: . SmartSE (talk) 19:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

RE: court rulings - I agree that the biggest problem with court documents/rulings is the temptation for OR. However, we often see cases listed as reference, especially as supporting documents for objective facts that to not compel SYNTH or OR. That being said, I would agree that most of the references to such should be removed from this article.

RE: press release - I would disagree that ACS is a third-party source as far as this article is concern, in fact according to that link, it most definitely is first party as someone with a vested interest in the contention. However, what SmartSE puts forward appears accurate, while it is likely that the ACS article is in reference to the specific research described in this article, it does not clearly state it, and does not include Kabat's name, so this is probably another good removal from the article itself. TiggerJay (talk) 20:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Given the apparent consensus, I've gone ahead and removed the press release and info cited to it. The content could be replaced if there is a secondary source that repeats their message. SmartSE (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The other primary source that we should be careful about is the 2006 court ruling. It would be far better for us to cite a secondary source which summarises the report, rather than us picking out quotes from a 1600 page document. SmartSE (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Tiggerjay@FactOrOpinion@Smartse

I greatly appreciate this discussion of the BMJ press release and the Kessler ruling. As to the Kessler ruling, to me, this was a show trial, taking a serious scientific publication and holding it up as a prime example of racketeering. One has to understand that there is very aggressive anti-smoking movement that goes under the name of "cancer control" and these people judge everything in the light of whether it advances the cause of discrediting the tobacco industry. I am totally against people smoking and against tobacco companies profiting from people's addiction to nicotine. Our paper was not funded by the tobacco industry. I've tried to explain that CIAR was a middle-man entity that allocated funds from tobacco monies to bonafide researchers doing work on indoor air pollution. The people behind the RICO case were the usual -- Stanton Glanz, Jon Samet, Lisa Bero, and Thun. This was not about whether our study was correct, it was really about our coming out and saying that any relationship was weak. But our study is very anti-smoking!! Focusing on passive smoking actually has the effect of trivializing smoking. If everything is carcinogenic, then nothing is carcinogenic.

I know I am not weighing in on what citations conform to WP usage. However, I will shortly be weighing in on what is now implicit in the current version of the bio -- that is, that the ACS attack on us was political in nature. As a political attack, no one worried about smearing the reputations of two established researchers or adhering to scientific standards of discourse. Next week I will post some additional material, which, I believe, will help clarify the political campaign that I am referring to. Gkabat (talk) 14:28, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay@Smartse

I just noticed that, with the addition of the new material to the bio, which is very well done, three sentences describing my 45-year career in epidemiology got edited out (inadvertently, I assume). After the intro, "Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American epidemiologist, cancer researcher, and author," the omitted material is: "Over a forty-five year career, Kabat has studied a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and environmental exposures in relation to cancer and other diseases, and mortality. He is most noted for his work characterizing the role of smoking, alcohol consumption, passive smoking, diet, obesity, the metabolic syndrome, and attained height, as well as environmental exposures, including pesticides and electromagnetic fields, in relation to the risk of cancer at different sites."

This material could either go at the very beginning, before the mention of "In 2003 he was co-author of a disputed study..." which I think is most logical, or could go right before the "Tobacco study" section, which I think is less logical. Gkabat (talk) 20:22, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done hagiographic self promotion. Theroadislong (talk) 22:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Theroadislong@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay

That is 100 percent description of a career. It is factual. It is backed by PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=kabat+g&sort=date I don't see how one can call it self-promotion. I hope other editors will see that if anything belongs in the bio of scientist this kind of description certainly belongs. I am not referring to the exact wording but the content belongs. Gkabat (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Theroadislong@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay@Smartse

As it stands, after the two brief introductory sentences, the article mentions the "disputed paper" before there is any sketch of the career that the paper came out of. Doesn't this strike anyone as illogical? Gkabat (talk) 22:53, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gkabat, re: content having been removed from the page, no, it was not removed inadvertently. On the article page, you'll see a link towards the top titled "View history." If you click on that, it will take you to a list of all edits that have ever been made to the page, and you can view the individual edits via the "Compare selected revisions" tool. Each edit should have an edit summary, though some editors omit those. You'll see that the edit removing the content you quoted has a summary that says "Delete overview of scientific work that was just someone's attempted summary of a search results page on pubmed." The problem is that the source of the two sentences that were removed -- a collection of PubMed paper titles/links -- isn't an acceptable source for WP content, per this guideline. Do you know of a newspaper that has used you as an expert and said a bit about your background? That would be an acceptable source. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to deal with all of the WP guidelines that result in a page that doesn't capture what a CV would capture. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:18, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion Thanks for this explanation. Yes, it does seem strange that WP requires a description of the highlights of my career from a newspaper. I remember reading bios of colleagues and there was always sentence of this kind summarizing the highlights of the person’s career. I’ll see if there is anything that fills the bill. 73.141.174.25 (talk) 02:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gkabat, it doesn't have to be from a newspaper per se. It has to be written by a third party and appear in what WP considers a reliable source, and I figured that a newspaper article was the most likely place for that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:42, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay@Smartse@Theroadislong

The Epidemiology Monitor is the indispensable newsletter in our field of epidemiology. In November, 2009 and, again, in February, 2017, the Epidemiology Monitor devoted featured, front-page, and lengthy interviews with me about my two books: Hyping Health Risks and Getting Risk Right. The interviews are probing and delve into questions about how to assess various health and environmental risks. They provide a valuable discussion of how the results of scientific studies can get sensationalized, prompting public anxiety and confusion, as well as regulatory involvement.

The two interviews should be posted under “Further reading” or “External links”:

https://www.epimonitor.net/Epi-Docs/Archives/EM%20NOV%2009.pdf

https://issuu.com/theepidemiologymonitor/docs/february-2017-the-epidemiology-moni Gkabat (talk) 14:17, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Gkabat Wikipedia has little interest in what interviews say because they are not independent sources. Theroadislong (talk) 15:50, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion @Theroadislong @Smartse

A new article by me has come out in Reason magazine.

https://reason.com/2024/10/16/we-were-wrong-to-panic-about-secondhand-smoke/

It discusses the results of a major new study from the American Cancer Society on prevention of risks/exposures for cancer. It shows that secondhand smoke poses a very small and negligible risk of lung cancer. In contrast, smoking itself is, buy far, the strongest risk factor for cancer. In other words, the results of this study from the American Cancer Society are in complete accord with the results of our British Medical Journal article of 2003. The Geoffrey Kabat page should be updated to refer to this article and the new American Cancer Society study. Gkabat (talk) 13:58, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

If you wrote it, is not an independent source, we would need to wait until a third party reported on the content. Theroadislong (talk) 14:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Theroadislong

I understand. Thank you. Gkabat (talk) 13:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I have been trying for years to provide a more accurate and nuanced account of the response to our paper on passive smoking in the British Medical Journal in 2003. Some points have been improved on or corrected. However, the account still emphasizes certain events/facts and ignores other crucial facts. This results in a distorted account of the significance of the paper and of the incident.

Our paper in the BMJ attracted a lot of attention and a lot of outrage because our study seemed to be out-of-line with other studies on the question. However, your current discussion gives an unbalanced account of the story.  Here is the other side that needs to be taken into account in order to be responsible and fair.

1)    Passive smoking is what is referred to as a “weak association” — that is, where there is a doubling on the risk, or less. Wynder, 1990; Islami 2024

2)    Our results are in line with those of other studies and with meta-analyses on passive smoking and lung cancer (Hackshaw 1997, Taylor 2001, Taylor 2007, IARC Monograph 100E, 2012, p. 230).

3)    We made a point of showing that smoking, even at a low level (1-9 cigarettes per day) has a significant impact on lung cancer, heart disease, and COPD (Table 10). No one acknowledged this.

In line with the focus on criticism and attacks, 7/13 lines of the “Tobacco study” paragraph are devoted to alleged criticisms, whereas only 3/13 lines mention supportive statements. The references follow this pattern.

The charge that our study was supported by the tobacco industry is misleading. The funding was from the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), a panel set up to distribute funds from the tobacco industry for the study of indoor air pollution, including passive smoking. Decisions regarding what studies to fund were made by scientists on the panel and were insulated from industry influence.

The fact that critics were able to fasten on the funding issue and the failure to find a positive association allowed them to discredit the study without taking into account its strengths (as enumerated by the editors at BMJ) and the fact that it was published in a highly reputable journal, that it withstood all the criticism, and editors stood by it. Most importantly, our results are in line with those of other studies of passive smoking. In addition, the two authors have long and respected research careers.

However, the charge of “tobacco industry” influence was successfully used by tobacco control activists to discredit the paper, which few people seem to have read. Those who were outraged  felt it had to be wrong since it seemed to conflict with the gospel truth that passive smoking was a potent cause of lung cancer and other disease.

The article should tell both sides of the story.

A more balanced account would look like the following:

Tobacco study

In 2003, Kabat, who then worked at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, co-authored a study with James Enstrom in the BMJ examining the association between passive smoking and tobacco-related mortality. The study concluded that its results “do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality.”[6,5,1] The paper was heavily criticized in letters to the journal. Of the many letters to the BMJ in response to the article, few provided “a dispassionate appraisal of the work,”[8,9] and the editor of the BMJ stood by its decision to publish the paper, assessing it “a useful contribution to an important debate.”[10] A major factor in the response to the paper was the claim that the work was “supported by the tobacco industry” and was therefore biased. In fact, support for the last 7 years of the 30-year study came from the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), which funded many scientific studies on indoor air pollution, including passive smoking. Awards were made by a committee of scientists and were shielded from the industry influence. The Enstrom and Kabat paper was cited by the US District Court in a US racketeering lawsuit against tobacco companies.[1] However, attacks on the paper obscured a number of facts. First, passive smoking is what is referred to as a “weak association” — where there is, at most, a doubling of the risk.[[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2258276/ Wynder 1990], [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9087866/ Jenkins 1996]]. (In contrast smoking carries a ten-fold increased risk or greater). Second, results of the study were in line with those of other studies of passive smoking [[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9365295/ Hackshaw 1997]; Taylor 2001, Taylor 2007, [https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Personal-Habits-And-Indoor-Combustions-2012 IARC 2012]]. Third, a recent study by the American Cancer Society [Islami 2024] examining risk factors for lung cancer found that smoking was by far the strongest risk factor, but that passive smoking was the twelfth leading cause, following excess body weight, alcohol intake, physical inactivity, low fruit/vegetable consumption, UV radiation, HPV infection, processed meat, HCV infection, H. pylori infection, and low dietary fiber. Fourth, Enstrom and Kabat showed the effects of smoking and that even current light smokers (1-9 cigarettes per day) had a significantly increased risks of lung cancer, heart disease, and chronic obstructive lung disease, suggesting that the study could pick up significant effects of light smoking, but not the much more diffuse effects of passive smoking.

In the opening paragraph, second sentence, I suggest that the words following “funded by the tobacco industry” be deleted for reason explained above. Gkabat (talk) 23:42, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

please request edits with the template {{edit COI}} in the form of replace x with y and include an independent relaible source for each change. Theroadislong (talk) 08:02, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Please replace 1 by 2

== 1)          Tobacco study ==

See also: Passive_smoking § Industry-funded_studies_and_critiques

In 2003, Kabat, who then worked at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, co-authored a study with James Enstrom in The BMJ examining the association between passive smoking and tobacco-related mortality. The study concluded that its results "do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect." The study was funded and heavily publicized by the tobacco industry. The paper was heavily criticized by the scientific community. Of the many letters to The BMJ in response to the article, few provided "a dispassionate appraisal" of the work, and the editor of The BMJ stood by its decision to print the paper, assessing it "a useful contribution to an important debate." One criticism was that the study had failed to identify a comparison group of "unexposed" persons due to the pervasive exposure to secondhand smoke in the 1950s. In a US racketeering lawsuit against tobacco companies, the Enstrom and Kabat paper was cited by the US District Court as "a prime example of how nine tobacco companies engaged in criminal racketeering and fraud to hide the dangers of tobacco smoke." The Court found that the study had been funded and managed by the Center for Indoor Air Research, a tobacco industry front group tasked with "offsetting" damaging studies on passive smoking, as well as by Philip Morris who stated that Enstrom's work was "clearly litigation-oriented."^[13] On May 22, 2009, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court's 2006 ruling.

== 2)         Tobacco study ==

In 2003, Kabat, who then worked at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, co-authored a study with James Enstrom in the BMJ examining the association between passive smoking and tobacco-related mortality. The study concluded that its results “do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality.”[6,5,1] The paper was heavily criticized in letters to the journal. However, editors at the journal pointed out that, of the many letters to the BMJ in response to the article, few provided “a dispassionate appraisal of the work,”[8,9] and the editor-in-chief of the BMJ stood by its decision to publish the paper, assessing it “a useful contribution to an important debate.”[10] A major factor in the response to the paper was the claim that the work was “supported by the tobacco industry” and was therefore biased.[2  https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7418/E237 ] Replying to the criticism, the authors defended their record as independent scientists, stating that, “the tobacco industry played no part in our paper other than providing the final portion of the funding.”[ https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7413/504 ] They further wrote that, “The tobacco industry never saw any version of our paper before it was published, never attempted to influence the writing of the paper in any way, and did not even know the paper was being published until it became public.” ] The Enstrom and Kabat paper was cited by the US District Court in a US racketeering lawsuit against tobacco companies.[1] However, attacks on the paper obscured a number of facts. First, passive smoking is what is referred to as a “weak association” — where there is, at most, a doubling of the risk.[[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2258276/ Wynder 1990, Jenkins 1996]. Second, results of the study were in line with those of other studies of passive smoking [[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9365295/ Hackshaw 1997]; Taylor 2001, Taylor 2007, [https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Personal-Habits-And-Indoor-Combustions-2012 IARC 2012]]. Third, a recent study by the American Cancer Society [Islami 2024] examining risk factors for lung cancer found that smoking was by far the strongest risk factor; however, passive smoking was the twelfth leading cause, following excess body weight, alcohol intake, physical inactivity, low fruit/vegetable consumption, UV radiation, HPV infection, processed meat, HCV infection, H. pylori infection, and low dietary fiber. Fourth, Enstrom and Kabat showed the effects of smoking and that even current light smokers (1-9 cigarettes per day) had a significantly increased risks of lung cancer, heart disease, and chronic obstructive lung disease, suggesting that the study could pick up significant effects of light smoking, but not the much more diffuse effects of passive smoking. Looking back at the controversy regarding the paper, two sociologists wrote that the controversy over passive smoking could best be understood as “an attempt by partisans to silence results that go against the reigning consensus concerning the health effects of passive smoking.”[ 9  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963662505048515?ref=quillette.com ] Their overall conclusion was that “the public consensus about the negative effects of passive smoke is so strong that it has become part of a truth regime that cannot be intelligibly questioned.”[ 9 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963662505048515?ref=quillette.com ] Gkabat (talk) 15:29, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

 Not done - these revisions present a defensive narrative instead of simply representing verifiable facts. This fails WP:SYNTH as it draws a conclusion based on facts, instead of simply presenting the facts. Additionally, the apparent cherry picking of these defensive narratives is WP:UNDUE compared to the significantly higher number of critical writings about this study.

Additionally, your attempt to show correlation between a study using 2018 data, compared against 1960-1990's data results in serious questioning in your analytical ability. You are comparing a period when smoking was legal in most places, to a post heavily regulated world. So while smoking is only in the top 12 leading causes of death today -- there is nothing to suggest causation here. Maybe the secondhand smoking fatalities are lower because second hand smoke inhalation is far less common now. We no longer have smoking permitted in most public venues, compared to decades ago. But you cannot use that as support for your research based on data from a different generation ago.

As previously suggested years ago, work on fixing your public image outside of Wikipedia, and then we'd happy permit those to be reflected here. But we do not lead the change in correcting your public image. TiggerJay (talk) 22:13, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate your comments and your instructions. Yes, the recent study I cite does use more recent data.

However, aren't some of the earlier and later points valid? First, that we (the authors) responded to the criticisms of our paper in a letter printed by the journal? Second, that passive smoking back in the 1990s was defined as being a "weak association" (reference provided). Third, that our results are in line with those of other studies. The reference here is from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). I don't see why you skip over this. Also, the comment by the two sociologists, Ungar and Bray 2005. Surely, this is an independent commentary on the whole BMJ affair.

There seems to be a preconceived notion that Enstrom and I are guilty and that it's fine to just cite evidence against us, and not exculpatory evidence.

In writing this most recent post on the Talk page, I had in mind getting a fair reading and consideration of the different and I am happy to supply other references and support for what I have written. But the above points are crucial. Along with the fact that the British Medical Journal and its handful of reviewers and statisticians stood by publication of the paper.

Please give this consideration, and I will help work with you to provide references.

Thanks!

Geoffrey Kabat Gkabat (talk) 00:02, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

I'll need to find some time to more thoroughly review everything here, along with the article itself again. A few things that I think that are worth considering is... (1) Currently both this section on this page and the section on passive smoking is about equal in length -- it probably should be one containing the lion share of the content, with the other simply being a reference to the other one; (2) Evaluate to what degree (due weight) should be applied towards your published response in comparison to the published criticism; (3) Evaluate the issues with the books (as noted in the section later on in this talk page; (4) Evaluate to what degree this is a WP:BLP1E or should it rather be simply effectively an "event" page, instead of a BLP in the first place. ... Those are just some initial thoughts here, as well as some ideas for others who have contributed to this page for recommended, policy based ways to help try to balance out this article. Unfortunately all of those are going to require me or some other volunteer sitting down for several hours out of our day... I cannot promise anything, but it is on my radar and I'll try to revisit this sometime later this month. Again, as I've said before, I can sympathize with you -- and this is probably another poster-child for WP:ABOUTME essay exists. TiggerJay (talk) 02:11, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for this, TiggerJay. I only just got around to reading this because the whole WP business is very unpleasant for me and I tend to focus on other work.

BTW, my two books on the epidemiology of health risks are, as is clear from the current WP write-up, very well-received and positively-reviewed. In addition, they address in a balanced way controversies involving low-level health risks and how to make sense of them. I don't see why WP would do away with the section on the books. Gkabat (talk) 12:46, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tiggerjay

While you, and others, are reconsidering what the format of the Geoffrey Kabat page should be, I want to draw your attention to 2 small points that can and should be corrected in Tobacco Study paragraph as it stands:

In the third paragraph, titled “Tobacco study,” the third sentence reads: “The study was funded and heavily publicized by the tobacco industry.” The claim that the study was “heavily publicized by the tobacco industry” is false. In fact, as Ungar and Bray [9] write in their detailed examination of the letters to the journal regarding our article, “It appears, then, that partisan fears that the tobacco industry would use the smoking results to resist controls on smoking in public venues are largely misplaced.” And “In the same vein, partisan fears of media coverage were clearly exaggerated. It is surprising, and an open question as to why the partisans attacking the BMJ did not appreciate the extent to which media self-silencing prevails around the issue of secondhand smoke.”

The fourth sentence reads, “The paper was heavily criticized by the scientific community.” It then goes on to say, “Of the many letters to The BMJ in response to the article, few provided "a dispassionate appraisal" of the work, and the editor of The BMJ stood by its decision to print the paper, assessing it "a useful contribution to an important debate."” The logical connection between the first (short) sentence and the long and complex sentence that follows is muddy. The reader should be alerted that what follows the first sentence (“The paper was heavily criticized…) is contradicted by the substantial information that follows. Therefore, the long sentence that begins “Of the many letters to the The BMJ…” should read: “However, of the many letters…” Gkabat (talk) 18:37, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

The claim that the study was “heavily publicized by the tobacco industry” is false. It is reliably sourced to this article , which states "The tobacco industry publicized the Enstrom and Kabat work around the world". They cite this 2003 letter by Michael Thun which states:

Tobacco companies have wasted no time in publicizing the findings of the Enstrom and Kabat study to forestall clean air laws. They have been cited at a press conference in Germany to counter a publication on ETS from the German Cancer Research Center, in a color leaflet for the African nation of Mauritius, and on the web site of British American Tobacco to deny/ trivialize the risks associated with passive smoking

It appears as though Ungar and Bray are promoting a WP:FRINGE view, which makes the inclusion of their belief WP:UNDUE.

As for your second argument, I see no issue with the statements. The first sentence specifies that the paper was heavily criticized, the second that a select few responses gave a positive evaluation, and that the BMJ defended its publication despite the heavy criticism. Katzrockso (talk) 06:40, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

@Katzrockso

What is your evidence that Ungar, who is a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, and Bray are promoting a fringe view? They wrote a 20-page examination of the reactions to the BMJ paper and they present extensive evidence for their conclusions. This far from "fringe." You seem to just be acting on your prejudices.

As to my point about the two sentences. This is just poor writing. There is a logical relationship between the two sentences, and to just state them as two independent facts, with no guidance for the reader, showing the reader that there is a start contradiction here, simply amounts to poor/unclear writing. Gkabat (talk) 13:33, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Actually, I take that back - I don't necessarily think they're really promoting a FRINGE view there. I think that what they wrote there doesn't contradict the statement that's in the article.

I don't agree with your interpretation of the two sentences. Katzrockso (talk) 20:04, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

@Katzrockso Well, thanks for responding. Gkabat (talk) 20:31, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Some sources

Looking for some additional sources, I found:

• A US Right to Know article mostly criticizing him
• This interview by a newsroom apparently run by two people
• [https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/29/case-footnote-wagging-article This "rapid response" to a study by him saying he stopped received funding other than from tobacco sources at the time because of bad scientific practices, which I am not sure if is a reliable sources because I don't know how much responses are reviewed before they are published
• This university interview
• This other university interview

Mrfoogles (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

The last link to the Haverford College interview does not work. However the interview and book review are accessible at HAVERFORD magazine, Spring 2009

https://www.haverford.edu/sites/default/files/Office/Communications/HAVERFORD-Spring-2009.pdf Gkabat (talk) 18:26, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Interviews are not reliable independent sources. Theroadislong (talk) 20:57, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Books

Coming back to this after being away for a bit, and the books section seems to not fit right. At the moment I cannot point to specific policies regarding the problem, but the general sentiment is that the section seems to be preoccupied with hashing out that the subject extends beyond WP:BLP1E but the section itself seems to basically establish the credibility and lack of credibility of the author. The end result of that section "appears" to be the result of extensive editing, without regard to how the results fit into the article itself and WP:WEIGHT. For example the first book "and said that the book contained "several excellent and instructive chapters" but "lacks focus"." -- from reading that and without looking at the edit history it would seem that the COI included the first part, and someone else tagged it with the second part, in somewhat an attempt to discredit the subject. It says "something" and virtually nothing tat the same time. Whereas the following two books seems to have a lot of reference stuffing to add and/or subtract credibility.... In the end the high level view of the books sections to be more about an edit war on trying to stuff into this subject's credibility statements about the subject. And then of course there is the last one, "Slava" which basically adds nothing of value, other than trying to establish further credibility?

I think it would probably be better if the books were simply edited down to a list of books with their broad topic identified, this would also help with the issue of WP:UNDUE. Optionally there could be a section lead paragraph that presents that the books as engaging and instructive, but how the writing lacks balance and focus -- those seems to be common threads of the citations, but (this option) perhaps borderlines on OR/Synth. TiggerJay (talk) 15:40, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

TiggerJay If you read the reviews of the two books about health risks, they are, by a wide margin positive, and "lack of focus" is not an issue. Gkabat (talk) 14:23, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out, TiggerJay. Gkabat (talk) 13:25, 16 October 2025 (UTC)