FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, January 4, 2018

The Medline Comedy Contest
It's just amazing what PubMed will (and will not) index

by Andrew W. Saul, Editor

(OMNS Jan 4, 2018) OK, here's your chance: we are inviting your entry for the most ridiculous, unscientific, or just plain goofy article currently to be found on the National Library of Medicine's Pubmed/MEDLINE database. It's so easy to play: just go to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and start searching for any foolish topic of any kind that you wish. The weirder the better.

For example: In the "Search PubMed for" box, type in "flatulence" and you will get 2,496 indexed citations.

Honestly, this is like shooting fish in a barrel.

All these papers are in fact indexed by your taxpayer-supported National Library of Medicine for your convenient, immediate electronic retrieval:

J Vector Ecol. 1998 Dec;23(2):186-94. Olfactory responses and field attraction of mosquitoes to volatiles from Limburger cheese and human foot odor. Kline DL. PMID: 9879074 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Respiration. 2004 Jan-Feb;71(1):104. Chin stimulation: a trigger point for provoking acute hiccups. Todisco T, Todisco C, Bruni L, Donato R. PMID:14872123 DOI: 10.1159/000075661 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Psychophysiology. 2004 Mar;41(2):281-7. Staring at one side of the face increases blood flow on that side of the face. Drummond PD, Mirco N. PMID:15032993 DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2004.00151.x [Indexed for MEDLINE]

J Clin Psychiatry. 1995 Feb;56(2):56-9. Rhinotillexomania: psychiatric disorder or habit? Jefferson JW, Thompson TD. ("Rhinotillexomania" is the medical/scientific term for nose-picking.) PMID: 7852253 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Psychophysiological responding during script-driven imagery in people reporting abduction by space aliens. Psychol Sci. 2004 Jul;15(7):493-7. McNally RJ, Lasko NB, Clancy SA, Macklin ML, Pitman RK, Orr SP. PMID: 15200635 DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00707.x [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Clin Otolaryngol. 2004 Apr;29(2):128- 32. An objective evaluation of the waterproofing qualities, ease of insertion and comfort of commonly available earplugs. Chisholm EJ, Kuchai R, McPartlin D. PMID: 15113295 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2273.2004.00795.x [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Health Foodserv Mag. 2000 Winter;10(1):12. Espresso kiosks can be profitable addition to hospital foodservice. Myers M. PMID:11014775 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

West J Med. 1990 Jun;152(6):721-2. Espresso maker's wrist. Shusterman D. PMID:2353484 PMCID: PMC1002447 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

It's your turn

When YOU find a real doozy, cut and paste the entire citation into a plain-text email and share it with the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service Editorial Review Board, care of the editor, at the link below. And, should your entry make the final cut, with the world. (Limit of five submissions per reader.)

(So I find it in my non-MEDLINE indexed email Inbox, please use MEDLINE COMEDY CONTEST as your message subject heading.)

This really is a contest, but there is no prize whatsoever. . . aside from the warm glow you may feel when you read the entries we subsequently publish for what might be termed "The World's Most Absurd Medline Citation."

So join the fun: search PubMed/MEDLINE today! After all, your taxes pay for it.

Some restrictions apply

What's that? You detect a certain sarcasm in my tone? I fail to see why. There is nothing at all funny about the world's largest medical library arbitrarily refusing to index certain scholarly information for professional and public access.

For instance: the following papers by twice-Nobel-prize winning Linus Pauling are not on Medline simply because they happened to be published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/ (Try a search for "pauling rath orthomolecular" and see for yourself.)

Rath M, Pauling L. Solution To the Puzzle of Human Cardiovascular Disease: Its Primary Cause Is Ascorbate Deficiency ading to the Deposition of Lipoprotein(a) and Fibrinogen/Fibrin in the Vascular Wall. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol 6, 3&4th Quarters, 1991, p 125.

Pauling L, Rath M. An Orthomolecular Theory of Human Health and Disease. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol 6, 3 & 4th Quarters, 1991, p135.

Rath M, Pauling L. Apoprotein(a) Is An Adhesive Protein. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol 6, 3&4th Quarters, 1991, p139.

Rath M, Pauling L. Case Report: Lysine/Ascorbate Related Amelioration of Angina Pectoris. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol 6, 3&4th Quarters, 1991, p 144.

If you note carefully, you will see that all four of the above Pauling articles appeared in one single volume of the Journal.

Censorship at an American public library

The public National Library of Medicine also refuses to index these papers:

Rath M, Pauling L. A Unified theory of Human Cardiovascular Disease Leading the Way To the Abolition of This Diseases As A Cause for Human Mortality. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Volume 7, First Quarter 1992, p 5.

Rath M, Pauling L. Plamin-induced Proteolysis and the Role of Apoprotein(a), Lysine and Synthetic Lysine Analogs. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Volume 7, First Quarter 1992, p 17.

Pauling L. Third Case Report on Lysine-ascorbate Amelioration of Angina Pectoris. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Volume 8, Third Quarter, 1993, p 137.

Hoffer A, Pauling L. Hardin Jones Biostatistical Analysis of Mortality Data for a Second Set of Cohorts of Cancer Patients with A Large Fraction Surviving At the Termination of the Study and A Comparison of Survival Times of Cancer Patients Receiving Large Regular Oral Doses of Vitamin C and Other Nutrients with Similar Patients Not Receiving these Doses. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol 8, Third Quarter, 1993, p 157.

Why are the above papers by Linus Pauling not indexed by the amply taxpayer-funded National Library of Medicine? It is not because the subjects are uninteresting. Nor is it because Pauling coauthored them with Matthais Rath, M.D., since the following papers are or were indexed on Medline. Same authors; same topics.

Rath M, Pauling L. Immunological evidence for the accumulation of lipoprotein(a) in the atherosclerotic lesion of the hypoascorbemic guinea pig. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1990 Dec;87(23):9388-90. PMID: 2147514 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Rath M, Pauling L. Hypothesis: lipoprotein(a) is a surrogate for ascorbate. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1990 Aug;87(16):6204-7. Erratum in: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1991 Dec 5;88(24):11588. PMID: 2143582 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Pauling L, Herman ZS. Criteria for the validity of clinical trials of treatments of cohorts of cancer patients based on the Hardin Jones principle. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Sep;86(18):6835-7. PMID: 2780542 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Pauling L. Biostatistical analysis of mortality data for cohorts of cancer patients. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 May;86(10):3466-8. PMID: 2726729 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I think it is absurd that PubMed, which has indexed over 600 entries for "Linus Pauling" excludes equally valuable work of his due to where it first appeared.

The emperor has no clothes. The National Library of Medicine/PubMed/MEDLINE is biased against orthomolecular medicine.

The taxpayer-supported, public National Library of Medicine.

(OMNS Editor Andrew W. Saul has been known to be quite unable to resist an occasional descent into satire. But every word in the above article is true as written. Like all great comedy, it's the truth that hits the funny bone the hardest. When the chuckling stops, please write your elected US representative and your US senators and let them know how you feel about national, tax-funded public library censorship.)

Emails directly to lawmakers may be easily sent through a number of websites, including https://www.writetocongress.org/ and https://democracy.io/

To learn more

NLM Censors Nutritional Research: Medline is Biased, and Taxpayers Pay for It http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n03.shtml Also: Censorship of Vitamin Therapy Research by the U.S. National Library of Medicine http://www.doctoryourself.com/medline.html

Want to be a MEDLINE Information Censor? The National Library of Medicine Needs You! http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n07.shtml

Saul AW and Hickey S. Medline Obsolescence
http://www.doctoryourself.com/obsolescence.html

Medline Bias: Update
http://www.doctoryourself.com/medlineup.html

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

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Editorial Review Board:

Ilyès Baghli, M.D. (Algeria)
Ian Brighthope, M.D. (Australia)
Prof. Gilbert Henri Crussol (Spain)
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (USA)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Ellis, M.D. (Australia)
Martin P. Gallagher, M.D., D.C. (USA)
Michael J. Gonzalez, N.M.D., D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
William B. Grant, Ph.D. (USA)
Tonya S. Heyman, M.D. (USA)
Suzanne Humphries, M.D. (USA)
Ron Hunninghake, M.D. (USA)
Michael Janson, M.D. (USA)
Robert E. Jenkins, D.C. (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, M.D., Ph.D. (Sweden)
Jeffrey J. Kotulski, D.O. (USA)
Peter H. Lauda, M.D. (Austria)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Stuart Lindsey, Pharm.D. (USA)
Victor A. Marcial-Vega, M.D. (Puerto Rico)
Charles C. Mary, Jr., M.D. (USA)
Mignonne Mary, M.D. (USA)
Jun Matsuyama, M.D., Ph.D. (Japan)
Dave McCarthy, M.D. (USA)
Joseph Mercola, D.O. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Karin Munsterhjelm-Ahumada, M.D. (Finland)
Tahar Naili, M.D. (Algeria)
W. Todd Penberthy, Ph.D. (USA)
Jeffrey A. Ruterbusch, D.O. (USA)
Gert E. Schuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)
Thomas L. Taxman, M.D. (USA)
Jagan Nathan Vamanan, M.D. (India)
Garry Vickar, MD (USA)
Ken Walker, M.D. (Canada)
Atsuo Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D. (Japan)
Anne Zauderer, D.C. (USA)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor-In-Chief
Robert G. Smith, Ph.D. (USA), Associate Editor
Helen Saul Case, M.S. (USA), Assistant Editor
Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. (USA), Contributing Editor
Michael S. Stewart, B.Sc.C.S. (USA), Technology Editor
Jason M. Saul, JD (USA), Legal Consultant

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