Talk:St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Edit request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi there, I have one request I am looking to have added to the page.

Can the sentence below be added to the end of the Hospital functions and effects section of the article:

Patients who are accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's finances.

Reason: Expand information in the section and provide details that are relevant to how the hospital operates.

Thank you so much!

AliceStacey (talk) 21:08, 26 November 2024 (UTC) AliceStacey (talk) 21:08, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

References

Reply 27-NOV-2024

  Edit request declined  

• The claim that "patients accepted for treatment are treated without regard to the family's finances" is too broad a statement for the article to be making. How the subject organization chooses which families to treat, and by which rubric the organization uses to effect that choice, is ultimately unknowable, despite what any one reference may state (with all due respect to Philanthropyroundtable).
• The claim that the subject organization treats patients without regard to their financing can be read two different ways. The Propublica article, for example, reports on one family who had a child chosen for treatment. Because the subject organization paid for one parent's housing but not the second parents', and because that setup mandated by the subject organization required the family to hastily improvise secondary housing owing to their financial situation, it could logically be stated that St Jude accepts patients for treatment without regard to the family's finances. I doubt that this alternate characterization of the proposed claim statement is one that the subject organization would agree with. And yet, that statement could be read by St. Jude's Wikipedia article readers in either way.

Regards,  Spintendo  12:41, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit Request

Hi there, I would like to request the removal of the Misleading fundraising tactics section from the article for the following reasons:

1. "Although the hospital claims that 82% of its donations go directly to patient care and research, these statements have been called into question by other sources, which report a significantly lower proportion of only 50%, with 30% of the funds raised being spent directly on campaigning expenses."

Reason for removal: St. Jude does not claim that 82% of donations go directly to patient care and research. 82% of every dollar received (including donations, research grants, insurance recoveries, and investment returns, not just donations) goes towards support for treatment, research, future capital needs, and construction of St. Jude. The website states, “We are proud that 82 cents of every dollar received from donations, research grants, insurance recoveries and investment returns goes to support the current and future needs of St. Jude."

2. "The hospital has been accused of undue hoarding of its donor funds, far in excess of what is required to provide an operational buffer, and of aggressively pursuing donations, including through litigation, to the detriment of other cancer research charities."

Reason for removal: The source that is currently used to cite “hoarding of its donor funds, far in excess of donations” was corrected with a note at the beginning of the article in which CharityWatch noted that St. Jude meets the benchmarks for governance and transparency.

Additionally, how can it be claimed that St.Jude is harming other cancer research charities in regard to donations? The source used to cite this information states, “Some researchers, oncologists, health care advocates and families of patients complain that St. Jude’s fundraising makes it more difficult for other pediatric hospitals to raise money for their operations.” This statement goes against WP:NPOV, as complaints cannot be viewed as factual or unbiased.

3. "Although St Jude's has been ranked 10th amongst US pediatric cancer hospitals, it collected more donations than all 9 of the hospitals ranking ahead of it put together."

Reason for removal: This is claiming that St. Jude raises more than other institutions while yielding poor healthcare. The other institutions in this ranking do not depend on fundraising for a majority of their operational and future needs. Additionally, rankings fluctuate every year. A claim based on one year’s ranking doesn't hold up against WP:NOTNEWS and, under Wikipedia guidelines, this also goes against WP:N.

Happy to have a discussion, and thank you!

AliceStacey (talk) 16:45, 10 April 2025 (UTC) AliceStacey (talk) 16:45, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

ProPublica is a high-quality, high-profile, reliable (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources) source reporting on this. While I am not fundamentally opposed to changing some of the language (reviewing that now), the coverage cited in the article seems enough to at least merit some discussion of the issue, and this should not be removed wholesale. Rusalkii (talk) 04:56, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

1) The 82% claim isn't in the ProPublica piece used as a citation, and you're right that St. Jude does not claim, at least in that page, that it goes directly to patient care and research. A different page has

"When you look at total revenue, ALSAC and St. Jude are proud that 82 cents of every dollar received has gone to support patients and research at St. Jude today and in the future. Thirteen cents of every dollar supports fundraising efforts, such as events like the national St. Jude Walk/Run and advertising to help spread awareness of our lifesaving mission. Five cents of every dollar supports administration costs."

The ProPublica source has

"Only about half of the $7.3 billion St. Jude has received in contributions in the past five fiscal years went to the hospital’s research and caring for patients, ... About 30% covered the cost of its fundraising operations, and the remaining 20%, or $1 of every $5 donated, increased its reserve fund."

The 82% claim seems like, yes, it probably includes the 20% in the reserve fund, so the equivalent in the ProPublica source would be "about half" plus "remaining 20%", so 70% for patient care and 30% for fundraising. The article as written seems to be wrong, but ProPublica is in fact contradicting the stated numbers on the website. Now, I can see the argument that making this claim in wikivoice is WP:OR, given that I don't think the source actually makes the claim directly that St. Jude is misinterpreting their financial situation on the website or anything.

2) The source posting a correction of a fact that isn't actually being used in the article does not make the source unusable for other claims; if anything it makes me feel more confident in their fact-checking. Also, the source has "Some researchers, oncologists, health care advocates and families of patients complain that St. Jude’s fundraising makes it more difficult for other pediatric hospitals to raise money for their operations", and it is attributed in the text. WP:NPOV doesn't say that we can't have criticism, just that it needs to be balanced. This should probably be written to say something like "A piece by ProPublic said that the hospital has been accused of [] by [whoever]", to make it more clear that wikipedia is not saying that they are hoarding, which would be a violation of NPOV.

3) This should probably also be contexualized and attributed, but in fact it seems like important context for the previous, and is cited to a report using it as such and not just the rankings.

Overall: this section could use some work, and I may take a stab at improving it later. @AliceStacey, you are welcome to suggest improvements to the text, taking into account the above. (The section title is also not ideal, incidentally, it heavily implies that the fundraising tactics are misleading. "Criticism of fundraising tactics" may be better though I don't usually like Criticism sections). Rusalkii (talk) 20:41, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I've reworked it a bit. Noting for the record that a quick search pulls up a whole bunch of reporting on the ProPublica piece, reinforcing my opinion that it's WP:DUEWEIGHT to include in the article, but very little independent commentary in the same vein, so attributing the opinion seems like the way to go here. I'm not married to this particular wording. Rusalkii (talk) 21:14, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Edit Request

Hi there,

After reviewing the changes made to help make the Criticism of fundraising tactics section read in a more neutral tone, I would like to request the following changes:

1. Change the section title from Criticism of fundraising tactics to Criticism of fundraising approach.

Reason: Tactics reads in a biased tone and therefore goes against Wikipedia guidelines on neutral tone.

2. Change the following sentence from:

St Jude's, which is ranked 10th amongst US pediatric cancer hospitals, collected more donations than all 9 of the hospitals ranking ahead of it put together in 2020.

To:

St Jude, which ranked 10th amongst the U.S. News and World Report’s 2020 ranking of the best U.S. pediatric cancer hospitals, collected more donations than all 9 of the hospitals ranking ahead of it put together.

Reason: Help the sentence read better and include the reference of the U.S. News and World Report.

3. Add the following sentences to the end of the section:

The hospital’s website states that 82% of all dollars received go to support patient care, research, and future needs.

As of 2023, Charity Navigator gave St. Jude a score of 99 for Accountability & Finance, earning the hospital a four-star rating.

Reason: This information helps to provide a balanced and neutral narrative showing both sides of the criticism.

Thank you!

AliceStacey (talk) 19:24, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

References