To those who use wikipedia as an official source

[Lyion]

Hi Arlos, Rust, myself, and others...don't use wiki as an infalliable source. Neither should the NYT

From dinocrat.com:

The New York Times copied an erroneous Wikipedia entry into its news pages today. From the NYT’s article on the Marburg Haemorragic Fever outbreak in Angola:

There is no cure or vaccine for the highly contagious virus. Victims suffer a high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and severe bleeding from bodily orifices and usually die within a week.

The Wikipedia entry on the virus:

There is no cure or vaccine for the highly contagious virus. Victims suffer a high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and severe bleeding from bodily orifices and usually die within a week.

Wikipedia mischaracterizes how contagious Marburg is, and the NYT copies the mistake. Consulting more authoritative sources would have avoided the problem. From the CDC:

Clinicians should consider the diagnosis of Marburg VHF among febrile patients who, within 10 days before onset of fever, have either 1) traveled in northern Angola; 2) had direct contact with blood, other body fluids, secretions, or excretions of a person or animal suspected of having VHF; or 3) worked in a laboratory or animal facility that handles hemorrhagic fever viruses (3). The likelihood of acquiring VHF is considered extremely low in persons who do not meet any of these criteria. The cause of fever in persons who have traveled to areas where VHF is endemic is more likely to be a different infectious disease.

We like Wikipedia, and use it a lot, but are always aware of its shortcomings. The New York Times and Denise Grady should know better than to copy things out of Wikipedia and paste them in stories in the newspaper. (We are assuming the mistake is health reporter Ms. Grady’s rather than Africa-based Sharon LaFraniere’s.)

We knew there was a problem with the NYT story right away, and it took only a few clicks to determine that the lazy use of Wikipedia was the source. The thing about diseases is that they typically can be highly contagious or highly lethal but not both – otherwise you have a deadly pandemic. In the case of the various haemorragic fevers related to Ebola, they require direct contact with the bodily fluids or excreta of an infected person, so they are pretty easy to avoid. They are not highly contagious, as the NYT and Wikipedia claimed, under the normal circumstances of living. From a WHO release on the Marburg outbreak:

When the public understands and accepts a few simple messages – avoid contact with blood and other fluids when caring for the ill, don’t touch bodies of the deceased – transmission within the community can be stopped and the outbreak brought under control.

Glenn Reynolds criticized Wikipedia for the inaccuracy of its entry on Instapundit as of January 2005. Wikipedia subsequently updated its article on InstaPundit in response to the criticism. However, it seems that the reliability issues with Wikipedia continue to exist, and in our opinion are endemic to its format, at least over the intermediate term. The NYT is behind the blogosphere again.

The Wikipedia entry has now been updated to say “highly deadly virus.”


Recently wiki updated The Wikipedia entry has now been updated to say “highly deadly virus.”