User talk:Tftobin

Welcome!

Hello, Tftobin, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Garycompugeek (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

References

Please use high quality references per WP:MEDRS such as review articles or major textbooks. Thanks and welcome to Wikipedia.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey Tom as I stated on the talk page I think we need a section on the social and cultural aspect of the controversy. This is a good ref to address this http://www.cmaj.ca/site/earlyreleases/6dec11_the-studies-that-launched-a-thousand-snips.xhtml and http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=88790 but not a good one to deal with the medical aspects of HIV prevention as they are not review articles. Feel free to start such a section at the end of the article...Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

This ref Darby, R (2011 Oct). "Not a surgical vaccine: there is no case for boosting infant male circumcision to combat heterosexual transmission of HIV in Australia". Australian and New Zealand journal of public health. 35 (5): 459–65. PMID 21973253. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) simply states that the Africa data is not applicable to Australian and NewZealand which we already mention by "and whether it is of benefit in developed countries and among men who have sex with men is undetermined". It however does not really support "However, the methodology used to determine these results is increasingly being called into question by doctors."Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:06, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed Doc James reverted your revision because they were not review articles. WP:MEDRS allows primary source, though it prefers secondary sources when they are available. His personal opinion is that 'they don't belong in a controversial topic'. I take the opposite stance and believe that many quality primary sources should be presented so we can understand the controversy. I encourage you to post in the Talk page to discuss this so we can form consensus about the use of primary sources. 174.28.171.127 (talk) 15:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

There is already a clear consensus surrounding primary sources and the opinion is that they should rarely be used, especially when good secondary sources exist.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, there is a specialized medical book, (G.C. Denniston et al. Genital Autonomy. Springer Science+Business Media; 2010. p. 61-66), that should have the information your news article referenced. A little perseverance and we can raise the quality of these sources substantially. Gsonnenf (talk) 16:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

good to see you back. Chevara (talk) 03:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Original research

Welcome to Wikipedia. We welcome and appreciate your contributions, including your edits to circumcision, but we cannot accept original research. Original research also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. Thank you. Jakew (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Tftobin. You have new messages at Talk:Circumcision.
Message added 23:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jayjg ^(talk) 23:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

January 2012

Your recent editing history at Circumcision shows that you are in danger of breaking the three-revert rule, or that you may have already broken it. An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Breaking the three-revert rule often leads to a block.

If you wish to avoid being blocked, instead of reverting, please use the article's talk page to discuss the changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. You may still be blocked for edit warring even if you do not exceed the technical limit of the three-revert rule if your behavior indicates that you intend to continue to revert repeatedly. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I find the recent message from MiszaBot II regarding a possible COI extremely confusing. MiszaBot II states, "A COI is certainly possible, though there's nothing obviously connecting this editor to the article subject." There are 6 articles co-authored by a wikipedia editor of circumcision, and listed by Microsoft Academic Search. This is no case of mistaken identity with someone's dad, as RaghuVAchary states. It's out there, plain and simple. The subject of his or her co-authorship is circumcision. He or she is world famous, for co-authoring these articles. He or she is a longstanding wikipedia editor. With wikipedia's loathing of outing others, am I really supposed to do as advised, and go to the person's talk page, and say, "Do you have something to disclose? Are you the John Q. Public listed by Microsoft Academic Search as the co-author in the following articles?" Then what do I do, if he or she denies? It really is true, and very easily verifiable, by outside sources. Do you really want me to non-confrontationally confront the person, as was suggested? I will not hesitate to do it, if that is the only way forward, but the message is mixed, and not clear. It also doesn't seem in line with wikipedia etiquette. It also doesn't seem very practical. If he or she denies, but is not telling the truth, where does that leave any of us? It leaves us with an editor with an obvious conflict of interest, who is clinging to power, with wikipedia refusing to explore the evidence, or remove them. Is this really the way wikipedia does business? Aren't there better processes and procedures than this? Tftobin (talk) 02:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I just have a few questions. 1) Which recent message from MiszaBot II? 2) How do you know that the articles listed by Microsoft Academic Search were co-authored by someone who's been editing the circumcision article? 3) Which articles?

If "John Q. Public" is indeed listed as a coauthor, it likely means that a single person was not co-authoring the paper under a pseudonym, but that the main author used the Wikipedia article as a basis for the articles and is crediting the author(s) of the Wikipedia article for their contributions. Banaticus (talk) 15:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I was using John Q. Public instead of the wikpedia editor's real world name. When you go to the User:editor_name page, it lists his or her full name.  ::That is the same full name as is listed in Microsoft Academic Search.

Nobody used any wikipedia article to come up with the papers, as near as I know. Regardless, it didn't repeat the coincidence 6 times.

If you want to find out without me outing anyone, go to http://academic.research.microsoft.com/ and search for "Hospital Discharge Data Underestimate Circumcision Rates" or "MEDICAID COVERAGE OF NEWBORN CIRCUMCISION: A HEALTH PARITY RIGHT OF THE POOR", "FINE-TOUCH PRESSURE THRESHOLDS IN THE ADULT PENIS", "Errors in meta-analysis by Van Howe", "CASE NUMBER AND THE FINANCIAL IMPACT OF CIRCUMCISION IN REDUCING PROSTATE CANCER".

OK, it appears one has been removed. We're down to 5, from 6 before.

I swear to God I got a gmail telling me to look on Talk:Tftobin which had a message from MiszaBot II. I can find no trace of it, either in my gmail inbox, or trash folder, though I can find others with Talk:Tftobin in them, and would not have deleted it. He or she was suggesting that I go to the editor's talk page, and non-confrontationally ask them if they have a conflict of interest. It was not presented as text, per se, it was presented like when you see differences. The mail also had a difference with RaghuVAchary in it. Spooky.

Thanks for taking this seriously. I truly appreciate it. Tftobin (talk) 18:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The real sticking point here, is not they have authored the articles. It is not that the editor has a POV. It is that they profess neutrality on the subject, but an independent account would show that better than 99% of the editor's choices in practice, are all in favor of circumcision. Under these circumstances, the editor becomes a roadblock, and neutrality becomes unattainable. They have total, absolute veto power over everyone else. I'm not talking about talk:circumcision, where there is some at least talk of compromise from time to time. Doc James is a real medical doctor, and he's being disputed. The real proof relies on an independent tally of the editor's editing history, by a neutral, uninterested party. Tftobin (talk) 17:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Let me look into those magazine articles, I'll get back to you tomorrow. Feel free to post the User:Whoever you're talking about -- unless a Google search pulls up the author name on a user account, I'm probably not very likely to find it on my own. You said "It is not that the editor has a POV... 99% of the editor's choices... are... in favor of circumcision... the editor becomes a roadblock, and neutrality is unattainable." So, you are saying that they're POV editing, right? I just wanted to clarify what your stance is. Banaticus (talk) 19:31, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Tftobin, is your complaint here about a COI or NPOV? They are different things. If it is a COI complaint, are you saying that writing about a topic off Wikipedia means that one has a COI regarding that topic on Wikipedia? If the latter, are you suggesting that everyone who edits the article be "audited" for "choices" that are consistently "in favor of circumcision", or do you think that some similar audit should be applied to anyone whose "choices" might all be "against circumcision"? Jayjg ^(talk) 19:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Banaticus, I am saying their edits are all from one POV. If you pull up any of the aforementioned articles, there won't be any identification mystery.

Jayjg, I don't feel comfortable talking with you. As you know, I have referred to you as hostile, bordering on harassive, dangerously close to stalking, and have a WP::Wikiquette assistance open about your responses. Cutting peoples' posts outside of wikipedia, and using them on the talk page is not cool. Making newbies feel attacked and insinuating that they are sent there to disrupt by outside organizations is also not cool. Tftobin (talk) 21:00, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You don't have to respond to me, of course; I will exit this discussion. By the way, "harassive" is not a word. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I asked User:Jakew at User talk:Jakew#Article author? if he's the author of those articles. I also asked User:Garycompugeek which website he's talking about when he mentions Jakew's website at User talk:Garycompugeek#User:Jakew.27s website?. I think you must be mistaken about MiszaBot -- the original, second and third versions of that bot don't do anything other than archive material. You may have meant User:COIBot? Also, on an unrelated note, did you feel that Garycompugeek's statement earlier wasn't relevant to this discussion? Thanks! Banaticus (talk) 00:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Banaticus. I took out Garycompugeek's statement, because I didn't want it to muddy the waters. This is the same reason I didn't mention the web site Garycompugeek referenced. People post stuff on my talk page all the time. The above is one example. I don't solicit it, I don't care for it, and I delete it, because I don't want it associated with me. Garycompugeek and I are not conspiring. I am acting solely on my own. If you can tell I deleted an entry from Garycompugeek, you can see all the other space junk I keep removing.

I have no idea where the message came from, which said that I should approach the editor non-confrontationally on his talk page, and that "A COI is certainly possible, though there's nothing obviously connecting this editor to the article subject." I think the message I got from Miszabot II might have been a WP:COIN entry which was subsequently deleted. I have no idea. I am guessing. I had a WP:COIN in at the time. I got this back from Voceditnore. "Obviously he has a particular point of view, as do you. But that doesn't equate to a conflict of interest on either side." When every change to the article is one-sided, I respectfully disagree. I am not playing games, nor am I trying to get my own way, putting my POV over someone else's POV. I simply see a condition where the flow of information is being blocked, by someone who will swear that they are not blocking it. From Garycompugeek's entry, you can see that it has been going on for years. It's a chokehold. It's also a less than level playing field, when they have veto power over every single word which goes into the article. If you want the name of the web site, it is circs.org. http://www.circs.org/index.php/Reviews/Rates/Global contains the name. Thanks, Banaticus! Tftobin (talk) 03:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm posting here because you've mentioned part of my advice to you on the COI noticeboard and my user name. However, this is the message you were quoting at the top of this section, and the subject of your request for help from an administrator:

"A COI is certainly possible, though there's nothing obviously connecting this editor to the article subject. My suggestion would be to bring up the matter with the editor on their user talk page. Nobody has communicated with the editor aside from a welcome template left back in October. I do see that the editor uses edit summaries, which is usually a sign that they are communicative, so it might be worth asking them if they have a connection and to express concerns about the removal of content. Just try not to be confrontational either way, I don't see much actual disruption and we try to respect people's privacy if they want to remain anonymous."

It was on the COI noticeboard at the same time your enquiry was there. But note it was an answer to an enquiry about a completely different article and a completely different editor. It was not posted by you, nor was the response (by User:Atama) addressed to you. It's not deleted. It has now been archived by MiszaBot. You can find it here. Once again, I have no views on the article you are in dispute about. My advice to you was, and remains, that this is not a conflict of interest situation.

Incidentally, the editor you have expressed concerns about is completely open about their authorship of articles on the subject, and their real name, as you clearly can see from their user page. The WP article lists the website he administers (with his real-life name) under external links in the section very clearly marked "Pro-circumcision". It also lists sites that are "Anti-circumcision" in equal numbers. None of his articles appear to be cited as actual references for the WP article.

I understand your frustration with what you feel is an unresolved and lengthy content dispute, but you have now been taking this same dispute (from a variety of different angles) to several noticeboards which are not for that purpose, e.g. the COI noticeboard, the Reliable Sources noticeboard [1], Wikiquette [2], etc., and often times that will prove counter-productive. Your best bet is to continue the discussions on the talk page of Circumcision where there is an open Request for Comment and editors are working towards consensus, although obviously not yet achieving it. Voceditenore (talk) 13:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Voceditenore. I realize I have been all over the place. I don't understand how these pieces of wikipedia work yet. I apologized in the Reliable Sources noticeboard. The Wikiquette is a separate set of incidences not directly involving the editor in question. I thanked you for your entry in WP:COIN, because it was obvious you weren't going to do anything about it, and felt I was unjustified. I can't get blood from a stone. Might as well be polite. Putting all that aside, it doesn't matter if the editor acknowledges that they wrote those articles, or has a web site. What matters is the editing history. If someone with no interest and no point of view were to go through and tally, close to 100% of the editor's edits support one side. How does anyone else have any power to change that? Especially when all of the authorship issues have been brought up, and brushed aside with the editor in question swearing neutrality. Nobody follows up, and single person rule continues. This entrenchment has been brought up multiple times before, which brings everyone to the current level of frustration. The editor is ignoring a secondary reference put forth by therewillbefact. It is true, there are anti-circumcision entries on the outside web site. Every one has a disclaimer discounting its value, as is also done in the editor's articles. The stronger statements of other medical papers are simply not there. No word from the doctors in Denmark about dysfunction rates, or from the Swedish Paediatric Society saying "We consider it to be an assault on these boys". This is not acutal neutrality, it is the appearance of neutrality. Sort of like the Swiss declaring themselves neutral in WW2, then laundering all the Nazi gold from fillings. The whole issue is neither here nor there, since it is outside the scope of wikipedia. While everyone has a POV, not everyone has veto power over everything which goes into the article. This is a total constriction of the flow of information. Endless battling on the talk:circumcision page is not going to budge this one-sided control. You can see the level of frustration on both camps doing nothing but rising. What would it take to get an uninterested audit of editing? What would it take to create a level playing field? The editor simply admitting authorship, and then going back to autocratic control is not working, for many people. It didn't work in 2009, and it's not working now. Thank you for clearing up the Misza Bot II mystery. Now, the only thing curious is, why did email come to me with that information? I think you can understand why I was confused. Thanks. Tftobin (talk) 17:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi there. You have a basic misunderstanding about the COI noticeboard and how it works. I gave you my opinion and some advice as an experienced and uninvolved editor as to whether what you were talking about constituted a COI, but I'm not an adminstrator and can't "do" anything beyond giving you advice. Administrators watch the board and will generally intervene if something requires administrator action, e.g. temporarily locking down an article if there is persistent edit-warring, blocking a user who is repeatedly spamming, committing BLP violations, edit-warring, making egregious personal attacks on other editors, etc., but not for the kinds of problems you perceive. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard will also have experienced univolved editors who may give an opinion on whether the end product, i.e. the article itself, is reasonably neutral with high quality references, but will not examine every edit that went into it, and again is not a basis for administrative action. Since you seem to focus on one particular user whom you see as the problem, possibly the closest thing to what you're looking for is filing a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, the last step before an Arbitration request. However, I know of no process on Wikipedia which will "audit" every single edit by a particular user in a disputed article, not even an Arbitration Committee case. In those cases the parties to the dispute and others provide the evidence and the Arbitration Committee weighs it up. Anyhow, that's about all the advice I can give you on the subject and I really don't have any further input to give you.

As for the email, I have no idea. Possibly another user emailed you the notice because they thought you'd be interested, or you may have some preference checked that says you want to be emailed if there are changes in the pages you are watching? (Although, I don't know if there is a feature like that). Voceditenore (talk) 19:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your insights, and your clarifications, from the bottom of my heart, Voceditenore Tftobin (talk) 21:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Tftobin, they view thoughtful opponents of circumcision as the enemy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.177.170.151 (talk) 15:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Please stop. You are helping no one. You are also irritating the hell out of me. Tftobin (talk) 17:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Please stop on your own. If you don't, I will make you stop. Your writing on my page is not welcome. Tftobin (talk) 01:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Tom, you can ask an administrator to "semi-protect" your talk page, if you wish. That means that only logged-in editors with more than a handful of edits can comment. Jakew (talk) 09:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your kindness, Jakew Tftobin (talk) 17:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Would you like me to semi-protect your page for a month or so until the IP harassment backs off? -- Avi (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it a great deal, Avraham. Thanks for offering! Tftobin (talk) 17:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done for 1 month. -- Avi (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Avraham, thanks so much! Tftobin (talk) 19:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Formatting

Hello Tom. There seems to be a problem with the formatting of your talk page posts — there's a superfluous newline character at, on average, about 60-80 characters from the beginning of your messages. This is adversely affecting the formatting since the Wiki parser is line-oriented. It's affecting a substantial proportion of your messages, unfortunately. I'm unable to guess at the cause of the problem, but do you think you could experiment with the 'preview' button to try to work out what's going wrong? Thanks, Jakew (talk) 10:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I have moved your comments which were inserted before my signature. Please don't do that again. Jakew (talk) 17:23, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

And I've moved another that you added here. Please take more care in future. Jakew (talk) 11:50, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

And another. Jakew (talk) 14:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Unwanted Posting

To whomever keeps posting the psycho messages, please stop. I am not interested. I consider it harassment. If you do not stop, I will request protection of the page again, so it is pointless to keep pushing your views onto my talk page. Either you stop it voluntarily, or I will force you to stop again. Tftobin (talk) 18:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

You might want to stop and ask yourself, "What kind of person forces themselves upon another?" You might not like the answer. Just like I don't like your dumb messages.

Don't say something that inflammatory, unless you can prove it. If you can prove it, what are we doing here, talking about it?

Dispute resolution for Circumcision

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Circumcision". Thank you. --Rip-Saw (talk) 03:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You are right. I am very frustrated that there are two RFCs on this one page, and nobody at wikipedia central seems to be too anxious to resolve them. The editors who have been controlling the flow of information have been cited in disputes so many times, it is like kids who don't care what the punishment is, they are going to do it anyway. There is no punishment for flagrant violations, of WP:Etiquette, WP:NPOV, or much of anything else. I am rapidly losing patience, and it is showing. I will not give in to the sinister, though, even if it kills me. That is to allow lies to become truth, and manipulation to cause perception to become the new reality. The next generation deserves better. Why aren't you going for an RFA? What would be the point, anyway? Just because one has admin powers, doesn't mean one can use them.

I have read carefully your many contributions. Thank you. When people have an agenda, they plug up their ears against the annoyance of reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.199.159.75 (talk) 11:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Personal Attacks

Nearly everyone on the Circ talk page is guilty of personal attacks to one degree or another, but do try to refrain from personal attacks as best you can, and try to keep the sensationalism down to a minimum. You're no good to anyone if you're banned, and in a formal dispute resolution setting, people aren't going to take you seriously if your talk page has ban notices on it. Absolutely nothing is gained by pointing out other users behavior. That energy needs to be directed to reading the research and coming up with arguments to support change in the article. If everyone remains civil, the article will eventually be changed. Rip-Saw (talk) 17:31, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

(Hopefully) helpful hint

Tom, I thought you might find it useful to know that it's a good idea to use a edit summary when making edits that might be mistaken for vandalism (such as this). You and I know that you had a good reason for that edit, but a person patrolling recent changes for vandalism might not understand, and might revert your edit thinking it was made in bad faith (a common form of vandalism is to delete sourced text for no discernible reason). It helps to guard against this by providing a brief reason in your edit summary. Best wishes, Jakew (talk) 12:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

You possess a patience and tolerance for BS that I do not have. I see that you have fought hard to win small battles. With diligence, maybe progress can be made. I must move on for the moment; the time required to make any progress at all is time I don't have. I didn't realize the difficulty or the overwhelming odds when I thought I could make a difference here. Obviously, I've taken a lot of wrong turns along the way. I may come back to the article in the future when time and patience permit. Erikvcl (talk) 06:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Personal attack

Don't you find it just a wee bit inappropriate to post a personal attack on an editor's Talk page who has just been blocked for making a personal attack? I've reverted your comments. If you want to repost the content aspects only, fine, but leave out the stuff about the lies, etc.--Bbb23 (talk) 11:36, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Tftobin. You have new messages at Talk:Circumcision#inability_to_reach_anything_approaching_consensus.
Message added 02:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Zad68 02:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

ANI notice regarding personal attacks against Jakew

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

Dear friend...

You picked a good day to get taken to ANI, as odds were good you would have been blocked by another hand. To be sure, I understand there is some incivility there and the situation is more complicated that it looks at first glance, but you can't take it to the level of personal attacks, even if others attack you. Retribution is not a defense. Read WP:NPA. Not everyone was thrilled with my giving you "one last chance" so I'm hoping you will take this chance to heart. You are obviously an intelligent person, so put it to work with persuasion, not incivility or attacks. I will be monitoring the discussion (but not participating), and you should take me serious when I say that I will block on the spot without warning if you force my hand. I would have no choice in the matter. Hopefully, you will either go back and keep it at a low simmer, or find other ways to contribute. I find that when I get all worked up and it becomes "work", it is better to simply find a different area to contribute to, and maybe return in a few months. The article isn't going anywhere, it will still be there in the fall. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:38, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

All three trials were stopped early due to data-dependent processes (formal-stopping rules), and this may have introduced a risk of bias to the studies.

Male circumcision for prevention of heterosexual acquisition of HIV in men

Nandi Siegfried1,*, Martie Muller2, Jonathan J Deeks3, Jimmy Volmink4 Editorial Group: Cochrane HIV/AIDS Group

Published Online: 7 OCT 2009

Nandi Siegfried is a South African public health specialist and has been an active member of the Cochrane Collaboration since 1998. She served as co-director of the South African Cochrane Centre until March 2004. Nandi is the Deputy Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane HIV/AIDS Review Group (CRG) and in partnership with the CRG established the successful African HIV/AIDS Mentoring Programme which aims to increase the number of HIV/AIDS reviews relevant to the African region. Presentations: Using reviews to inform health care decisions in poor countries: achievements and challenges

Martie Muller, Statistician and associated member of the SA Cochrane Centre, Medical Research Council, Cape Town and senior scientist at the Institute for Maritime Technology, Simon’s Town. Areas of interest: biostatistics, meta-analysis, diagnostic test accuracy, functional data analysis, spatio-temporal modeling.

Jimmy Volmink is the Head of the Department of Primary Care at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He previously worked as the Director of Research and Analysis at the Global Health Council in Washington DC, USA and as the director of the South African Cochrane Centre located in Cape Town, South Africa. He serves on committees and advisory boards of various international organizations, including the Cochrane Collaboration and the World Health Organization. He is an editor of the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group and has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Jon Deeks is Professor of Biostatistics, Director of the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit, and leads the Biostatistics, Evidence Synthesis and Test Evaluation Research Group in the School of Health and Population Sciences, where he also holds a position of Joint Research Lead.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003362.pub2/full

In the case of circumcision trials it was not possible to blind personnel delivering the intervention or the participants. It is possible, however, to blind the assessors, and we therefore only rated the blinding of assessors as adequate, inadequate, or unclear. Participants and study personnel could not be blinded to the allocated interventions (circumcision or not). It is unclear whether this lack of blinding could influence the outcome (HIV status) via, for example, sexual risk behaviour or differentiated treatment by study personnel.

Attrition was high in all three trials. We rated the risk of bias due to incomplete outcome reporting as moderate in all three trials, as acceptable statistical survival analysis techniques were used to estimate HIV event distribution over time by accumulating for staggered enrolment and incomplete discrete follow-up.

Other potential threats to validity

All three trials were stopped early due to data-dependent processes (formal-stopping rules), and this may have introduced a risk of bias to the studies.

Feedback from Elizabeth Royle, 8 May 2009

Summary

In the What's New section the authors make the following statement: "Update of previous review of observational studies; now contains data from three large RCTs. Evidence conclusive and no further updates required."

I appreciate that this review may provide very clear results, but would question the validity of the assertion that no further updates are required. My understanding is that large effect sizes tended to ameliorate over time as more trials are performed and incorporated into meta-analyses. This may be due to an initial publication bias of trials with positive results followed by publication of those with less clear or negative results over time. At any rate, in this case, whether the effect size is reduced through the updating process or becomes even more significant, I do believe that the review authors have an obligation to perform updates on a regular basis in order to ensure that their review incorporates all the available data, and continues to provide the best evidential basis for future healthcare policies in this area. Fearless187.32.220.234 (talk) 00:16, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Nandi Siegfried is a South African Cochrane Collaboration Using reviews to inform health care decisions in poor countries

Nandi Siegfried is a South African public health specialist and has been an active member of the Cochrane Collaboration since 1998. She served as co-director of the South African Cochrane Centre until March 2004. Nandi is the Deputy Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane HIV/AIDS Review Group (CRG) and in partnership with the CRG established the successful African HIV/AIDS Mentoring Programme which aims to increase the number of HIV/AIDS reviews relevant to the African region. Presentations: Using reviews to inform health care decisions in poor countries: achievements and challenges Fearless 190.200.132.100 (talk) 00:52, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Bio

Read your bio, very interesting. I played in country/rock/blues bands for many years til my tendons began giving me fits around 40. Self-taught since age 5 on guitar then adding bass, drums, some piano, and have toyed around with many others like lap steel, dobro, mandolin, uke, etc. Obviously very different styles, but the same love for music. For me, nothing beats cranking up the distortion on the guitar, and playing to Bach, who had to have been the "metal head" of his day. One reason I'm a fan of Yngwie Malmsteen [3], who marries the two up quite well. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 21:53, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Let People Censor Their Own User Pages, Champ

Jakew, I agree with you here. Zad68 19:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

So we have a new Circumcision Boss. The torch has been passed to the next generation. Someone new to chuckle at the little one's pain. Iconoclast — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.43.161.218 (talk) 17:36, 17 June 2012 (UTC)