Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fatal diseases

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Cirt (talk) 08:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of fatal diseases

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Per rationale on article's talk page: essentially that it appears to be impossible to create a satisfactory set of criteria for inclusion. Whether a disease is fatal or not depends hugely on individual factors, and whether or not it is treated, as even very minor diseases can cause death in people with immunodeficiencies. A proposal was made to include only diseases with 100% mortality, although it appears that this would be very difficult to create, largely because most if not all diseases have at least some survivors. There is also a difference between incurable and fatal.Jhbuk (talk) 21:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I support keeping the article, and then, as I now realize that my proposal to include only diseases with 100% mortality rates was not practical, following the sources, as DigitalC (talk · contribs) suggested.This meaning that, for example, if a source says that chrnic obstructive pulmonary disease can be fatal (which it is), including it in the article. What do you think of that idea? Immunize (talk) 21:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't addressed the criticism: most diseases can cause death in the right circumstances. Also, if we are having trouble deciding upon what is and is not a fatal disease, then the sources may have different criteria as well. Jhbuk (talk) 21:30, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nomination and discussion on article's talk page, in which I participated. ukexpat (talk) 21:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note - This is a problematic criteria for inclusion for all of the reasons described above and on the talk page discussion. I have one question: are there any similar lists in the medical literature, or similar definitions of "fatal disease", other than a disease that happens to kill you? Even if the criterion's locked down tightly, it will be arbitrary and misleading unless there is some professional consensus linked to that criteria. Shadowjams (talk) 22:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The entry criteria for this list aren't defined and there seems to be a problem coming up with them. Restricting it to "is always fatal if left untreated" wouldn't be helpful as it would include easily treatable diseases while leaving out those with much higher mortality rates. I don't believe you will find a definition that keeps the list a manageable or useful size without imposing some arbitrary limit that doesn't square with the reader's expection. Colin°^Talk 22:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Difficult, if not impossible, to adequately define inclusion/exclusion criteria. Graham Colm (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. —PDCook (talk) 22:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Untenably arbitrary list. Even a flu can be fatal. Even advanced brain cancer can be nonfatal! The list lacks the critical element of verifiability and therefore must be deleted.--Ipatrol (talk) 22:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and explain. Looking at the list, the meaning is "inevitably or almost inevitably fatal", which is true for all of the ones listed . There are good sources for each of them in the article. (the possibility that someone might die of something else first is irrelevant) DGG ( talk ) 00:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, but is there a good source for the act of classifying diseases according to whether or not they are fatal? We need a source that makes the entire subject notable, not a series of sources that verifies individual entries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep/merge Organisations such as the World Health Organisation routinely publish tables of diseases showing the numbers of deaths attributed to them in a given year. We can base our list on mortality statistics of this sort. It might be sensible to consolidate this as a column in a master list of diseases but this is not a matter of deletion. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The problem remains with selection unless it is an article about diseases which, with or without treatment, irrespective of the individual circumstances will always cause death. This will result in a sublist of List of incurable diseases, so points made in that AfD may also apply here, such as what a disease is. The description is more acceptable for unequivocal cases such as CJD, but anywhere else will have some caveat: rabies can often be cured if treated early enough, for example. Colonel Warden, can you expand on how WHO stats could help? Jhbuk (talk) 01:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WHO statistics help by providing good sources for this notable topic. They select diseases which kill significant numbers of people each year such as tuberculosis which kills over a million. That there are survivors from this disease is unimportant - it is the deaths which matter. Obscure or insignificant diseases may be omitted per WP:UNDUE and WP:SUMMARY. It seems a simple matter of editing not deletion per our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The current editors of the article seem to have chosen "invariably fatal, if untreated". You've picked "kills a significant number of people each year", which actually rules out pretty much all of the current list, which apart from rabies are very rare diseases. Perhaps an ordered list of the top 50 biggest killer diseases would be interesting and could use WHO stats. As it is, based on the current article title, this list is pointless. I do wish folk would not essentially vote "Keep -- as long as the name is changed, the list-entry rules are changed and the entire content is changed". Colin°^Talk 09:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is our explicit editing policy to build upon an unsatisfactory start and develop it into something better. 99% of our articles have yet to reach a good level. Deletion is only for hopeless cases which this is not. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please indicate which part of this article you would keep? This is a hopeless case. That it has inspired you to consider a different list is pretty irrelevant. Colin°^Talk 09:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, I would keep the title in the form of a redirect to List of diseases, where we may consolidate such information. Per our deletion policy, such alternatives to deletion should be considered before this last resort. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"where we may consolidate such information". So you're going to help turn that huge to-do list into a source of mortality information for all the world's diseases? The concept of "fatal disease" is broken: it is not a boolean attribute of a disease. Some diseases have mortality rates but such rates are only collected for a very tiny minority of diseases (because it is very hard to establish cause and effect -- people die of symptoms, not diseases). Other diseases are only associated with an increase in mortality. Our deletion policy only suggest a redirect if one were to be "useful". The title (and hence any redirect) is not useful. Should List of diseases contain mortality information at some point in the future, anyone looking for it would find it there without the aid of a misguided redirect. Colin°^Talk 12:58, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Colonel, your source supports a List of causes of death by rate, which already exists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. As many have already stated, death may result from almost every untreated disease. I respect User:Immunize's intent and hope that some means of preserving their effort can be found. I simply don't have any ideas on how this could be accomplished. Tiderolls 01:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Article is somewhat confusing and possibly redundant. NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 01:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Unreasonably vague criteria for inclusion. I can't imagine any useful list that would correspond to this title. Eubulides (talk) 09:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, hopelessly muddled inclusion criteria. Hairhorn (talk) 16:05, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note Tide rolls (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has contributed to the article in question, though not significantly. Immunize (talk) 21:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So what? And btw, fixing redlinks caused by sloppy editing is not insignificant. Graham Colm (talk) 21:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note Tiderolls's contributions to the article were, according to the edit summary, "fixing markup". IMO this is not a significant edit, as he/she did not add content to the article. Immunize (talk) 23:55, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. I don't see how we can define meaningful and universal inclusion criteria for this list. It is of no use as a redirect. PDCook (talk) 01:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. While it seems like "dead" would be easy enough to identify, no reasonable definition for "diseases that cause death" will ever exist. There are hundreds of conditions that might, and might not, qualify as "fatal diseases", depending on resources, treatment, and comorbidities. There's no evidence that any reliable source finds this to be a particularly important characteristic for classifying diseases; creating this list is essentially WP:Original research. "Disease", in particular, is a complicating factor, since several of the most significant causes of death are not properly "diseases" (e.g., trauma). Do you exclude tobacco use, which kills millions each year, but include a genetic disorder whose effect on lifespan can only be determined through careful statistical analysis of the affected population? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Too much of a sliding scale, I think, and depends on medical technology of the day, etc. I don't like these poorly specified lists. ErikHaugen (talk) 23:40, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. It is too prone to original research. How to we define a fatal disease? Ones which commonly cause death, sometimes cause death or rarely cause death etc? Do we just restrict it to common diseases or do we just let it grow to thousands and thousands and thousands of diseases?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. A list such as List of diseases by mortality rate would be appropriate; as stated by many above, there is no clear definition as to what makes a disease "fatal" and therefore no standard for what diseases are and are not included in the list. –Grondemar 23:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This could potentially include every disease / condition. We already have List of preventable causes of death and List of causes of death by rate. Both much better places to put ones efforts.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.