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Can we please take particular care with headings? I have just corrected "Abuse of Prosecutorial Discretion against Fleiss" (an obviously POV viewpoint which I could not find asserted in any of the cited sources) and "Accused by Aids Denier" (when, in fact, the accusation was by the medical board, and which merely involved an AIDS denialist). Jakew ( talk) 09:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
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Note: The following was MastCell's last comment which I kept as a refactor, then archived the talk page.
Adding: I'm really concerned about the responses above from PPdd. There's a real impasse here, and I'm going to strongly recommend that we revert back to the last stable version, which as best I can tell did not contain any serious BLP issues, and work piece by piece from there. It's hopeless to sort through the article in the current mess it's become, and the talk page is also becoming a bit unusable. We're probably best off going to the last stable version and dealing with one issue and one source at a time, because this massive profusion of talkpage threads and dubious argumentation is just unworkable. MastCell Talk 01:34, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
This article should look no different than a BIO on any highly published and cited scholar, public speaker, and celebrity in his field, who later in life becomes involved in a public scandal unrelated to his career. There should be no unsourced controversial material.
I propose the following standard structure used in other BLP's for famous scholars, which appropriately fits secondary sources on him.
I kept all of the material in the article as I found it yesterday into these sections without deleting anything, and added to the other sections to take care of my ownh UNDUE objection. PPdd ( talk) 07:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Personal history and career history is a standard section in a BIO, and needs to be filled out with sources. The article as I found it contains some such information, but I do not want to put anything more in the article without RS. I will not object if others do. I will simply add cit needed tags to any unsourced sentence. PPdd ( talk) 03:35, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Cavarrone removed the {{ primary source-inline}} tag for the sentence "Fleiss received the Founders Award from the La Leche League, a breast feeding advocacy group", stating "removed pointy tag, per WP:PRIMARY: "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts". The fact doesn't require different interpretations". The trouble is, WP:BLP#Misuse of primary sources states: "Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies" (emph in original). This indicates to me that a primary source is insufficient by itself; to include this material we need to find a secondary source that has commented on the LLL award. Jakew ( talk) 10:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
There is alot of stuff in a Google search of his name with " homeopathy", and the subordinate doctor in his office was a homeopath according to that doctor's website. I recall seeing him in the media talking about homeopathy and putting forth one of the bizarre "vibrating quantum physics water" theories. There is clear indication online of an association and possible promotion of homeopathy. We should try to find RS on this. PPdd ( talk) 01:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
*1. We have this -
[2]. A "doctor" with an MD who prescribes nonsense
homeopathic remedies and remains popular and not a subject of ridicule is significant. This is the kind of thing that is really about Paul Fleiss that should be prominent in an article about him.
(striking this as being covered elsewhere) *2. We have this section title - "Conspiracy and bank fraud conviction" - That is outrageously misleading and WP:UNDUE. There is a reason for the "one day" sentence and community service that he was already doing without the "conviction". That is because it is trivial. There is a federal law that if someone receives $500 from someone else, it must be reported as income on their tax return, or it is technically conspiracy and bank fraud. Take anyone who has a daughter who already has an article on them at WP, and there is a likelyhood that at least thousands of them have recieved $500 from their daughter, and an almost infinitesmal chance that they reported this on their tax return. Any of them could then be prosecuted. This tiny thing should never cause the creation of a section in their article with the sensational and msileading title "Conspiracy and bank fraud conviction". This misleading section title should be immediatly taken down as a BLP violation attack section. A violation so minimal it gets a 1 day sentence (in a plea bargain!, and not even a real conviction), and of such a trivial nature as depositing one's daughter's money in excess of $500, should not have a section with such a title. The title should not be aq yellow press headline, but accurately describe what happened in a neutral way. What reallyh happened, as everyone who saw the story in the press would agree, was a media hungry prosecutor went after a 22 year old female and her family, and ignored all her mega-powerful male clients, including in the DA's own office! This has very little to do with Paul Fleiss other than that he was the victim of prosecutorial indiscretion that caused havoc in his family. There are thousands of secondary television sources reporting the story the way it really happened. This section title should be removed as a BLP violating and very misleading attack.
PPdd (
talk) 03:46, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
(striking this as being covered elsewhere) *3. This guy had a world famous AIDS virus denier as a patient. She would not listen to him. He did not make note of this. The only reason to make such notes is to save your medical insurance company's butt in what would be a frivolous lawsuit. Imagine yourself in an exam with a person with AIDS who denies the existence of the virus. This is a very minor incident in the career of a celbrity "alternative medicine" doctor with whacked out medical advice constantly in the television news since the 1970's. It is insignificant as being about Paul Fleiss. The whole thing is WP:UNDUE. To put it and the "felon" stuff in the lead is an attack, and a disservice to the user of this encyclopedia, who would read it and get a completely unbalanced view of this man. If you want to attack him, write about who he actually is, not this prosecutorial abuse and AIDS denier stuff, which is more about the prosecutor and AIDS denier than about Fleiss.
PPdd (
talk)
03:54, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
This edit was a deletion of a secondary source summarizing 30 years of television coverage. It should be restored. Being "popular" is completely different from being "competent", so it is not an NPOV violation in any way. It is a matter of a fact, and of the characterization of that fact by a major reliable secondary source summarizing a 30 year career of a pediatrician as being beloved in an entire region and extraordinarily popular, whether or not he deserves such polularity by competence or simply by riding a mass delusion of belief in alternative medicine and pseudoscience (e.g., homeopathy). PPdd ( talk) 01:00, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Fleiss is not just another practicioner of alternative medicine and pseudoscience based practice, he is used by its advocates as a kind of authority to "prove" that it "works". This is often based on the number of movie stars he has as clients, with the media . This needs to be sourced, and should be the most prominent fact in the article. What I have typically seen on the news or on entertainment shows, is him giving advice on using alternative medicine, then showing a celebrity saying they followed his advice and "it worked for them", i.e., Hollywood media celebrity-science. This needs sourcing. The home page of this is an example of a marginal source. There are thousands of such sources. Their reliability is a problem because they are alternative medicine sources. PPdd ( talk) 01:54, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
This is from an alternative medicine site -
This appears to contradict some of the the LA Times sources cited (e.g., "MD Degree from University of California" vs converted DO degree). The LA Times is more reliable than an alternative medicine site, but newspapers are notoriously not reliable in reality. PPdd ( talk) 03:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Breastfeeding advocacy and anti-circumcision are not unconventional medical views? Are there any other medical views he holds which would justify this sentence... "Fleiss is known for his unconventional medical views" Theroadislong ( talk) 13:43, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
A photo would be nice. PPdd ( talk) 01:01, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
From a brief reading of the primary sources, it appears one of his main focuses is on nonintervention, on diet, on micronutrients, and on medicines that he calls "natural", whatever that means (is it opposed to "unnatural" medicines?, to to "synthetic" medicines?). The article as it stands is nothing like what a historian would write based on his primary source publications. But I have not found secondary sources to back this indisputable fact of his publication record. More searching is needed to find secondary sources to bring the article in line with his publication history. PPdd ( talk) 01:12, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
The entire article now looks very good. An internet serach yeilds much information on homeopathy, naturopathy, other alternative medicines, and diet and micronutrients. We need to filter the reliable sources out of the mass of other information on this. PPdd ( talk) 01:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
More reliable sources on his diet stidies and view needs to be added, such as on this raw food study, which sounds just like what I have seen him talking about on television, but less scientifically. PPdd ( talk) 01:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
The "Conspiracy and bank fraud conviction" section title is very heavy handed, can be misleading as to what really occured to readers who think there was a major conspiracy and bank fraud event, and is overly general when more precise language is available.
The following three section titles are all true, all describe the same event, but the first can be misleading, and the second seems to violate NPOV to some editors (assuming it is sourced)Which of the following is most helpful to the encyclopedia article looking at a table of contents for this event?
The fact is that there was no proven "conspiracy", since there was no trial, and ther was no no real "conviction", since it was a plea agreement to stop the prosecution. The second bullet point is most precise (I have not provided RS for it, but those of you who followed this all remember it). The third description is best in brivity and preciseness, and completely neutral. PPdd ( talk) 02:27, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
There is sourced matieral about the family here. It is appropriate for a Family section in the Paul Fleiss article. PPdd ( talk) 03:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
"Conspiracy" and "bank fraud" are technical legal terms of art. They have different definitions in different countries. Per MOS (Use plain English), they should be replaced whenever possible with plain English. Lying about employment on a daughter's loan application may or may not fall under this technicsal description in any given state or country. Per MOS, the section title and content should read, in Plain English, something like - "Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss plea bargain". This is also the most helpful title for a reader looking in the table of contents for the Hollywood Madame related information. A "plea bargain" is very different than a "conviction", which is again a technical term of art, with different meanings in different countries. This is especially those in which plea bargains are not the norm, and a conviction, in Plain English, means before a jury, not in a plea agreement. Please comment. PPdd ( talk) 18:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
"He helped Heidi launder hundreds of thousands of dollars by lying on her loan application and falsely claiming that she was an employee of his medical practice" is false. It is a misreading of an ambiguity in the source. His daughter was accused of laundering "hundreds of thousands of dollars", per the source. He was charged, not convicted, with money laundering, for some part of the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is not specified what part in the source. Furthermore, he was only charged with that, but this is not what he plead guilty to. He plead guilty to the opposite, per the pleadings in the alternative by the prosecution, as the court transcript and pleadings filings clearly show. He did not plead guilty to the money laundering aspect of the charges. He plead guilty to only a specific fact that he lied on her loan application to get money for her, not to hide money for her that she already had, which was the money laundering charge that he did not plead to. The facts presented in the pre-trial court transcript and initial filings had him boxed in for his clearly guilty conduct, however minor. Fleiss did not dispute (see "Undisputed Facts" filings) that he signed her loan application that she was an employee making more than $500 in the time period stataed. Fleiss did not dispute that he did not fill out a 1099 for an independent contractor, or employer tax forms for an employee. If you deposit over $500, and someone works for you, you must either fill out a 1099 form for an independent contractor, or file a tax return with them as an employee, He did neither. That is techincally clear "tax fraud", another charge, even if it is considered so common for a parent and child working for them, or trivial at the amounts in question, that is is almost never charged, except in stacked charges on top of more seroius charges filed. In Heidi Fleiss' (not Paul Fleiss') trial transcript, it came up that she in fact did work in his office, at some point in time, without specificity. By failing to declare her as an emplyoee with employer tax filings, or as an independent contractor having been paid at least $500, this is automatically a techincal tax fraud crime. The prosecution plead in the alternative in its filings, that alternatively, he lied on the loan application and that she never really worked in the office. He plead guilty to that, even though it was not true (Likely as part of the plea agreement so that both he and the prosecution could get out of a case in which they were both looking bad, but this parenethetical remark is not a sourced statement). Technically, lying on a loan application that a child works in your office when they do not is both conspiracty (if the parent and child discussed it), and bank fraud. In essence, he plead guilty to a fact that the prosecution in Heidi Fleiss' trial argued was false, i.e., the prosecution argued out of both sides of their mouth. He was, in fact guilty of money laundering (in my opinion, but only provable for an amount of $501.00), but that is not what the plea agreement was, and thus does not go in the article. So the source cited is ambiguous as to whether the "hundreds of thousands" applies to just Heidi Fleiss, or to both of them. IN either case, this is not what was plead to. This should all be fleshed out with sources more readily available to a reader not down here in LA to verify from the actual records, and with more common secondary sources if possible, if they do not have ambiguities as in the cited source. I am correcting this BLP violation. PPdd ( talk) 19:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
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