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It would be good to support some of the medical claims here with WP:MEDRS sources. Here are a few I found doing a quick search.
There are a few case reports on Pubmed as well, which I haven't looked at yet, but they may contain useful content in the introductory sections. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 03:53, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I just saw your comment in the other section. Yeah, those aren't the best MEDRS sources. Frontiers journals, which you added, are not great either (search the WT:MED archives for discussion of these journals). It's difficult writing about obscure subjects like this because there's not exactly going to be a Cochrane review on the topic. As I mentioned above, some of the introductory material from case reports might be usable (not the actual case report but the material summarizing the previous literature). Not a lot of options here, so trying to make do with what we have. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 22:05, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
. I wasn't aware of that one, thanks. So we have a complete death of really good medical sources... Case reports' reviews are better than news media, I guess. Maybe we can use Frontiers for the lack of phase-1 trials... I'd definitely want to look into that particular paper's COIs, though...
HLHJ (
talk)
00:58, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
The usual relationship between vasodilation, hypotension, and tachycardia might not be familiar to all readers; do you think we can/should discuss itSince the sources we're using don't explicitly mention it, I'm not sure there's a way to do that without getting into WP:SYNTH territory, sadly. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 13:22, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
I don't want to put Template:Expand language on the article, because it is ugly, but if anyone speaks Spanish or Portuguese, the articles in those languages ( es:Kambó, pt:Vacina do sapo) seem to have some good sources, especially regarding traditional use of the procedure. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 16:40, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm posting here instead of at DYK because the DYK page is long enough already :p Courtesy ping for OneUpOnUs. I've seen the recent comments on the DYK nom and I've been thinking about how to respond for a few days. The gist of my thoughts is that I'm not sure the article is ready for the main page at this point in time. I know this is strange for me to say since I'm the one who suggested the creator nominate it for DYK in the first place, but I think I got ahead of myself in wanting to encourage a promising new editor and didn't give proper consideration to MEDRS, NPOV, etc. The article is certainly much improved from its original state - mostly thanks to you! - but I still have some concerns, mainly over the reliance on the Frontiers source, which I think is okay to use in the absence of better sources, but which I'm not entirely comfortable showcasing on the Main Page. I want to reiterate again that I'm very thankful for your assistance with this article and especially your diplomatic comments on the talk page, which I found admirable, and instructive as someone who generally tries to avoid conflict on here... And apologies to OneUpOnUs for the mess this has turned into, which is mostly my fault :) But I thought I would raise this issue here before commenting further so we can develop a consensus. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 17:40, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Keppel Hesselink, Jan M (January 2020).
"Rediscovery of Ceruletide, a CCK Agonist, as an Analgesic Drug". Journal of Pain Research. Volume 13: 123–130.
doi:
10.2147/JPR.S232714.
PMID
32021401. {{
cite journal}}
: |volume=
has extra text (
help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link)
The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by
Yoninah (
talk)
02:14, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
Created by OneUpOnUs ( talk). Self-nominated at 22:42, 17 December 2019 (UTC).
Article:
Newness: - created a day before nomination
Length: - 5664 B
Copyvio Check: - 36.7%, but the percentage is attributed to the quotes
Neutrality:
Grammar:
Sources: - every claim is sufficiently sourced, great use of scholarly articles
Hook:
Length: - all are <250 characters
Image: - For the image provided, I'm just curious as to where it mentions that the video is under CC BY-SA 3.0, usually Youtube videos would have to disclose the copyright within the description, within the video, or on their separate website. The only thing I found on
[2] was that they reserve the rights to copyright.
Content: - for ALTs 0a, 0d, 1, 4; I'll let the promoting admin decide as they all work
Neutrality:
Source: - within the article
QPQ: - Not required as first DYK nomination
Overall:
Everything is good to go for ALTs 0a, 0d, 1, or 4, although some concerns need to be addressed regarding the image - please see the comments above. Thanks,
Toreightyone (
talk)
18:03, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
Wanted to comment in support of ALT0a. It's straight to the point and makes it clear that detoxing is a psuedoscience. Nice4What ( talk · contribs) – (Don't forget to share a Thanks ♥) 19:20, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
BenignoN.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 23:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
The opening paragraph says "The effects on humans usually include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and liver damage;". Regarding the liver damage, it does not seem like we have a proper source that Kambo "usually" causes liver damage. The two sources for that paragraph, sources [1] and [2], do mention liver damage, but [1] (a scientific paper) mentions it only in 1 person, a chronic alcoholic. Source [2], a Guardian article, has an anonymous "spokesperson" describing the practice, who is not directly quoted as mentioning that liver damage is a "usual effect" but rather it is reported that they mentioned it in a list of adverse effects that can happen along with "rare deaths".
So, do we have a source for this assertion that liver damage is one of the usual effects of Kambo on humans? If not, I propose removing it from the "usual effects" list in the lede, and if needed, mentioning it somewhere else and/or mentioning it as a potential effect but not claiming it's a usual effect without providing a source. That said, I see more discussions of medical risks, and of the liver's role in the "cleanse", happening on this Talk page (though nothing about "liver damage"). I see discussion of some MEDRS sources, so maybe one of those sources will back up the claim that "liver damage" is one of Kambo's "usual effect on humans"? -- Murftown ( talk) 18:39, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Update: I made a small edit to the lede, saying the effects on humans "can include" instead of "usually include". This is more in line with what the relevant source (the Guardian) indicates. Nowhere in that article does it say all those effects "usually" happen. -- Murftown ( talk) 19:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Update: VdSV9 made a further edit reintroducing the (still uncited) "usually includes" verbiage, while correctly separating "liver damage" and "death" out of that list. The user says there are sources that justify "usually includes", but did not add them, so I am adding a citation needed tag. I'm not disputing the claim itself (though I have heard anecdotes that e.g. the vomiting is not necessarily "usually"), but in any case the claim needs sourcing.
There are a plethora of research papers into the peptides and their effects to be found online. In reading this article, I found it to sound quite biased against Kambo, specifically a trend towards claiming there was "zero scientific basis" for any of the health claims. However, many of the research papers into the peptides will show a basis for the health claims, though clinical trials in humans do not exist.
It seems quite odd to begin the article with the word "dangerous", which is a subjective term and goes against Wikipedia's "Neutral Point of View" policy. There is no overdose potential and the substance is only dangerous for people who are contra-indicated with medical issues such as blood clots or similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ablations ( talk • contribs) 04:27, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page).
I've added a bit that says that "kambo" is the name of the frog, not the secretions, with a source. We don't need a MEDRS of etymologies. Thanks for catching that one, Ablations. I'd agree that whether Kambo is termed a "detox", "cleanse", "abortificant", etc. does seem to depend on cultural context. "Treatment" implies that it treats something, which is a claim we'd need MEDRS for. I think calling it "Kambo purge" might make sense, as all uses do involve vomiting, indisputably, and I think "purge" is a term used by anthropologists for describing practices from a variety of cultures, so it has a certain culture-neutrality. HLHJ ( talk) 17:55, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks, HLHJ. That all makes sense, including the 'treatment' part - sadly I'm not sure I'm up to the task of finding sources good enough for WP's standards for us to add this. The only comment I really have is that swapping 'cleanse' for 'purge' is basically the same thing - indeed, it does essentially always involve a purge, but I think the point is that by adding 'cleanse' or 'purge' it heavily implies that that is it's main objective or purpose, or main goal, which isn't isn't the case and gives the wrong impression - it's just part of the overall experience/treatment/whatever - as an example, imagine the hunters in the Amazon using it prior to their hunt - they aren't interested in the purging aspect, they are interested in the boost it gives them (probably resulting from the dermorphin/deltorphin peptides) Ablations ( talk) 02:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Ablations, it is no reflection on you that you cannot wave a magic wand and create years of medical research (if you could, I'd direct your attention to Neglected tropical diseases). I'd agree that in many cases cleansing is likely not the main goal, or not a goal at all; vomiting is presumably ~never the goal. My understanding of the anthropological use of the term "purge" is that it applies to behaviours that induce vomiting, regardless of other cultural context, which pretty much has to be there, as vomiting is not something that many people would voluntarily do for its own sake (that is, without expecting some benefit). HLHJ ( talk) 02:31, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Just to follow on from previous discussion which seems to have come to a standstill, the article as it stands gives an impartial tone with some degree of rejection given to the notion that kambo is in any way helpful or in any way has a scientific basis for the claims - while we may disagree on this, WP should be imbalanced and provide aspects of all available information, according to /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight . The talk page for this article shows a concerning back-and-forth discussion amongst some WP editors with an apparent bias in this regard.
According to WPMEDRS, "Sources about health in the general news media should, in general, not be used to source content about health in Wikipedia articles but may be useful for "society and culture" content." As has been discussed here on the talk page, there are multiple health-related claims in the article which are sourced from news articles.
Of primary concern is that the article repeatedly uses the statement "poison", "poisonous peptides" - however there is no source or basis for the notion of it being "poison" cited. What is the source for this claim? In particular, even if we give a pass to the phrase "poison" in general, why is the phrase "poisonous peptides" used when 'poison' is subjective and research is clearly available in Wikipedia itself showing peptides are merely long-chain amino acids that perform various functions in the body?
Another way this is apparent is that the article itself cites a "drop in blood pressure" (due to the phyllokinin peptide), which is one of the reasons it is used/one of the claims made around it, yet the article portrays a picture of rejecting any notion of scientific basis for health claims (conveniently, 'lowering blood pressure' is left out from the 'Claims' column).
It is also concerning from a neutrality standpoint to see this article listed under 'See Also' as "Quackery" - such a term relates to entirely implausible methods and practises that border on fradulent, as described by WP's own article: "as the promotion of unsubstantiated methods that lack a scientifically plausible rationale". In regards to kambo, multiple studies show us, as editors, that there is certainly scientific rationale for the claims made, such as:
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/10/11/474/htm "when used in the right proportions or structurally engineered, several venom peptides can be used directly as therapeutic drugs or as drug leads" - without even delving into kambo-specific research, this should show that such amphibian peptides clearly have therapeutic potential.
In terms of Kambo-specific research, here is one example of research which supports this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447859/?fbclid=IwAR06bX8EaaZ-IYWqdsw3h33slIWJCHxcAJZUcLhueQN4PHUiTZo4T3kqkXc
Can I ask, what is going on with this article? I note some of the editors such as Alexbrn have a history of editing alternative medicine articles which raises the question of an agenda. It has a concerning number of issues in regard to it's impartiality and that appears strongly to be the case with the article overall painting a specific tone of rejection, which obviously isn't in line with good WP practises.
Ultimately I would like to help improve the article, but based on initial attempts I got a feeling of being shut out and shut down here. The solution apparently isn't "to pile in (so-called) unreliable sources" and yet nothing else is being done to improve what is already an unreliable article that sources health claims from news articles and has a clear tone of impartiality. Apologies if I come across as rude or brash, the article needs serious revision and needs to include all (or at least more) of the available information so as not to appear so biased, and I would like to help but my attempts previously haven't given me much to work with — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ablations ( talk • contribs) 03:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC) -- Ablations ( talk) 03:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I don't think Ablations has quite grasped what WP:UNDUE means. Impartiality doesn't mean we present all sides of an argument as if they were equally valid, because they often are not. It means we should present the facts of science: "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". I also suggest reading WP:FRINGE, as the traditional usage of Kambo is superstition (Amazon Indians say it is meant to bring good luck) and pseudoscience (they also say it removes "panema", a quasi-mystical, pseudoscientific concept). Its appropriation for urban use is dangerous pseudoscientific alt med. Scientific findings that show that some substances found in Kambo's secretion can be useful doesn't change any of this. If one of the substances is found to be useful and safe, it only means that the substance is useful and safe, for certain specific conditions, at certain specific doses. It won't validate using frog poison, which contains loads of different compounds, applied at hard to control doses. The article, as it stands, is neutral enough. VdSV9• ♫ 15:57, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Martin Williams, a post doctoral research fellow at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said that when kambo is placed on the burnt skin on people's arms and legs, it enters the body via the lymphatic system. When kambo is applied to the chest (a growing trend, as the chest is considered a chakra area), he said that it could enter the bloodstream more quickly and result in cardiac arrest.
SpicyMilkBoy thanks for your comment, I'm crazy busy at the moment so I'll be more brief than I would normally like. In regards to the criticism of Martin Williams on the subject, I hadn't considered the possibility of the speculation (especially as he is an expert in the field) not conforming to MEDRS but I can see your point of view and agree, I will remove the speculation. I also think renaming the page to Kambô is an excellent idea and unless we receive reasonable objection I'll change it over after the DYK nom is finished.— Preceding unsigned comment added by OneUpOnUs ( talk • contribs) 19:02, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
I guess what I was referring to when I made some of the above comments was overall, the article gives me the impression that it's TRYING to paint the subject negatively - if we take for example the suggestion of it being a poison or 'defense mechanism' - well, where are the WP:MEDS studies to show this is a poison? All I can see are news articles, which are of course having a field day capitizalising on the scandalous nature of the 'poison' angle. Meanwhile, we know the frog has no natural predators, and studies like these two: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8074751 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8306981 along with the David Attenborough segment linked above, say it's more like an antibacterial protective coating. Now here's what I'm getting at - I gather that while we seemingly can't use these studies as citations in the article to say something like "it is thought the secretion is a form of antimicrobial protection", surely these are more relevant than random biased news articles? Even if we can't quote them (and to be honest, I'm not sure why, but I have refrained from making any edits just in case), surely we as editors can recognize that these studies are more likely to be trustworthy compared to news articles? I guess what I'm saying is - as one example, do we actually have a valid cited source in the article for this being "poison"? I only see 1) news articles, and 2) a couple of studies which use the term 'poison', but only in passing - not actually focusing on whether it is a poison or not. Does that still make them valid as a source for the claim it is "a poison"? (I admit I am really struggling with what studies are allowed and which ones aren't.) Note that I don't have a huge gripe with this per se, but more the notion it represents and how I think it has affected the overall tone of the article. Another example might be the discussion way up near the top about the "marketing myth of detoxification" and how this has carried itself into the article with users of kambo wrongly believeing they are removing toxins from themselves. While I agree with the general marketing myth and hype around detoxification, it's not like the process of the body removing toxins is itself a myth - in kambo's case, we know that kambo causes gastric secretions and induces the liver to remove fat soluble toxins, and we know this gets vomited out - doesn't this make it indeed a kind of 'detoxification'? To clarify, I'm not suggesting these two things are the biggest issues with the article, I'm more using these two things as examples of what I think is a tone that does the article (and WP) a disservice. While I'm sure this isn't the case, in parts it almost feels like it was edited by a PR person from a pharmaceutical company or something, you know what i mean. Ablations ( talk) 08:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it would be suitable to rename this "pharmocology" per Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Style guide, with "Adverse effects" in another section; Wikipedia talk:MED might have advice. Honestly, I'm not sure if this is a plain medical article, so I'm not sure whether we should format it entirely as such; most of the sources are on the cultural side, but obviously medical content is needed.
Separately, everything in this section should really be supported by MEDRS (non-medres sources are not OK per policy, but they also contradict one another: is euphoria present or absent, for instance?). I think we can use the old 1990s MEDRS for the basic chemistry of the peptides involved where necessary, as this is not likely to be time-sensitive information, and "peptides" is a bit general. Since we do not have really good MEDRS, this will be hard to source. "Science" is even more general, and we do mention scientific research in other parts of the article. HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I think the non-English sources mentioned some more deaths, and the Frontiers source mentions some. I don't think this section is a comprehensive list of fatalities, and it gives that impression. Since some of these are older deaths, "update" may not have been the most informative template here, and I could have added a reason param; my apologies. HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
There is a view that criticism should be integrated: Wikipedia:Criticism#Approaches to presenting criticism. I support this in principle, due to evidence that leaving information that might induce a critical POV until the end causes readers to read and remember content less critically. [1] HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
References
Technically, " toxin" is a sub-category of " poison". In common use, both generally mean "toxic to humans". The terms include things that are toxic on ingestion, things that are toxic on inhalation, things that are toxic on skin contact, things that are toxic on inhalation, and things that are toxic if you get some in a break in your skin, among others.
If something makes you vomit and your blood vessels dilate until your blood pressure falls so low you may faint and your heart races and you feel as though you are going to die, and indeed it can kill you, I'd tend to say it is toxic to humans; I think I'm in line with medical sources here. Now many medicines do have noticable toxicity; chemotherapy drugs, for instance, work by being a bit more toxic to cancerous cells than healthy ones. Warfarin is a poison, but has legitimate medical uses; our article describes it as both a medication and a poison, both highly useful and highly dangerous. Here, we are dealing with a substance which can certainly kill people, and does not yet have medical uses recognized in MEDRS. Calling it a "toxin" seems reasonable, and calling it a "poison", while more general, seems not incorrect or misleading, especially in light of the common term "poisonous frog". The widespread use of these terms in non-technical, non-MEDRS texts is not evidence of accuracy, but is evidence on what the English term likely means to the reader. I'm open to source-based arguments here, though. HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
For now though, I will provide these sources regarding the gastric secretions and the vomiting (I realize these may not pass muster for direct inclusion into the article). Though I do think it's important to mention this nonetheless as the vomiting aspect in particular is one of the largest contributors to the misinformed angles that the media presents (e.g. "it makes you vomit, therefore you are clearly being poisoned!" is how they tend to present it, when in reality it's an expected result of the smooth muscle contractions and other actions of the peptides):
In the final link there, I would call attention to the paragraph headed "Kambo consists of 16 bioactive peptides" for info such as "The general peripheral efects of these peptides are cardiovascular and gastrointestinal effects on smooth muscle contraction, and gastric and pancreatic secretions. Caerulein induces symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, facial flush, tachycardia, changes in blood pressure, sweating, abdominal discomfort and urge for defecation. The gastrointestinal symptoms in the early phase of Kambo ritual are a result of the action of this peptide. Caerulein also provokes contraction of the gall bladder, a reason for the yellow vomit (‘cleansing the liver’)."
From the second link: "Clinicians will most probably define this above described symptom-complex as an anaphylactic shock. However, all these symptoms can be attributed to the pharmacological activity of the peptides of Kambo, and thus the symptom-complex seems not to be anaphylactic of nature, but directly related to its pharmacological effects."
I do understand these cannot be included in the article directly, they were just the first links I found to help provide info and provoke discussion Ablations ( talk) 03:15, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sourcesand explicitly notes that
The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered.We are limited to summarizing what reliable sources say, not getting to the ultimate truth of the matter - we leave that to the researchers, whose work we may report on several years from now, once other researchers have summarized it first. :) SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 03:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Miel Bartels, I'm afraid that Wikipedia:Biomedical information on Wikipedia has to be cited to medical reliable sources, a specific category of evidence. "Solid medical evidence", on Wikipedia, means specific types of human trials (detailed in that link). We can't include statements about anti-cancer properties in the article without such evidence. I know this seems limiting and narrow-minded, but from experience this policy has served well, and when Wikipedia did not have it, it caused major problems; unreliable and contradictory information, and hard-to-resolve conflicts. Unfortunately there have not been any controlled human trials on kambo secretions or their constituents. Someday, we will be able to include this, which will make it a much better article. I've had to revert your edit on the scientific basis for now, but the content has not been lost; it is still in the edit history. Feel free to discuss it, and any other problems with the article, here. User:SpicyMilkBoy, you read up on the pharmacology; how do you feel about the new content on dermaseptin? HLHJ ( talk) 00:24, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
The references contain the following entries which do not have any supporting details; there is nothing to identify what they are intended to refer to:
Perhaps somebody with a better knowledge of the literature can salvage these? -- Gronk Oz ( talk) 03:11, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Hello WP editors - hope I'm not ruffling any feathers by inserting this as a new section or in the wrong place.
I understand there's a lot of pre-conclusions and temptation to write-off health-related things outside the clinical sphere such as this - particularly something that at first glance seems as wild and unbelievable as kambo does - but in coming back to view this article and see how it's evolved I'm left wondering if there isn't still a degree of prejudice (perhaps 'unfairness' is a better word) coloring this article unfairly.
Just a few notes about my thoughts here:
The effects on humans usually include tachycardia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea (good - this is true but it's not 'usual', it's essentially guaranteed, that's how the peptides work - except for diarrhea which is case-by-case)...and can lead to kidney, pancreas and liver damage, seizures and death (I won't argue, but it is worth stating that these are hardly common and the certainly not the usual outcome; there's only one known report of liver damage that I'm aware of - this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5497453/ , and less than 10 deaths that anyone can seem to find - out of hundreds of sessions taking place around the world each week. Regarding the claims of liver toxicity - it seems everyone just keeps referring back to this one case report and then making sweeping claims about it, for example).
There is no scientific evidence that it is an effective treatment. (I disagree, but I can accept that WP likely has a higher standard for what is considered an "effective treatment")
There is currently no scientific basis to these claims. (I have an inkling of WP's stance on MEDRS, but this sentence seems far too short given the plethora of research around the topic. A quick look at this Talk page shows a number of links have been posted showing some research and there's much more out there - but this sentence makes it sound as if there is absolutely zero substance *whatsoever*, not just clinically-proven research. I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but amongst the wealth of research out there, some of it is in-vivo such as this: https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/1fd349a9-6ac4-3441-9ed5-6ab8d58e816c/ or this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447859/ and I would've thought that in the interests of balance, that kind of thing would at least bear mention instead of how the sentence stands at present - i.e. a complete shutdown and negation of any possible scientific basis)
There is no solid medical evidence on how the frog toxins work, whether they are useful for treating anything, and whether they can be used safely: no clinical trials have tested them on humans, as of November 2019. (I think it's at least good that this has been contextualized with a colon and the follow-on sentence about no clinical trials. Having said that, again, I have the same serious qualm as I've written just above this - while the research may not meet the high WP standards, the delivery of this sentence almost entirely shuts down the notion completely, despite the foundational research that exists. Again, apologies if I'm wholly misunderstanding WP MEDRS policy, but the delivery of the sentence just seems very one-sided).
Reports of adverse events are numerous, including for use with experienced guidance. (I think this is an example of sentence that's a bit strange - what is being defined by adverse events here? The results such as tachycardia, nausea, vomiting etc - are essentially guaranteed based on how the peptides work. These are intrinsic and wholly inseparable elements of using kambo. Anybody doing kambo will have these types of things, unless 'adverse events' refers to something else here. Essentially what i'm saying is that this sentence makes it sound like there are *other* kinds of events beyond what science and common-usage has shown so far. It's kind of like saying that reports of adverse events from hangovers are numerous).
On the "detox" nature - while I agree the general notion of a 'detox' has been carried away by pseudo-wellness charlatans over the years, should there not be some consideration given to the physical action of kambo on the liver insofar as it literally "squeezes" the bile etc out (from the smooth-muscle contractions of some of these peptides) which is then vomited up? I'm not saying here that this necessarily makes it a sound detox option for the average user - just that its mechanisms are different to the usual cadre of "detox" options.
Pharmacology section: I think it's a tiny but respectable step forward that this has been added since I last checked this page - even if it should be much longer and even if it pales in comparison to the 'slant' presented in the rest of the article. Good work WP editors, this is a nice addition and helps flesh it out a little. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ablations ( talk • contribs) 04:10, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
In response to these edits, I have serious concerns. I have undone a lot of the edits, and modified others. All but one of the sources added were not medrs, and many of the statements were not supported by the sources, but appear to be good-faith WP:OR interpretations of the sources, with a serious misunderstanding of WP:MEDRS. To be fair, Ablations suspected that they didn't understand medrs, and posted a query a month earlier in the section just above this one, which went unanswered until now.
Headbomb, Grafen, and Mx. Granger all edited the altered article; Headbomb removed one source and associated statement, which it seems was cited to a predatory journal. The edits were discussed at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 86#Kambo cleanse, with Hob Gadling and also Nil Einne participating. No-one tried to verify the statements (check if the sources supported them), and they stayed in the article for six months. I rather fearfully searched for news reports of kambo-related deaths in the last six months, but didn't find any.
On the plus side, Ablations has found some new solid medres sources, and we should rewrite the article accordingly. I don't have time just now, but I've made a start.
Ablations, you changed:
The effects on humans usually include tachycardia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and can lead to kidney, pancreas and liver damage, seizures and death.
to
The effects on humans usually include tachycardia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and has lead to kidney, pancreas and liver damage, and death in an isolated number of users, usually due to negligence or contraindication.<ref>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750022000865</ref>
Someone later fixed the citation format, which is great. It seems to be a decent medrs source, which is wonderful. But I can't find any statement in the source [15] that supports the claim you added to the text. It's true that they only reviewed nine cases, but since this is a literature survey for case studies and not a stats-gathering study, that doesn't provide much information on how common these effects are, and the authors made no statements about how common they were. Nor did they attribute them to negligence or counterindication, that I can see. If I'm missing the supporting statements, can you please quote them here? I'm not sure why you removed the seizures when they are clearly mentioned in the source you added.
In your edit comment, you said: "The whole presentation of this page is bizarrely one-sided - even the references it sources such as liver damage are of single users, who the papers note had other factors such as alcoholism or drug use. It's very misrepresentative to say it "can lead to liver damage" based off such flawed reports of single cases. This edit cleans that up a bit by pointing this out properly." The medrs source you added clearly states that use can lead to liver damage, and we have no data on how common it is, so we can't say "it's rare" or "it's common". Nor can we dismiss effects as only occuring in those with other risk factors, unless medrs sources do. This is especially the cae with comercial products, as this sort of claim is often falsely made by marketers, without evidence.
In fact, the same medrs source says:
Although one limitation of our review is the small number of cases analyzed, the study suggests that Kambo cannot be considered a simple natural medicine. The substance contains numerous bioactive peptides that are still not fully known, with effects on various organs and systems, and that are possibly lethal. Although some studies suggest an analgesic potential of individual peptides, the combined intake of these molecules may have significant side effects. We therefore emphasize the importance of strict surveillance of the websites that encourage the use of this substance and urge greater control of e-commerce or illicit trafficking of animals and secretions, including through the dark web.
This sounds to me much more like the pre-existing "slant" of the article which you were objecting to than your "slant" ("point of view", or POV, is what we usualy call it; see WP:NPOV for the POV that Wikipedia requires).
You replaced
There is currently no scientific basis to these claims. [1] [2]
with
Scientific basis to these claims is not extensive. [1] [2]
commenting: "As it stood previously, this section was in need of a review by someone else as it was surprisingly one-sided for WP. There are plenty of refences in this article alone, as well as PubMed and NCBI which outline various research and studies, *including* with human cells. The phrasings used here previously deny this entirely. Additionally, quoting the media(!!) for this as a source beggars belief."
While quoting the media for medical info is bad, the article in question reported that the Australian drug regulator has banned kambo, saying "There is no evidence of any medical benefit from Kambo, the TGA found". It also says that the Australian Medical Association supported this. They said: "There is currently insufficient evidence for its intended therapeutic effects" (there's the difference between a regulator providing public health info and a medical association talking to a regulator that will understand scientific evidence). We could cite them directly, tho. That would be better, and I've now done it, putting them in the same ref tags as they are likely to be used together. They are probably actually medrs sources, which is great! Derma is the quasi medrs source we previously used for lack of anything better. I've left it in for now, but we should probably review its use now we have multiple medrs sources.
You changed the statement without changing the sources. I think you did that because you think that in-vitro tests of chemicals extracted from frogs provide scientific evidence that the frog secretions are useful for treating some illnesses in humans. The medical research community very strongly does not believe this, and Wikipedia follows it. There are very, very picky rules for how to test whether things are useful for treating human illness, with good reason. Humanity has paid to develop those rules in blood, suffering, and death (ask a thalidomide victim). In-vitro evidence is not clinical evidence, even if there are human cells in the petri dishes. Animal experiments are not clinical evidence. You need tests on real humans before you can say how something will affect humans. This is solidly laid out in WP:MEDRS.
You replaced
There is no solid medical evidence on how the frog toxins work, whether they are useful for treating anything, and whether they can be used safely:
with
Research and studies on several of the peptides in the secretion have shown basis for their effects and mechanisms, and prompted further research interest - "The biological manifestations caused by skin secretions applied during these ceremonies (e.g., increased stamina, satiety) have prompted extensive pharmacological studies of the skin extracts [3].
commenting: "Same thing here - please approach these articles with a more holistic and balanced presentation, as there were serious issues with omission of detail and phrasings used thus far. This is WP after all"
This is the sort of thing Wikipedia can't mention without WP:Medrs sources; it's against the rules, because in-vitro studies cannot be safely used to guess the therapeutic effects of something. Painful experience teaches us that. It's why the people participating in phase-one clinical trials are heroes; even with the best possible in-vitro testing, actually dosing a human with a brand-new drug might seriously harm them or kill them. See Theralizumab, Fialuridine, and BIA 10-2474.
The source you cited is clearly a primary research study and not medrs. If you can't tell the difference, please go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine and ask, before citing them for any sentence that you think might cause anyone to draw conclusions about effects on human health.
You replaced
Reports of adverse events are numerous, including for use with experienced guidance. [1]
with
Some adverse events have been reported, including for use with experienced guidance, however, these are often due to negligence. [4] [1] In concert, the effects produced by the secretion appear as a kind of adverse reaction or anaphylactic shock, causing some confusion as to the danger and mechanisms of action [5].
commenting " Reports of adverse events are not numerous - what is the source for this? Unless the 'adverse events' are being taken to mean the regular and reliable effects this produces. In which case, a different phrasing entirely is required. This has been clarified (with a reference added) to present a more holistic view to the reader - please check wording if necessary."
The source cited in the original text says "Besides its traditional use in the Amazon, Kambo has found its way into the Western alternative healing scene as well. While the reports on the beneficial effects of this ritual are numerous and range from relieving symptoms of pain syndromes, autoimmune diseases, skin disease, and cancer to substance abuse and depression (Hesselink, 2018), so are the accounts of adverse effects of participating in a rite, with or without experienced guidance. These include a transient syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (Leban et al., 2016), presumed drug induced liver injury in a chronic alcoholic (Pogorzelska and Lapinski, 2017), sudden death upon chronic kambo use in which autopsy revealed underlying heart disease possibly related to reduced myocardial perfusion (Aquila et al., 2018) and delayed kambo related symptoms in a 24-year-old woman 22 hours after the ritual (Li et al., 2018).". This clearly supports the statement, though I've changed "events" to "effects" to match the source more closely.
The source clearly shows it means unusual effects. AMA says kambo has "harmful effects both intended and adverse", but I think this is a quibble. Vomiting is an undesirable side effect. I have yet to read of anyone taking kambo in order to vomit; if they did, they could take an emetic with a stronger medical evidence base. They take kambo for what that Nature paper calls the "afterglow".
Of the citations you added, the first article is not MEDRS. It doesn't even seem to be on Pubmed, which suggests the journal is not reputable. The content also sounds like advertising copy rather than a scientific paper. It makes the very odd claim that symptoms aren't symptoms when they are pharmacological effects, which we have seen in previous similar poor-quality papers. Native advertising can be hard to spot, so I don't entirely blame you for falling for this one. Headbomb spotted it when it was well-formatted, probably using their useful automated script, and removed it.
The second paper is really interesting: Schmidt, Timo Torsten; Reiche, Simon; Hage, Caroline L. C.; Bermpohl, Felix; Majić, Tomislav (9 December 2020). "Acute and subacute psychoactive effects of Kambô, the secretion of the Amazonian Giant Maki Frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor): retrospective reports". Scientific Reports. 10 (1): 21544. Bibcode: 2020NatSR..1021544S. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-78527-4. PMC 7725827. PMID 33298999. It's an observational study of people who were taking kambo anyway (inducing people to take kambo with would, in the current state of research, never get past a research ethics committee). But while it's a solid primary research paper, it isn't medrs. Only review papers are medrs. Primary research is never medrs, though we may very very rarely use the intro review section in one where no medrs is available.
You removed this, and wrote: "This section needs review. It is not used/marketed routinely as a "detox", there are more uses than this. This section focuses too hard on this single term, and the inclusion of the quote from Edzard Ernst is a rather strange addition as a result". You were right that the existing sources didn't provide very good sourcing for the use of "detox", so I added a solid source that does. Given this, I think the quote provides useful context for the two meanings of "detox", which I think should be in the article.
In the "Notable deaths" section", you made these edits, commenting: "As it stood previously, this whole section is rather egregious in its presentation - without going overboard, very minor changes have been made to reflect the background context of some of these, which are evident upon reading the associated (and related) papers." I think this means that you added content not supported by the sources already cited at the ends of the sentences (which, as I recall, don't support the statements you added), but which you found obvious from other papers. I'm afraid the sources need to be cited in a way that makes it clear which information comes from what source.
Specifically, you replaced
The medical literature reported the 2018 case in Italy of a person with no known preexisting conditions besides obesity, who, according to autopsy reports, died of cardiac arrhythmia while under the effects of kambo use. [6] [7]
with
The medical literature reported the 2018 case in Italy of a person with obesity and venticular hypertrophy, who, according to autopsy reports, died of cardiac arrhythmia while under the effects of kambo use. [6] [7]
If I'm wrong, could you please quote the sentence(s) in the sources that say(s) the person had ventricular hypertrophy?
You added the bolded text below:
In April 2019, a homicide investigation was opened into the death by "severe cerebral edema" of a young person who had taken kambo toxins in Chile, most likely owing to overly high water consumption which has caused several problems with kambo sessions; the import of the frog and its secretions is illegal in Chile. [8] [9]
The first medrs source you added supports the idea that drinking water might cause problems (and I've dded itto the article), but I don't think this information is in the sources cited.
You added this:
However, most of the few deaths reported have some indication of contraindication, pre-existing conditions, or negligence such as over-consumption of water, rather than 'overdosing' or toxicity from the substance itself. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
The last ref is the medrs source again, but again it does not seem that these statements are made in that source, nor do I recall it in the other sources. They seem to be your interpretation of the sources, which is WP:OR. Again, I'd love to be proved wrong, if you can quote the statements from the source that paraphrase what you said.
Research using human cells has created interest in immunostimulatory and anti-tumor effects of one of the peptides, Dermaseptin [11]
This text needs a medrs source, because it could be interpreted to mean that kambo purges treat cancer. This is a primary research study, testing on human cells (some of them tumour cells) in a petri dish, and in a Patient derived xenograft. The latter is in vivo, technically, but it's not a clinical trial in humans, let alone a review of such trials.
I'm sorry if this has been a bit unrelentingly negative. I don't mean it that way; I've taken time to explain exactly what I'm doing, because I think you could learn to be a skilled editor. I really wish I'd seen your talk-page post sooner. I hope you won't be discouraged, and will continue to edit in a variety of topic areas. HLHJ ( talk) 05:32, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
"The histopathological examination showed left ventricular hypertrophy.
"The autopsy showed left ventricular hypertrophy of the heart, focal moderate coronary artery narrowing, and pulmonary emphysema. It is possible that hypotensive effects of Kambo could have resulted in reduced myocardial perfusion particularly given the presence of moderate coronary artery disease and left ventricular hypertrophy. In addition, tachycardia induced by Kambo in the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy could have provoked a cardiac arrhythmia. The possibility that the death was unrelated to Kambo use cannot be excluded. This is the first death associated with Kambo use reported in the literature."
In regards to "As I recall there's only one well-documented case of liver failure, but more of biochemical markers of liver harm. I'm not sure bile reflux (which must have happened if someone is vomiting bile) is good for the liver, either, but I really don't know. You need tests on real humans before you can say how something will affect humans." - if you look at the sources of any page that mentions this, they ALL refer back to that one, lone case of the Italian man who died (with venticular hypertrophy, and was overweight with a drinking habit!) - This one, for which the full paper goes into great detail. This study is the one that every article claiming "liver damage" refers to, but WP doesn't care that the article itself has pre-existing contributing factors making it misinformation to say it usually causes liver damage. This is the sort of thing that I've been finding so disheartening. It makes WP very untrustworthy. But it seems to be taken simply as fact even when the original source isn't scrutinized with anywhere near as much depth as the positive aspects are. Please can we do something about this.
References
Derma2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).TheGuardian2021
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Forensic2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).SilvaMonteiro2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).LaNancion2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Infocatolica2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Preamble
There is a lot of contention in this article it seems about what should and shouldn't be included. Some editors have left notes such as "this might imply it works" and/or have removed very valid sentences from the page mentioning simply that therapeutic interest and medical interest exists and is a promising topic of research. These types of behaviors do not seem fit or unbiased enough for WP where the core credo is open access to information - and this is absolutely achievable without having to make strong statements based off non-clinical sources. The following are just a few sources which back up a few of the avenues of research, but there are plenty more. The point here is not to provide conclusive proof of medical effectiveness (although some of these, particularly the Dermorphin clinical trials, are extremely close) but moreso to show you, as editors, that there is serious medical interest in various properties of kambo which is based of a wealth of studies and research.
I would implore you to take this aspect into account in order to keep the article open to all, rather than policing what you think people should and shouldn't know about by removing references to general interest in therapeutic potential and all the rest including comments like "this might imply it works" (this is far too generalized a comment and you should not be concerned with policing what people 'might' think, rather focus on providing open access to info as long as it adheres to proper WP protocols).
Dermaseptin in kambo
--This is a PUBMED source.
Dermorphins and Deltorphins in kambo
-- and a link to one of the papers this is referencing
General interest in therapeutic and medical uses
Most of the bioactive peptides so far characterized have displayed potential applications in medicine, such as phyllocaeruleins with hypotensive properties, tachykinins and phyllokinins as vasodilators, dermorphins and deltorphins with opiate-like properties, and adenoregulins with antibiotic properties ( Daly et al., 1992; Mor et al., 1994a; Lacombe et al., 2000; Hesselink and Sacerdote, 2019)
Due to the numerous biological activities of these substances and the similarities with the amino acid sequences related to mammalian neuropeptides and hormones, many have aroused the interest from a medical and pharmacological perspective, such as in the production of new drugs ( Lazarus et al., 1999; Basir et al., 2000; Chen et al., 2002; Doyle et al., 2002; Severini et al., 2002; Conceição et al., 2006).
--full paper here, with further links and plenty of sources Ablations ( talk) 02:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
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It would be good to support some of the medical claims here with WP:MEDRS sources. Here are a few I found doing a quick search.
There are a few case reports on Pubmed as well, which I haven't looked at yet, but they may contain useful content in the introductory sections. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 03:53, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I just saw your comment in the other section. Yeah, those aren't the best MEDRS sources. Frontiers journals, which you added, are not great either (search the WT:MED archives for discussion of these journals). It's difficult writing about obscure subjects like this because there's not exactly going to be a Cochrane review on the topic. As I mentioned above, some of the introductory material from case reports might be usable (not the actual case report but the material summarizing the previous literature). Not a lot of options here, so trying to make do with what we have. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 22:05, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
. I wasn't aware of that one, thanks. So we have a complete death of really good medical sources... Case reports' reviews are better than news media, I guess. Maybe we can use Frontiers for the lack of phase-1 trials... I'd definitely want to look into that particular paper's COIs, though...
HLHJ (
talk)
00:58, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
The usual relationship between vasodilation, hypotension, and tachycardia might not be familiar to all readers; do you think we can/should discuss itSince the sources we're using don't explicitly mention it, I'm not sure there's a way to do that without getting into WP:SYNTH territory, sadly. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 13:22, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
I don't want to put Template:Expand language on the article, because it is ugly, but if anyone speaks Spanish or Portuguese, the articles in those languages ( es:Kambó, pt:Vacina do sapo) seem to have some good sources, especially regarding traditional use of the procedure. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 16:40, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm posting here instead of at DYK because the DYK page is long enough already :p Courtesy ping for OneUpOnUs. I've seen the recent comments on the DYK nom and I've been thinking about how to respond for a few days. The gist of my thoughts is that I'm not sure the article is ready for the main page at this point in time. I know this is strange for me to say since I'm the one who suggested the creator nominate it for DYK in the first place, but I think I got ahead of myself in wanting to encourage a promising new editor and didn't give proper consideration to MEDRS, NPOV, etc. The article is certainly much improved from its original state - mostly thanks to you! - but I still have some concerns, mainly over the reliance on the Frontiers source, which I think is okay to use in the absence of better sources, but which I'm not entirely comfortable showcasing on the Main Page. I want to reiterate again that I'm very thankful for your assistance with this article and especially your diplomatic comments on the talk page, which I found admirable, and instructive as someone who generally tries to avoid conflict on here... And apologies to OneUpOnUs for the mess this has turned into, which is mostly my fault :) But I thought I would raise this issue here before commenting further so we can develop a consensus. SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 17:40, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Keppel Hesselink, Jan M (January 2020).
"Rediscovery of Ceruletide, a CCK Agonist, as an Analgesic Drug". Journal of Pain Research. Volume 13: 123–130.
doi:
10.2147/JPR.S232714.
PMID
32021401. {{
cite journal}}
: |volume=
has extra text (
help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link)
The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by
Yoninah (
talk)
02:14, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
Created by OneUpOnUs ( talk). Self-nominated at 22:42, 17 December 2019 (UTC).
Article:
Newness: - created a day before nomination
Length: - 5664 B
Copyvio Check: - 36.7%, but the percentage is attributed to the quotes
Neutrality:
Grammar:
Sources: - every claim is sufficiently sourced, great use of scholarly articles
Hook:
Length: - all are <250 characters
Image: - For the image provided, I'm just curious as to where it mentions that the video is under CC BY-SA 3.0, usually Youtube videos would have to disclose the copyright within the description, within the video, or on their separate website. The only thing I found on
[2] was that they reserve the rights to copyright.
Content: - for ALTs 0a, 0d, 1, 4; I'll let the promoting admin decide as they all work
Neutrality:
Source: - within the article
QPQ: - Not required as first DYK nomination
Overall:
Everything is good to go for ALTs 0a, 0d, 1, or 4, although some concerns need to be addressed regarding the image - please see the comments above. Thanks,
Toreightyone (
talk)
18:03, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
Wanted to comment in support of ALT0a. It's straight to the point and makes it clear that detoxing is a psuedoscience. Nice4What ( talk · contribs) – (Don't forget to share a Thanks ♥) 19:20, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
BenignoN.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 23:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
The opening paragraph says "The effects on humans usually include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and liver damage;". Regarding the liver damage, it does not seem like we have a proper source that Kambo "usually" causes liver damage. The two sources for that paragraph, sources [1] and [2], do mention liver damage, but [1] (a scientific paper) mentions it only in 1 person, a chronic alcoholic. Source [2], a Guardian article, has an anonymous "spokesperson" describing the practice, who is not directly quoted as mentioning that liver damage is a "usual effect" but rather it is reported that they mentioned it in a list of adverse effects that can happen along with "rare deaths".
So, do we have a source for this assertion that liver damage is one of the usual effects of Kambo on humans? If not, I propose removing it from the "usual effects" list in the lede, and if needed, mentioning it somewhere else and/or mentioning it as a potential effect but not claiming it's a usual effect without providing a source. That said, I see more discussions of medical risks, and of the liver's role in the "cleanse", happening on this Talk page (though nothing about "liver damage"). I see discussion of some MEDRS sources, so maybe one of those sources will back up the claim that "liver damage" is one of Kambo's "usual effect on humans"? -- Murftown ( talk) 18:39, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Update: I made a small edit to the lede, saying the effects on humans "can include" instead of "usually include". This is more in line with what the relevant source (the Guardian) indicates. Nowhere in that article does it say all those effects "usually" happen. -- Murftown ( talk) 19:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Update: VdSV9 made a further edit reintroducing the (still uncited) "usually includes" verbiage, while correctly separating "liver damage" and "death" out of that list. The user says there are sources that justify "usually includes", but did not add them, so I am adding a citation needed tag. I'm not disputing the claim itself (though I have heard anecdotes that e.g. the vomiting is not necessarily "usually"), but in any case the claim needs sourcing.
There are a plethora of research papers into the peptides and their effects to be found online. In reading this article, I found it to sound quite biased against Kambo, specifically a trend towards claiming there was "zero scientific basis" for any of the health claims. However, many of the research papers into the peptides will show a basis for the health claims, though clinical trials in humans do not exist.
It seems quite odd to begin the article with the word "dangerous", which is a subjective term and goes against Wikipedia's "Neutral Point of View" policy. There is no overdose potential and the substance is only dangerous for people who are contra-indicated with medical issues such as blood clots or similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ablations ( talk • contribs) 04:27, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page).
I've added a bit that says that "kambo" is the name of the frog, not the secretions, with a source. We don't need a MEDRS of etymologies. Thanks for catching that one, Ablations. I'd agree that whether Kambo is termed a "detox", "cleanse", "abortificant", etc. does seem to depend on cultural context. "Treatment" implies that it treats something, which is a claim we'd need MEDRS for. I think calling it "Kambo purge" might make sense, as all uses do involve vomiting, indisputably, and I think "purge" is a term used by anthropologists for describing practices from a variety of cultures, so it has a certain culture-neutrality. HLHJ ( talk) 17:55, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Many thanks, HLHJ. That all makes sense, including the 'treatment' part - sadly I'm not sure I'm up to the task of finding sources good enough for WP's standards for us to add this. The only comment I really have is that swapping 'cleanse' for 'purge' is basically the same thing - indeed, it does essentially always involve a purge, but I think the point is that by adding 'cleanse' or 'purge' it heavily implies that that is it's main objective or purpose, or main goal, which isn't isn't the case and gives the wrong impression - it's just part of the overall experience/treatment/whatever - as an example, imagine the hunters in the Amazon using it prior to their hunt - they aren't interested in the purging aspect, they are interested in the boost it gives them (probably resulting from the dermorphin/deltorphin peptides) Ablations ( talk) 02:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Ablations, it is no reflection on you that you cannot wave a magic wand and create years of medical research (if you could, I'd direct your attention to Neglected tropical diseases). I'd agree that in many cases cleansing is likely not the main goal, or not a goal at all; vomiting is presumably ~never the goal. My understanding of the anthropological use of the term "purge" is that it applies to behaviours that induce vomiting, regardless of other cultural context, which pretty much has to be there, as vomiting is not something that many people would voluntarily do for its own sake (that is, without expecting some benefit). HLHJ ( talk) 02:31, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Just to follow on from previous discussion which seems to have come to a standstill, the article as it stands gives an impartial tone with some degree of rejection given to the notion that kambo is in any way helpful or in any way has a scientific basis for the claims - while we may disagree on this, WP should be imbalanced and provide aspects of all available information, according to /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight . The talk page for this article shows a concerning back-and-forth discussion amongst some WP editors with an apparent bias in this regard.
According to WPMEDRS, "Sources about health in the general news media should, in general, not be used to source content about health in Wikipedia articles but may be useful for "society and culture" content." As has been discussed here on the talk page, there are multiple health-related claims in the article which are sourced from news articles.
Of primary concern is that the article repeatedly uses the statement "poison", "poisonous peptides" - however there is no source or basis for the notion of it being "poison" cited. What is the source for this claim? In particular, even if we give a pass to the phrase "poison" in general, why is the phrase "poisonous peptides" used when 'poison' is subjective and research is clearly available in Wikipedia itself showing peptides are merely long-chain amino acids that perform various functions in the body?
Another way this is apparent is that the article itself cites a "drop in blood pressure" (due to the phyllokinin peptide), which is one of the reasons it is used/one of the claims made around it, yet the article portrays a picture of rejecting any notion of scientific basis for health claims (conveniently, 'lowering blood pressure' is left out from the 'Claims' column).
It is also concerning from a neutrality standpoint to see this article listed under 'See Also' as "Quackery" - such a term relates to entirely implausible methods and practises that border on fradulent, as described by WP's own article: "as the promotion of unsubstantiated methods that lack a scientifically plausible rationale". In regards to kambo, multiple studies show us, as editors, that there is certainly scientific rationale for the claims made, such as:
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/10/11/474/htm "when used in the right proportions or structurally engineered, several venom peptides can be used directly as therapeutic drugs or as drug leads" - without even delving into kambo-specific research, this should show that such amphibian peptides clearly have therapeutic potential.
In terms of Kambo-specific research, here is one example of research which supports this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447859/?fbclid=IwAR06bX8EaaZ-IYWqdsw3h33slIWJCHxcAJZUcLhueQN4PHUiTZo4T3kqkXc
Can I ask, what is going on with this article? I note some of the editors such as Alexbrn have a history of editing alternative medicine articles which raises the question of an agenda. It has a concerning number of issues in regard to it's impartiality and that appears strongly to be the case with the article overall painting a specific tone of rejection, which obviously isn't in line with good WP practises.
Ultimately I would like to help improve the article, but based on initial attempts I got a feeling of being shut out and shut down here. The solution apparently isn't "to pile in (so-called) unreliable sources" and yet nothing else is being done to improve what is already an unreliable article that sources health claims from news articles and has a clear tone of impartiality. Apologies if I come across as rude or brash, the article needs serious revision and needs to include all (or at least more) of the available information so as not to appear so biased, and I would like to help but my attempts previously haven't given me much to work with — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ablations ( talk • contribs) 03:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC) -- Ablations ( talk) 03:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I don't think Ablations has quite grasped what WP:UNDUE means. Impartiality doesn't mean we present all sides of an argument as if they were equally valid, because they often are not. It means we should present the facts of science: "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". I also suggest reading WP:FRINGE, as the traditional usage of Kambo is superstition (Amazon Indians say it is meant to bring good luck) and pseudoscience (they also say it removes "panema", a quasi-mystical, pseudoscientific concept). Its appropriation for urban use is dangerous pseudoscientific alt med. Scientific findings that show that some substances found in Kambo's secretion can be useful doesn't change any of this. If one of the substances is found to be useful and safe, it only means that the substance is useful and safe, for certain specific conditions, at certain specific doses. It won't validate using frog poison, which contains loads of different compounds, applied at hard to control doses. The article, as it stands, is neutral enough. VdSV9• ♫ 15:57, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Martin Williams, a post doctoral research fellow at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said that when kambo is placed on the burnt skin on people's arms and legs, it enters the body via the lymphatic system. When kambo is applied to the chest (a growing trend, as the chest is considered a chakra area), he said that it could enter the bloodstream more quickly and result in cardiac arrest.
SpicyMilkBoy thanks for your comment, I'm crazy busy at the moment so I'll be more brief than I would normally like. In regards to the criticism of Martin Williams on the subject, I hadn't considered the possibility of the speculation (especially as he is an expert in the field) not conforming to MEDRS but I can see your point of view and agree, I will remove the speculation. I also think renaming the page to Kambô is an excellent idea and unless we receive reasonable objection I'll change it over after the DYK nom is finished.— Preceding unsigned comment added by OneUpOnUs ( talk • contribs) 19:02, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
I guess what I was referring to when I made some of the above comments was overall, the article gives me the impression that it's TRYING to paint the subject negatively - if we take for example the suggestion of it being a poison or 'defense mechanism' - well, where are the WP:MEDS studies to show this is a poison? All I can see are news articles, which are of course having a field day capitizalising on the scandalous nature of the 'poison' angle. Meanwhile, we know the frog has no natural predators, and studies like these two: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8074751 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8306981 along with the David Attenborough segment linked above, say it's more like an antibacterial protective coating. Now here's what I'm getting at - I gather that while we seemingly can't use these studies as citations in the article to say something like "it is thought the secretion is a form of antimicrobial protection", surely these are more relevant than random biased news articles? Even if we can't quote them (and to be honest, I'm not sure why, but I have refrained from making any edits just in case), surely we as editors can recognize that these studies are more likely to be trustworthy compared to news articles? I guess what I'm saying is - as one example, do we actually have a valid cited source in the article for this being "poison"? I only see 1) news articles, and 2) a couple of studies which use the term 'poison', but only in passing - not actually focusing on whether it is a poison or not. Does that still make them valid as a source for the claim it is "a poison"? (I admit I am really struggling with what studies are allowed and which ones aren't.) Note that I don't have a huge gripe with this per se, but more the notion it represents and how I think it has affected the overall tone of the article. Another example might be the discussion way up near the top about the "marketing myth of detoxification" and how this has carried itself into the article with users of kambo wrongly believeing they are removing toxins from themselves. While I agree with the general marketing myth and hype around detoxification, it's not like the process of the body removing toxins is itself a myth - in kambo's case, we know that kambo causes gastric secretions and induces the liver to remove fat soluble toxins, and we know this gets vomited out - doesn't this make it indeed a kind of 'detoxification'? To clarify, I'm not suggesting these two things are the biggest issues with the article, I'm more using these two things as examples of what I think is a tone that does the article (and WP) a disservice. While I'm sure this isn't the case, in parts it almost feels like it was edited by a PR person from a pharmaceutical company or something, you know what i mean. Ablations ( talk) 08:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it would be suitable to rename this "pharmocology" per Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Style guide, with "Adverse effects" in another section; Wikipedia talk:MED might have advice. Honestly, I'm not sure if this is a plain medical article, so I'm not sure whether we should format it entirely as such; most of the sources are on the cultural side, but obviously medical content is needed.
Separately, everything in this section should really be supported by MEDRS (non-medres sources are not OK per policy, but they also contradict one another: is euphoria present or absent, for instance?). I think we can use the old 1990s MEDRS for the basic chemistry of the peptides involved where necessary, as this is not likely to be time-sensitive information, and "peptides" is a bit general. Since we do not have really good MEDRS, this will be hard to source. "Science" is even more general, and we do mention scientific research in other parts of the article. HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I think the non-English sources mentioned some more deaths, and the Frontiers source mentions some. I don't think this section is a comprehensive list of fatalities, and it gives that impression. Since some of these are older deaths, "update" may not have been the most informative template here, and I could have added a reason param; my apologies. HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
There is a view that criticism should be integrated: Wikipedia:Criticism#Approaches to presenting criticism. I support this in principle, due to evidence that leaving information that might induce a critical POV until the end causes readers to read and remember content less critically. [1] HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
References
Technically, " toxin" is a sub-category of " poison". In common use, both generally mean "toxic to humans". The terms include things that are toxic on ingestion, things that are toxic on inhalation, things that are toxic on skin contact, things that are toxic on inhalation, and things that are toxic if you get some in a break in your skin, among others.
If something makes you vomit and your blood vessels dilate until your blood pressure falls so low you may faint and your heart races and you feel as though you are going to die, and indeed it can kill you, I'd tend to say it is toxic to humans; I think I'm in line with medical sources here. Now many medicines do have noticable toxicity; chemotherapy drugs, for instance, work by being a bit more toxic to cancerous cells than healthy ones. Warfarin is a poison, but has legitimate medical uses; our article describes it as both a medication and a poison, both highly useful and highly dangerous. Here, we are dealing with a substance which can certainly kill people, and does not yet have medical uses recognized in MEDRS. Calling it a "toxin" seems reasonable, and calling it a "poison", while more general, seems not incorrect or misleading, especially in light of the common term "poisonous frog". The widespread use of these terms in non-technical, non-MEDRS texts is not evidence of accuracy, but is evidence on what the English term likely means to the reader. I'm open to source-based arguments here, though. HLHJ ( talk) 01:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
For now though, I will provide these sources regarding the gastric secretions and the vomiting (I realize these may not pass muster for direct inclusion into the article). Though I do think it's important to mention this nonetheless as the vomiting aspect in particular is one of the largest contributors to the misinformed angles that the media presents (e.g. "it makes you vomit, therefore you are clearly being poisoned!" is how they tend to present it, when in reality it's an expected result of the smooth muscle contractions and other actions of the peptides):
In the final link there, I would call attention to the paragraph headed "Kambo consists of 16 bioactive peptides" for info such as "The general peripheral efects of these peptides are cardiovascular and gastrointestinal effects on smooth muscle contraction, and gastric and pancreatic secretions. Caerulein induces symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, facial flush, tachycardia, changes in blood pressure, sweating, abdominal discomfort and urge for defecation. The gastrointestinal symptoms in the early phase of Kambo ritual are a result of the action of this peptide. Caerulein also provokes contraction of the gall bladder, a reason for the yellow vomit (‘cleansing the liver’)."
From the second link: "Clinicians will most probably define this above described symptom-complex as an anaphylactic shock. However, all these symptoms can be attributed to the pharmacological activity of the peptides of Kambo, and thus the symptom-complex seems not to be anaphylactic of nature, but directly related to its pharmacological effects."
I do understand these cannot be included in the article directly, they were just the first links I found to help provide info and provoke discussion Ablations ( talk) 03:15, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sourcesand explicitly notes that
The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered.We are limited to summarizing what reliable sources say, not getting to the ultimate truth of the matter - we leave that to the researchers, whose work we may report on several years from now, once other researchers have summarized it first. :) SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 03:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Miel Bartels, I'm afraid that Wikipedia:Biomedical information on Wikipedia has to be cited to medical reliable sources, a specific category of evidence. "Solid medical evidence", on Wikipedia, means specific types of human trials (detailed in that link). We can't include statements about anti-cancer properties in the article without such evidence. I know this seems limiting and narrow-minded, but from experience this policy has served well, and when Wikipedia did not have it, it caused major problems; unreliable and contradictory information, and hard-to-resolve conflicts. Unfortunately there have not been any controlled human trials on kambo secretions or their constituents. Someday, we will be able to include this, which will make it a much better article. I've had to revert your edit on the scientific basis for now, but the content has not been lost; it is still in the edit history. Feel free to discuss it, and any other problems with the article, here. User:SpicyMilkBoy, you read up on the pharmacology; how do you feel about the new content on dermaseptin? HLHJ ( talk) 00:24, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
The references contain the following entries which do not have any supporting details; there is nothing to identify what they are intended to refer to:
Perhaps somebody with a better knowledge of the literature can salvage these? -- Gronk Oz ( talk) 03:11, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Hello WP editors - hope I'm not ruffling any feathers by inserting this as a new section or in the wrong place.
I understand there's a lot of pre-conclusions and temptation to write-off health-related things outside the clinical sphere such as this - particularly something that at first glance seems as wild and unbelievable as kambo does - but in coming back to view this article and see how it's evolved I'm left wondering if there isn't still a degree of prejudice (perhaps 'unfairness' is a better word) coloring this article unfairly.
Just a few notes about my thoughts here:
The effects on humans usually include tachycardia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea (good - this is true but it's not 'usual', it's essentially guaranteed, that's how the peptides work - except for diarrhea which is case-by-case)...and can lead to kidney, pancreas and liver damage, seizures and death (I won't argue, but it is worth stating that these are hardly common and the certainly not the usual outcome; there's only one known report of liver damage that I'm aware of - this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5497453/ , and less than 10 deaths that anyone can seem to find - out of hundreds of sessions taking place around the world each week. Regarding the claims of liver toxicity - it seems everyone just keeps referring back to this one case report and then making sweeping claims about it, for example).
There is no scientific evidence that it is an effective treatment. (I disagree, but I can accept that WP likely has a higher standard for what is considered an "effective treatment")
There is currently no scientific basis to these claims. (I have an inkling of WP's stance on MEDRS, but this sentence seems far too short given the plethora of research around the topic. A quick look at this Talk page shows a number of links have been posted showing some research and there's much more out there - but this sentence makes it sound as if there is absolutely zero substance *whatsoever*, not just clinically-proven research. I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but amongst the wealth of research out there, some of it is in-vivo such as this: https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/1fd349a9-6ac4-3441-9ed5-6ab8d58e816c/ or this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447859/ and I would've thought that in the interests of balance, that kind of thing would at least bear mention instead of how the sentence stands at present - i.e. a complete shutdown and negation of any possible scientific basis)
There is no solid medical evidence on how the frog toxins work, whether they are useful for treating anything, and whether they can be used safely: no clinical trials have tested them on humans, as of November 2019. (I think it's at least good that this has been contextualized with a colon and the follow-on sentence about no clinical trials. Having said that, again, I have the same serious qualm as I've written just above this - while the research may not meet the high WP standards, the delivery of this sentence almost entirely shuts down the notion completely, despite the foundational research that exists. Again, apologies if I'm wholly misunderstanding WP MEDRS policy, but the delivery of the sentence just seems very one-sided).
Reports of adverse events are numerous, including for use with experienced guidance. (I think this is an example of sentence that's a bit strange - what is being defined by adverse events here? The results such as tachycardia, nausea, vomiting etc - are essentially guaranteed based on how the peptides work. These are intrinsic and wholly inseparable elements of using kambo. Anybody doing kambo will have these types of things, unless 'adverse events' refers to something else here. Essentially what i'm saying is that this sentence makes it sound like there are *other* kinds of events beyond what science and common-usage has shown so far. It's kind of like saying that reports of adverse events from hangovers are numerous).
On the "detox" nature - while I agree the general notion of a 'detox' has been carried away by pseudo-wellness charlatans over the years, should there not be some consideration given to the physical action of kambo on the liver insofar as it literally "squeezes" the bile etc out (from the smooth-muscle contractions of some of these peptides) which is then vomited up? I'm not saying here that this necessarily makes it a sound detox option for the average user - just that its mechanisms are different to the usual cadre of "detox" options.
Pharmacology section: I think it's a tiny but respectable step forward that this has been added since I last checked this page - even if it should be much longer and even if it pales in comparison to the 'slant' presented in the rest of the article. Good work WP editors, this is a nice addition and helps flesh it out a little. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ablations ( talk • contribs) 04:10, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
In response to these edits, I have serious concerns. I have undone a lot of the edits, and modified others. All but one of the sources added were not medrs, and many of the statements were not supported by the sources, but appear to be good-faith WP:OR interpretations of the sources, with a serious misunderstanding of WP:MEDRS. To be fair, Ablations suspected that they didn't understand medrs, and posted a query a month earlier in the section just above this one, which went unanswered until now.
Headbomb, Grafen, and Mx. Granger all edited the altered article; Headbomb removed one source and associated statement, which it seems was cited to a predatory journal. The edits were discussed at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 86#Kambo cleanse, with Hob Gadling and also Nil Einne participating. No-one tried to verify the statements (check if the sources supported them), and they stayed in the article for six months. I rather fearfully searched for news reports of kambo-related deaths in the last six months, but didn't find any.
On the plus side, Ablations has found some new solid medres sources, and we should rewrite the article accordingly. I don't have time just now, but I've made a start.
Ablations, you changed:
The effects on humans usually include tachycardia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and can lead to kidney, pancreas and liver damage, seizures and death.
to
The effects on humans usually include tachycardia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and has lead to kidney, pancreas and liver damage, and death in an isolated number of users, usually due to negligence or contraindication.<ref>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750022000865</ref>
Someone later fixed the citation format, which is great. It seems to be a decent medrs source, which is wonderful. But I can't find any statement in the source [15] that supports the claim you added to the text. It's true that they only reviewed nine cases, but since this is a literature survey for case studies and not a stats-gathering study, that doesn't provide much information on how common these effects are, and the authors made no statements about how common they were. Nor did they attribute them to negligence or counterindication, that I can see. If I'm missing the supporting statements, can you please quote them here? I'm not sure why you removed the seizures when they are clearly mentioned in the source you added.
In your edit comment, you said: "The whole presentation of this page is bizarrely one-sided - even the references it sources such as liver damage are of single users, who the papers note had other factors such as alcoholism or drug use. It's very misrepresentative to say it "can lead to liver damage" based off such flawed reports of single cases. This edit cleans that up a bit by pointing this out properly." The medrs source you added clearly states that use can lead to liver damage, and we have no data on how common it is, so we can't say "it's rare" or "it's common". Nor can we dismiss effects as only occuring in those with other risk factors, unless medrs sources do. This is especially the cae with comercial products, as this sort of claim is often falsely made by marketers, without evidence.
In fact, the same medrs source says:
Although one limitation of our review is the small number of cases analyzed, the study suggests that Kambo cannot be considered a simple natural medicine. The substance contains numerous bioactive peptides that are still not fully known, with effects on various organs and systems, and that are possibly lethal. Although some studies suggest an analgesic potential of individual peptides, the combined intake of these molecules may have significant side effects. We therefore emphasize the importance of strict surveillance of the websites that encourage the use of this substance and urge greater control of e-commerce or illicit trafficking of animals and secretions, including through the dark web.
This sounds to me much more like the pre-existing "slant" of the article which you were objecting to than your "slant" ("point of view", or POV, is what we usualy call it; see WP:NPOV for the POV that Wikipedia requires).
You replaced
There is currently no scientific basis to these claims. [1] [2]
with
Scientific basis to these claims is not extensive. [1] [2]
commenting: "As it stood previously, this section was in need of a review by someone else as it was surprisingly one-sided for WP. There are plenty of refences in this article alone, as well as PubMed and NCBI which outline various research and studies, *including* with human cells. The phrasings used here previously deny this entirely. Additionally, quoting the media(!!) for this as a source beggars belief."
While quoting the media for medical info is bad, the article in question reported that the Australian drug regulator has banned kambo, saying "There is no evidence of any medical benefit from Kambo, the TGA found". It also says that the Australian Medical Association supported this. They said: "There is currently insufficient evidence for its intended therapeutic effects" (there's the difference between a regulator providing public health info and a medical association talking to a regulator that will understand scientific evidence). We could cite them directly, tho. That would be better, and I've now done it, putting them in the same ref tags as they are likely to be used together. They are probably actually medrs sources, which is great! Derma is the quasi medrs source we previously used for lack of anything better. I've left it in for now, but we should probably review its use now we have multiple medrs sources.
You changed the statement without changing the sources. I think you did that because you think that in-vitro tests of chemicals extracted from frogs provide scientific evidence that the frog secretions are useful for treating some illnesses in humans. The medical research community very strongly does not believe this, and Wikipedia follows it. There are very, very picky rules for how to test whether things are useful for treating human illness, with good reason. Humanity has paid to develop those rules in blood, suffering, and death (ask a thalidomide victim). In-vitro evidence is not clinical evidence, even if there are human cells in the petri dishes. Animal experiments are not clinical evidence. You need tests on real humans before you can say how something will affect humans. This is solidly laid out in WP:MEDRS.
You replaced
There is no solid medical evidence on how the frog toxins work, whether they are useful for treating anything, and whether they can be used safely:
with
Research and studies on several of the peptides in the secretion have shown basis for their effects and mechanisms, and prompted further research interest - "The biological manifestations caused by skin secretions applied during these ceremonies (e.g., increased stamina, satiety) have prompted extensive pharmacological studies of the skin extracts [3].
commenting: "Same thing here - please approach these articles with a more holistic and balanced presentation, as there were serious issues with omission of detail and phrasings used thus far. This is WP after all"
This is the sort of thing Wikipedia can't mention without WP:Medrs sources; it's against the rules, because in-vitro studies cannot be safely used to guess the therapeutic effects of something. Painful experience teaches us that. It's why the people participating in phase-one clinical trials are heroes; even with the best possible in-vitro testing, actually dosing a human with a brand-new drug might seriously harm them or kill them. See Theralizumab, Fialuridine, and BIA 10-2474.
The source you cited is clearly a primary research study and not medrs. If you can't tell the difference, please go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine and ask, before citing them for any sentence that you think might cause anyone to draw conclusions about effects on human health.
You replaced
Reports of adverse events are numerous, including for use with experienced guidance. [1]
with
Some adverse events have been reported, including for use with experienced guidance, however, these are often due to negligence. [4] [1] In concert, the effects produced by the secretion appear as a kind of adverse reaction or anaphylactic shock, causing some confusion as to the danger and mechanisms of action [5].
commenting " Reports of adverse events are not numerous - what is the source for this? Unless the 'adverse events' are being taken to mean the regular and reliable effects this produces. In which case, a different phrasing entirely is required. This has been clarified (with a reference added) to present a more holistic view to the reader - please check wording if necessary."
The source cited in the original text says "Besides its traditional use in the Amazon, Kambo has found its way into the Western alternative healing scene as well. While the reports on the beneficial effects of this ritual are numerous and range from relieving symptoms of pain syndromes, autoimmune diseases, skin disease, and cancer to substance abuse and depression (Hesselink, 2018), so are the accounts of adverse effects of participating in a rite, with or without experienced guidance. These include a transient syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (Leban et al., 2016), presumed drug induced liver injury in a chronic alcoholic (Pogorzelska and Lapinski, 2017), sudden death upon chronic kambo use in which autopsy revealed underlying heart disease possibly related to reduced myocardial perfusion (Aquila et al., 2018) and delayed kambo related symptoms in a 24-year-old woman 22 hours after the ritual (Li et al., 2018).". This clearly supports the statement, though I've changed "events" to "effects" to match the source more closely.
The source clearly shows it means unusual effects. AMA says kambo has "harmful effects both intended and adverse", but I think this is a quibble. Vomiting is an undesirable side effect. I have yet to read of anyone taking kambo in order to vomit; if they did, they could take an emetic with a stronger medical evidence base. They take kambo for what that Nature paper calls the "afterglow".
Of the citations you added, the first article is not MEDRS. It doesn't even seem to be on Pubmed, which suggests the journal is not reputable. The content also sounds like advertising copy rather than a scientific paper. It makes the very odd claim that symptoms aren't symptoms when they are pharmacological effects, which we have seen in previous similar poor-quality papers. Native advertising can be hard to spot, so I don't entirely blame you for falling for this one. Headbomb spotted it when it was well-formatted, probably using their useful automated script, and removed it.
The second paper is really interesting: Schmidt, Timo Torsten; Reiche, Simon; Hage, Caroline L. C.; Bermpohl, Felix; Majić, Tomislav (9 December 2020). "Acute and subacute psychoactive effects of Kambô, the secretion of the Amazonian Giant Maki Frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor): retrospective reports". Scientific Reports. 10 (1): 21544. Bibcode: 2020NatSR..1021544S. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-78527-4. PMC 7725827. PMID 33298999. It's an observational study of people who were taking kambo anyway (inducing people to take kambo with would, in the current state of research, never get past a research ethics committee). But while it's a solid primary research paper, it isn't medrs. Only review papers are medrs. Primary research is never medrs, though we may very very rarely use the intro review section in one where no medrs is available.
You removed this, and wrote: "This section needs review. It is not used/marketed routinely as a "detox", there are more uses than this. This section focuses too hard on this single term, and the inclusion of the quote from Edzard Ernst is a rather strange addition as a result". You were right that the existing sources didn't provide very good sourcing for the use of "detox", so I added a solid source that does. Given this, I think the quote provides useful context for the two meanings of "detox", which I think should be in the article.
In the "Notable deaths" section", you made these edits, commenting: "As it stood previously, this whole section is rather egregious in its presentation - without going overboard, very minor changes have been made to reflect the background context of some of these, which are evident upon reading the associated (and related) papers." I think this means that you added content not supported by the sources already cited at the ends of the sentences (which, as I recall, don't support the statements you added), but which you found obvious from other papers. I'm afraid the sources need to be cited in a way that makes it clear which information comes from what source.
Specifically, you replaced
The medical literature reported the 2018 case in Italy of a person with no known preexisting conditions besides obesity, who, according to autopsy reports, died of cardiac arrhythmia while under the effects of kambo use. [6] [7]
with
The medical literature reported the 2018 case in Italy of a person with obesity and venticular hypertrophy, who, according to autopsy reports, died of cardiac arrhythmia while under the effects of kambo use. [6] [7]
If I'm wrong, could you please quote the sentence(s) in the sources that say(s) the person had ventricular hypertrophy?
You added the bolded text below:
In April 2019, a homicide investigation was opened into the death by "severe cerebral edema" of a young person who had taken kambo toxins in Chile, most likely owing to overly high water consumption which has caused several problems with kambo sessions; the import of the frog and its secretions is illegal in Chile. [8] [9]
The first medrs source you added supports the idea that drinking water might cause problems (and I've dded itto the article), but I don't think this information is in the sources cited.
You added this:
However, most of the few deaths reported have some indication of contraindication, pre-existing conditions, or negligence such as over-consumption of water, rather than 'overdosing' or toxicity from the substance itself. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
The last ref is the medrs source again, but again it does not seem that these statements are made in that source, nor do I recall it in the other sources. They seem to be your interpretation of the sources, which is WP:OR. Again, I'd love to be proved wrong, if you can quote the statements from the source that paraphrase what you said.
Research using human cells has created interest in immunostimulatory and anti-tumor effects of one of the peptides, Dermaseptin [11]
This text needs a medrs source, because it could be interpreted to mean that kambo purges treat cancer. This is a primary research study, testing on human cells (some of them tumour cells) in a petri dish, and in a Patient derived xenograft. The latter is in vivo, technically, but it's not a clinical trial in humans, let alone a review of such trials.
I'm sorry if this has been a bit unrelentingly negative. I don't mean it that way; I've taken time to explain exactly what I'm doing, because I think you could learn to be a skilled editor. I really wish I'd seen your talk-page post sooner. I hope you won't be discouraged, and will continue to edit in a variety of topic areas. HLHJ ( talk) 05:32, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
"The histopathological examination showed left ventricular hypertrophy.
"The autopsy showed left ventricular hypertrophy of the heart, focal moderate coronary artery narrowing, and pulmonary emphysema. It is possible that hypotensive effects of Kambo could have resulted in reduced myocardial perfusion particularly given the presence of moderate coronary artery disease and left ventricular hypertrophy. In addition, tachycardia induced by Kambo in the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy could have provoked a cardiac arrhythmia. The possibility that the death was unrelated to Kambo use cannot be excluded. This is the first death associated with Kambo use reported in the literature."
In regards to "As I recall there's only one well-documented case of liver failure, but more of biochemical markers of liver harm. I'm not sure bile reflux (which must have happened if someone is vomiting bile) is good for the liver, either, but I really don't know. You need tests on real humans before you can say how something will affect humans." - if you look at the sources of any page that mentions this, they ALL refer back to that one, lone case of the Italian man who died (with venticular hypertrophy, and was overweight with a drinking habit!) - This one, for which the full paper goes into great detail. This study is the one that every article claiming "liver damage" refers to, but WP doesn't care that the article itself has pre-existing contributing factors making it misinformation to say it usually causes liver damage. This is the sort of thing that I've been finding so disheartening. It makes WP very untrustworthy. But it seems to be taken simply as fact even when the original source isn't scrutinized with anywhere near as much depth as the positive aspects are. Please can we do something about this.
References
Derma2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).TheGuardian2021
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Forensic2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).SilvaMonteiro2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).LaNancion2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Infocatolica2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Preamble
There is a lot of contention in this article it seems about what should and shouldn't be included. Some editors have left notes such as "this might imply it works" and/or have removed very valid sentences from the page mentioning simply that therapeutic interest and medical interest exists and is a promising topic of research. These types of behaviors do not seem fit or unbiased enough for WP where the core credo is open access to information - and this is absolutely achievable without having to make strong statements based off non-clinical sources. The following are just a few sources which back up a few of the avenues of research, but there are plenty more. The point here is not to provide conclusive proof of medical effectiveness (although some of these, particularly the Dermorphin clinical trials, are extremely close) but moreso to show you, as editors, that there is serious medical interest in various properties of kambo which is based of a wealth of studies and research.
I would implore you to take this aspect into account in order to keep the article open to all, rather than policing what you think people should and shouldn't know about by removing references to general interest in therapeutic potential and all the rest including comments like "this might imply it works" (this is far too generalized a comment and you should not be concerned with policing what people 'might' think, rather focus on providing open access to info as long as it adheres to proper WP protocols).
Dermaseptin in kambo
--This is a PUBMED source.
Dermorphins and Deltorphins in kambo
-- and a link to one of the papers this is referencing
General interest in therapeutic and medical uses
Most of the bioactive peptides so far characterized have displayed potential applications in medicine, such as phyllocaeruleins with hypotensive properties, tachykinins and phyllokinins as vasodilators, dermorphins and deltorphins with opiate-like properties, and adenoregulins with antibiotic properties ( Daly et al., 1992; Mor et al., 1994a; Lacombe et al., 2000; Hesselink and Sacerdote, 2019)
Due to the numerous biological activities of these substances and the similarities with the amino acid sequences related to mammalian neuropeptides and hormones, many have aroused the interest from a medical and pharmacological perspective, such as in the production of new drugs ( Lazarus et al., 1999; Basir et al., 2000; Chen et al., 2002; Doyle et al., 2002; Severini et al., 2002; Conceição et al., 2006).
--full paper here, with further links and plenty of sources Ablations ( talk) 02:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)