Template:Did you know nominations/Serious Hazards of Transfusion

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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:19, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Serious Hazards of Transfusion edit

  • Reviewed: Superfest International Disability Film Festival
  • Comment: I'm trying to make the hook sound "hooky", although the organization is actually kind of boring. They collect and analyze data about problems with blood transfusions. Their main results are kind of boring (infections are rare, the biggest problems are human errors, etc.), but one result was determining that (mostly) plasma donations from previously pregnant people were more likely to trigger a life-threatening medical condition (TRALI). Their proposal: Don't use plasma as much from women (and do extra testing on plasma donations from women, if you do need to use it). Practical result: Fewer cases of TRALI, and therefore fewer deaths.

Converted from a redirect by TransfusionDoctor (talk) and WhatamIdoing (talk). Nominated by WhatamIdoing (talk) at 18:52, 21 July 2017 (UTC).

  • Analysis: Length of article is >1500 characters. Nominated on July 21st 2017; must have expanded x5 from July 17th 2017. Current length = 4452 characters. Was a redirect on July 17th. Length of both hooks are appropriate (<200 characters). Proposed hook is not factual; the hook implies that SHOT currently discourages hospitals from using some blood products donated by women, whereas the following quote from the article specifies a previous recommendation: "SHOT recommended in the 2000/2001 report (Love et al, 2002) that exclusion of female donors be considered in relation to the plasma used to suspend pooled platelet concentrates" [emphasis in bold] (Bolton-Maggs PHB and Cohen H, Br J Haematol, 163: 303–314). The hook itself is an interesting one, though it paints the organization in a poor light out of context, which might violate WP:Neutral. Per the Earwig's Copvio detector report, 3.8% for https://www.shotuk.org/, though the text was copied directly from the source without attribution.
Length Newness Cited hook Interest Sources Neutrality Plagiarism/paraphrase
QPQ checks out.
Recommendations: I prefer ALT1, because it fixes the NPOV (clarifies why it discouraged hospitals from generating FFP from women) and the factual ("saved lives," past tense, rather than "saves lives") requirement. Clean the article up of any close paraphrasing/plagiarism. I am a new reviewer, so I would also welcome second opinions. (: ―Biochemistry🙴 20:47, 24 July 2017 (UTC)


  • Their recommendation is current. In fact, it now seems to be standard practice (in developed countries); this is a US news story from last year about it. The problem is that female donors – specifically, previously pregnant people – have an increased incidence of some cross-reactive immune responses, which can cause TRALI (and therefore death). The options are (1) exclude women, (2) expensively test all female plasma donors, and throw away any donations that have this immune response [and re-test those donors every time they get pregnant], or (3) accept that a small number of people are going to die because you don't want to say something that sounds so rude as "no women for this particular blood component".
  • The line you're looking for in Earwig's tool is the one in the big green box that says "Violation Unlikely". It's giving you an odds of just 3.8% that this page is a copyvio (and a 96.2% changes that the page is NOT a copyvio). The "matching" (highlighted) phrases it found aren't really optional. For example, the whole point of the organization is collecting "information on adverse events", so it's natural that multiple sources contain those same four words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Whether or not the recommendation is current, it must be cited within the article. It is this citation that is used to verify the claim of your proposed hook. I'm familiar with how Earwig's tool works. What I was pointing out was that, despite the low odds, there is close paraphrasing and direct quoting without attribution in the article. See below (direct quotes in bold):

SHOT and the MHRA are working closely together to improve and facilitate haemovigilance reporting.

— Source

SHOT and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) work closely together to improve and facilitate hemovigilance reporting in the UK.

— Article
I don't believe that this was written purely by "chance." Whether or not using the text is "optional" is irrelevant. If you need to use them, that's fine--just quote and cite them. I stand by my original review. ―Biochemistry🙴 01:40, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Can you explain what "it must be cited" means, as an objection to material that is, in fact, followed by a little blue clicky number that leads to a full bibliographic citation to a reliable source? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:13, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
Press Ctrl F, type the sentence I've been referring you to: "SHOT and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) work together to support hemovigilance reporting in the UK.", and look for an aforementioned little blue clicky number. It's not cited, and it has been taken near verbatim from the source I've cited above (shotuk.org). Third paragraph break in the lead.―Biochemistry🙴 15:15, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
Oops; it looks like I copy/pasted the newly edited sentence from the article! The sentence that I'd like to see cited is the one that you edited because "someone thinks it is close paraphrasing." (; Edit or not, it'd probably be best to cite it. As for the hook itself, you mentioned that the recommendation was reasonably current (per this, which is dated June 2016, which I agree is reasonably current), but you have not cited the line in the article with anything more than Bolton-Maggs PHB and Cohen H, Br J Haematol, 163: 303–314, which supports a recommendation around 2000/2001, but not a recent recommendation. It may even be best to reflect the timeline of the recommendation in the article (...as of [date]...), since the militaryblood.dod.mil article seems to suggest that the recommendation has been overturned with the advent of routine HLA-Ab testing, and the article seems to reflect the idea that the recommendation is still current.―Biochemistry🙴 15:31, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
I think we can safely assume that the United States Department of Defense does not have much of a connection to the United Kingdom's regulatory groups. But you might note that the word in the hook is "discouraged" rather than "banned", and the reason I proposed that wording is because it's not an outright ban. However, given a choice between "do expensive testing" and "just use some man's plasma", I think you can guess what cash-strapped hospitals' first choice is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:55, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
I'm not disputing the strength of SHOT's warning; rather, its date of origin. I think it would be most accurate, given the source cited in the article (Bolton-Maggs and Cohen, 2013), to simply change the wording to reflect past tense; i.e. in ALT0, change "discourages" to "discouraged." That would better reflect the use of a reference citing a 2000/2001 SHOT report. If it's current, cite something that reflects that in the article. I would still like if the 3rd paragraph in the lead was cited (given that it reflects close paraphrasing and is not a summary of the article content below it; the MHRA is not even mentioned elsewhere in the article).―Biochemistry🙴 23:53, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
Do you think that 'the 3rd paragraph' still reflects close paraphrasing? Or are you still talking about the version that is no longer in the article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
The current version. See the below comparison (direct quotes in bold):

SHOT and the MHRA are working closely together to improve and facilitate haemovigilance reporting.

— Source

"SHOT and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) work together to support hemovigilance reporting in the UK."

— Article
Despite the rewording, it's still pretty clear that this sentence was taken from the source I found. It should be cited as such--unless I'm to believe that it was a coincidence that the original wording had so much overlap. There's still a lot of overlap between them, and even if you completely reworded the sentence, you'd still need to cite it. Again, it may be in the lead section, but it clearly doesn't represent a summary of the article content below it; the MHRA is not even mentioned elsewhere in the article. ―Biochemistry🙴 21:33, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
"Hemovigilance reporting" is a thing. It's like "American football": you are not supposed to make up your own name for it. Therefore, those words are supposed to match exactly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing and Biochemistry&Love: It looks like the problems were a) an uncited sentence, and b) the wording of the hook (discourages vs. discouraged). I've rephrased the sentence in question and cited it, and suggest ALT2 below ("discouraged"). WhatamIdoing, can you add a sentence to the article about why they discouraged use of blood products donated by women, i.e., why they felt that doing so would decrease incidences of transfusion-related acute lung injury?

--Usernameunique (talk) 17:33, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
I can support ALT2. Once WhatamIdoing adds the aforementioned sentence, I can re-review this DYK nom for approval. (: ―Biochemistry🙴 21:02, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Pinging @WhatamIdoing:, just need a sentence in the article explaining why they discouraged use of blood products donated by women, and then this will be set. --Usernameunique (talk) 16:00, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
At this point, I'm having trouble caring. I've got no particular interest in the Main Page; I just thought I'd be nice to the always-embattled DYKers and send a hooky new article along to DYK.
The sentence you are requesting is already in the article: "SHOT's statistical data has been used to decrease...the incidence of life-threatening transfusion-related acute lung injury in the UK".
I realize that this may seem pedantic, but you decrease the incidence of TRALI by actually reducing the use of fresh frozen plasma from women. There was a subtle bit of language here: you decrease the incidence by hospitals actually using less ("reducing"). SHOT, through publishing the data, discouraged the use, but the actual incidence is reduced by a second actor, namely by hospitals, actually taking that advice and using less of the discouraged product. The incidence goes down because hospitals used SHOT's data; if they didn't use that data, then the incidence wouldn't have decreased and SHOT would merely be some modern scientific version of Cassandra. It is subtle and perhaps not important (so I have not reverted it), but I am therefore slightly uneasy about the change made by Usernameunique, which makes the sentence say that discouraging this use – merely the act of communicating – reduces TRALI.
Additionally, we should not use the past tense in the hook. This is the current recommendation of a relatively young organization, and I would be very sorry if any reader glanced at it and thought, "Oh, that must have been back in the bad old sexist days, probably around World War One". There are no reliable sources – indeed, AFAICT there are not even any unreliable sources – that claim that indicate that this recommendation should be spoken of in the past tense. The cited source (which identified when this recommendation was first published, but no end) is only four years old. There is nothing behind the idea that since the recommendation was first made in 2002, then things might be different now, except unverifiable speculation by a Wikipedia editor (who is trying to be cautious; I do not find fault with the editor's motivations). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing and Biochemistry&Love: Okay, I've restored active tense to ALT2. Past is also correct (in 2012 they discouraged...) but I take your point about it seeming sexist and antiquated otherwise. The "pedantic" point you refer to (discouraging is not what saves lives, it's people taking the advice that saves lives) is an issue with ALT1, not ALT2, so that's moot.
The sentence I suggested wasn't what's in the article ("decrease . . . the incidence of life-threatening transfusion-related acute lung injury in the UK, by discouraging the use of fresh frozen plasma from female donors")—I was wondering what exactly about frozen plasma from female donors makes that sentence true (i.e., what is different about the plasma that it would increase transfusion-related acute lung injury if used?). It's a small point, but I think it would answer questions in the minds of those who are intrigued by the hook and click over for an explanation. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:04, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Oh, I see what you're asking for. The correct answer is that nobody knows. However, the most popular guess is that it has something to do with the antibodies that pregnant women sometimes develop antibodies against the fetus. Let me see what kind of source I can find for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Please see the latest change, and tell me if you think that will satisfy the curious without being too technical. (Also, thanks for the ping earlier. It's really helpful.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
That edit looks great WhatamIdoing, thanks for the clarification! I can't approve my own hook, so hopefully Biochemistry&Love can take a look at it. Happy to use the ping, they're pretty great—can be quite hard to remember to check back and respond otherwise. --Usernameunique (talk) 02:38, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
The onus of evidence is generally on the person making the claim; if one claims that a recommendation is still current, it's up to that person to demonstrate that--not on the speculator to disprove. Fortunately, I found the most recent SHOT report from 2015, that explicitly states, "The recommendation from last year’s Annual SHOT Report for all United Kingdom (UK) Blood Services to avoid the use of female donor plasma for the preparation of cryoprecipitate thus remains active" (source, page 95). In addition, I found an article from 2015 that talks about how the results of the 2000/2001 report are still in use, but suggest that the practice is "discriminatory" (Kent J & Farrell A-M. Risky Bodies in the Plasma Bioeconomy: A Feminist Analysis. Body Soc. 2015;21(1):29–57. DOI: 10.1177/1357034X13520331.). It will be interesting to see if the recommendation changes in the future. In recognition of your objection to the language of past tense and the most recent SHOT Report (2015), I can live with ALT2.
I like the modification that was made re: User:Usernameunique's request. I've edited slightly myself to better define the terminology used.
Therefore, this is ready for a new review. Biochemistry🙴 03:08, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Analysis: Length and newness of article appropriate, as reviewed in previous analysis. Proposed hook (ALT2) is factual and supported with a current source that supports a statement of present tense. The concerns over neutrality have been settled by an explanatory edit to the organization's recommendation in the article. Per a new run of Earwig's Copvio detector report, 2% for https://www.shotuk.org/, with no text taken without attribution within the article.
Length Newness Cited hook Interest Sources Neutrality Plagiarism/paraphrase
QPQ checks out.
Recommendations: approve ALT2. ―Biochemistry🙴 03:08, 8 September 2017 (UTC)