Talk:Alexander Langmuir

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Alexander Langmuir/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: BluePenguin18 (talk · contribs) 03:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Esculenta (talk · contribs) 03:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I'll review this article. Should have comments here in a day or few. Esculenta (talk) 03:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@BluePenguin18: still interested in this? Esculenta (talk) 16:50, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed feedback! I somehow missed your May 10th comments before leaving for a vacation today, and I will return to my home and computer on May 29th. I would appreciate it if you could keep the GA review open for a few days beyond that. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 21:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

No problem, talk later. Esculenta (talk) 22:23, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Addressed most of your points, but I still need to expand the lead for clarity on Langmuir's long-term impact. Regarding his outside life, Pendergrast's book includes some quotes from Langmuir's children portraying him as a workaholic that neglected his parental duties and his hobby-project was that post-retirement analysis of the Plague of Athens, so I will try to add this aspect of his life to the "Personal life" section. Coincidentally, I got offered a job with the New Jersey Department of Health to conduct epidemiology on the 2020–2024 H5N1 outbreak two weeks after writing this article on an influenza epidemiologist. I start tomorrow, so it may take me a few more days to finish off these two broader fixes. Again, thanks for your thorough review! BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 04:13, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

@BluePenguin18, reminder ping! (Congrats on the job, by the way.) While I'm here, I think this article's lead ought to be expanded before the article is passed as GA. -- asilvering (talk) 00:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta I think I have addressed all the points for your reassessment! BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 17:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Great! The article is well-written and researched and meets or exceeds GA criteria. Promoting now. Esculenta (talk) 18:23, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Comments:

• the lead is far too short to adequately summarize the article contents. Please follow the guidelines as outlined in wp:Lead
  •  Done Expanded to include broadening of CDC's epidemiological studies, coordination with state and territorial officials, and transfer of MMWR's publication to CDC.

Early life & ed

• could include that he was the third of five children like he says in his video interview  Done
• what year did Langmuir enter Harvard?
  •  Not done While the reasonable assumption is 1927 for a four-year undergraduate program, I never found this stated in any of the many sources that I used for preparing the article.
• is it intentional to give the 1932 event sandwiched between two 1931 events?
  •  Not done Yes, the college-based Model United Nations work continues the prior paragraph's description of his 1931 work with the Harvard Liberal Club. While this breaks chronology, it seems worse to note his graduation and then return to his international relations work with Harvard students.
• I suppose by reading between the lines one might infer he entered Medical School in late 1931 (assuming a four-year program) but maybe this should be said explicitly
  •  Not done Similar to my above comment about the years of undergraduate education, I only found reporting of Langmuir's educational history in terms of the years of graduation, so the Fall 1931 enrollment will remain an unstated assumption.
• perhaps link biomedical statistics, residency, public health
  •  Done, but I wikilinked "biomedical statistics" to biostatistics instead of medical statistics, as the latter has poor organization of similar content. Perhaps I should propose a merge in the future...
• acronym CDC needs to be introduced somewhere
  •  Done I decided to provide the parenthetical introduction of the CDC acronym twice, both in the lead and eponymous section because there is a lot of early life/career info before the CDC becomes the focal point of the article.

Career

• suggested links: Health Officer, surface chemistry, vector-borne disease, polio eradication, technical advisory group, autoimmune, progesterone, breast cancer, Spartans  Done
• "Langmuir received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Emory University in 1970 and an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1978." inconsistent capitalization of honorary
  •  Not done The word honorary is already uncapitalized in both cases in the article and has been that way since I finished pre-review editing on April 16, 2024.
• current text: "In January 1976, soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey contracted swine influenza A/H1N1, prompting comparisons to the 1918–1920 flu pandemic that spread from Camp Funston in Kansas." suggest: "In January 1976, soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, contracted swine influenza A/H1N1, prompting comparisons to the 1918–1920 flu pandemic that originated at Camp Funston, Kansas." commas to set off the appositives, and more precise language about pandemic beginning  Done
• "outsiders like Langmuir, who was currently stationed at Fort Liberty in North Carolina." -> is "then-stationed" more appropriate?  Done
• "European pregnant women" -> "pregnant European women"  Done
• should parenthetically use IUD acronym right after first full-length use  Done
• article doesn't say what year he retired
  •  Done, noted as 1970

Personal

• use endashes, not hyphens, for number ranges  Done
• any information on what he might have been interested in outside of work? Did any colleagues talk about his personality in tributes/obituaries?
  •  Done The Inside the Outbreaks book has quotes from Langmuir's children framing him as work-obsessed to the point of neglecting his role as their father. I am fairly confident that I have now read every instance Langmuir appeared in a newspaper indexed by Newspapers.com, every associated hyperlink indexed by Google, and now finished the most comprehensive non-fiction book to cover his life, so it really seems like the closest thing he had to a hobby was just doing more epidemiology in his retirement.
• Volume 144, Issue 8 doesn't needs capitalization  Done
• the CDC page includes mention of him being a strong proponent of "shoe leather" epidemiology and then mentions the "disease detectives" … seems like interesting tidbits that could possibly enhance the article  Done

Sources and spotchecks

• all sources appear to be reliable and used appropriately (mix of scholarly research articles, government/medical/health organisation webpages, and newspaper articles)
• I watched the video of source #2 for long enough to verify several of the citations it was used for, but I didn't hear where he mentions the names of all of his siblings, as is implied by the citation
• also verified all citations from sources 5, 26, 36, 37; no problems noted

Images

• all images have suitable licenses, and are appropriately captioned
• the "image File:Alexander Langmuir with William C Watson Jr and Leona Baumgartner.jpg" indicates that the photo was taken 15 October 1996, but that does not work with Langmuir's death date, nor with Baumgartner's death year in 1991. I guess that doesn't really affect the article, since the caption doesn't mention the year, but I though I'd point it out.
• the category:American atheists seems unusual to me, do you know why it's there (doesn't seem to be any justification in the article)
  •  Done Thanks for spotting this! It seems that DeusNovo00 added this category in November 2016 with associated article content supporting the assertion, the latter of which was deleted before I began editing the article (diff). I added info about this back into the "Personal life" section.

Overall impressions

The article has great depth and detail about Langmuir’s career, including his early education, influences, and key contributions to the field of epidemiology. It is well referenced, and provides a comprehensive coverage of his career. If I had any criticism of this article, it is that perhaps it's a little dry (perhaps unavoidable given the nature of the material). Any engaging narratives or vignettes to add? Maybe the section on Langmuir’s personal life could be expanded to provide a more rounded picture of him as an individual beyond his professional identity? This could include more about his influences, motivations, and any personal challenges he faced. Also, imo, the article doesn't quite clearly enough state the impact of his lifetime work. Even William Foege (who helped devise strategy to eradicate smallpox and so is obviously a qualified opinion) outright says "he revolutionized the way epidemiology was used in public health practice, first in the United States and then throughout the world" and elaborates more on his great impacts (in 1996 source) … so I think it's okay to use Wikipedia voice to make his influence maybe more clear? Is there any lasting impact of his work on modern public health practices, and are his methodologies still applied today in epidemiology and public health service? Esculenta (talk) 04:16, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks for all your detailed feedback! Despite Langmuir's frequent interactions with the media, he seemed to shy away from talking about himself as the overseer during crises, so I did my best to at least comprehensively cover his work across areas like family planning research at the CDC. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 01:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
  • In my second round of changes, I have expanded the lead to note how Langmuir's efforts have led to a long-term expansion of the CDC's epidemiological studies and ability to communicate findings to the public. Additionally, I have expanded the "Cutter incident" section to note Langmuir's efforts to cover up cases of polio vaccine contamination. During his career, he struggled with clearly communicating findings to the public while seeking to avoid vaccine hesitancy. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 17:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 15:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Alexander Langmuir created the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service to send epidemiologists across the world and combat biological warfare?

• Source: "In 1949, Dr. Langmuir created a corps of epidemiologists at what is now the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The corps was ready to fly anywhere immediately to investigate reports of an epidemic or an unusual cluster of cases. Known as the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the program played a crucial role in turning what was then an obscure and fledgling operation into a large Federal agency. [...] When the possibility of biological warfare was raised during the Korean War, scientists looked to epidemiology as the first line of defense. But the country was not prepared. Dr. Langmuir seized the opportunity to strengthen disease surveillance and his program." [1]

• Reviewed:
• Comment: I feel that initializing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is appropriate for readability, given that the hook specifically focuses on Langmuir's work with its subsidiary Epidemic Intelligence Service. However, if others feel that the full agency name needs to be listed, that still fits within the 200 character limit (147 vs 186).

Improved to Good Article status by BluePenguin18 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has less than 5 past nominations.

BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 19:19, 8 July 2024 (UTC).

• Article was promoted to GA on 8 July, is well cited, and the hook is interesting. Hook is also cited. Copyvio detector shows high percentages, but it's mostly due to long names of people and institutions. QPQ is not needed. Nice article, happy to approve it for dyk! Artem.G (talk) 18:14, 11 July 2024 (UTC)