Mediation of this case has been completed, and the case is retained here for reference. For an explanation of why the case was closed, see the talk page. If mediation of this case again becomes necessary, a new request for mediation may be submitted. |
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.
Failure of informal mediation process where the involved editor/mediator found issues of content too intertwined with behaviour issues to proceed, but I, as a single user, cannot initiate a RfC/U on these claims against me where I believe the claims have been raised only for the purpose of obscuring the content issue.
User:Minphie posts exclusively in opposition to Harm Reduction.
Regarding the current dispute on Needle Exchange Programs, Minphie has selectively quoted, on multiple occasions and out of context, single words and sentence fragments from Chapter 3 of a 2006 US Institute of Medicine study, stating that "the evidence for the effectiveness of NSPs in preventing HIV was 'inconclusive' and that 'multiple studies show that NSEs do not reduce transmission of HCV(Hepatitis C).' "
Through such selective quote mining, Minphie makes it seem that the report concludes that NSPs are valueless in the fight against blood-borne disease. In reality, the authors carefully note that the inconclusiveness of available studies is due to unavoidable deficiencies of the study designs. It is practically and ethically impossible to conduct randomized controlled trials, and researchers must rely on study designs of far lower statistical power, such as cohort studies and ecological studies.
The following is a revised version of an alternative chapter summary that I offered, which Minphie rejected:
It was User:Gabbe that first placed the science on the effectiveness of NEPs front and centre of the Wikipedia Needle Exchange Programme article [1], a prominence given to the science that I believe is aligned with the need for evidence-based drug policy internationally.
User:Stigmatella aurantiaca has alleged on the Talk page, and backed this by constant deletions of my text, that I misrepresent, in the relevant Wikipedia article, the most authoritative review on needle exchange effectiveness completed in 2006 by the US Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine (which had backed NEPs since the 1990s before the current science was in). To this charge I assert that:
In summary, I have not misrepresented the US IOM report but rather given a verbatim rendition of its conclusions on the science. Stigmatella's interpretation leads to a more optimistic rendition of the science than is actually the case which will only open Wikipedia to the charge of being a source of biased rather than neutral or balanced information for the public. Minphie ( talk) 13:10, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
The authors of the US IOM report wrote: "The Committee used caution in interpreting the results of studies reviewed in this chapter because of their generally weak designs and serious limitations. One limitation is that the studies identified do not randomly assign subjects to treatment and control groups—rather, participants deliberately choose whether to use NSEs and other services. This creates an unavoidable risk of selection bias, and means that differences in rates of risk behaviors and HIV infection may not be due to use of the service itself. Another limitation is that the study designs generally do not allow separate examination of program elements, so the independent contribution of improving access to sterile needles and syringes cannot be assessed. For example, NSE is often one component of a multi-component HIV prevention program, making it difficult to isolate the exact effects of NSE alone."
The gold standard study design is the randomized controlled trial (RCT), which is practically and ethically impossible for this sort of public health intervention because of its immediacy and the assumed efficacy of needle exchange. Suppose one wishes to design an RCT study. From a practical point of view, how can one possibly "blind" the study so that a program participant doesn't know whether or not he has been given clean needles? From an ethical point of view, how can one deny a person who wishes to participate in a needle exchange program access to clean needles?
The great majority of studies have instead been cohort studies which are subject to "confounding factors." In paticular, participants in NSPs tend to be from the most highly marginalized, high risk segment of the IDU population. This major confounding factor has resulted in cohort studies only infrequently being able to establish any ability of NSPs alone to reduce HIV, HCV, or HBC acquisition. In combination with other interventions, however, needle exchange can show dramatic synergistic effects. For example, see the discussion of this point in (Degenhardt et al. 2010), which is a WP:MEDRS-compliant review article published in Lancet.
Ecological studies consistently found that implementation or expansion of HIV prevention programs that include needle and syringe exchange were correlated with reduced prevalence of HIV, but the authors of the US IOM report noted that "a causal link cannot be made based on these studies."
The authors of the US IOM report were hence being properly cautious in not overinterpreting the evidence available in 2006. On the other hand, Minphie's intent in selectively quoting individual words and out-of-context phrases from the US IOM report is to convey to the casual reader a completely false impression of its Chapter 3 summary and conclusions. Stigmatella aurantiaca ( talk) 18:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi all. Just a heads up, there was a DRN thread filed about this dispute, it was closed after a few volunteers (myself included) felt that an RFC was the next best step, but there is a fair few conduct issues mixed in here. Steven Zhang ( talk) 21:09, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Mediation of this case has been completed, and the case is retained here for reference. For an explanation of why the case was closed, see the talk page. If mediation of this case again becomes necessary, a new request for mediation may be submitted. |
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.
Failure of informal mediation process where the involved editor/mediator found issues of content too intertwined with behaviour issues to proceed, but I, as a single user, cannot initiate a RfC/U on these claims against me where I believe the claims have been raised only for the purpose of obscuring the content issue.
User:Minphie posts exclusively in opposition to Harm Reduction.
Regarding the current dispute on Needle Exchange Programs, Minphie has selectively quoted, on multiple occasions and out of context, single words and sentence fragments from Chapter 3 of a 2006 US Institute of Medicine study, stating that "the evidence for the effectiveness of NSPs in preventing HIV was 'inconclusive' and that 'multiple studies show that NSEs do not reduce transmission of HCV(Hepatitis C).' "
Through such selective quote mining, Minphie makes it seem that the report concludes that NSPs are valueless in the fight against blood-borne disease. In reality, the authors carefully note that the inconclusiveness of available studies is due to unavoidable deficiencies of the study designs. It is practically and ethically impossible to conduct randomized controlled trials, and researchers must rely on study designs of far lower statistical power, such as cohort studies and ecological studies.
The following is a revised version of an alternative chapter summary that I offered, which Minphie rejected:
It was User:Gabbe that first placed the science on the effectiveness of NEPs front and centre of the Wikipedia Needle Exchange Programme article [1], a prominence given to the science that I believe is aligned with the need for evidence-based drug policy internationally.
User:Stigmatella aurantiaca has alleged on the Talk page, and backed this by constant deletions of my text, that I misrepresent, in the relevant Wikipedia article, the most authoritative review on needle exchange effectiveness completed in 2006 by the US Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine (which had backed NEPs since the 1990s before the current science was in). To this charge I assert that:
In summary, I have not misrepresented the US IOM report but rather given a verbatim rendition of its conclusions on the science. Stigmatella's interpretation leads to a more optimistic rendition of the science than is actually the case which will only open Wikipedia to the charge of being a source of biased rather than neutral or balanced information for the public. Minphie ( talk) 13:10, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
The authors of the US IOM report wrote: "The Committee used caution in interpreting the results of studies reviewed in this chapter because of their generally weak designs and serious limitations. One limitation is that the studies identified do not randomly assign subjects to treatment and control groups—rather, participants deliberately choose whether to use NSEs and other services. This creates an unavoidable risk of selection bias, and means that differences in rates of risk behaviors and HIV infection may not be due to use of the service itself. Another limitation is that the study designs generally do not allow separate examination of program elements, so the independent contribution of improving access to sterile needles and syringes cannot be assessed. For example, NSE is often one component of a multi-component HIV prevention program, making it difficult to isolate the exact effects of NSE alone."
The gold standard study design is the randomized controlled trial (RCT), which is practically and ethically impossible for this sort of public health intervention because of its immediacy and the assumed efficacy of needle exchange. Suppose one wishes to design an RCT study. From a practical point of view, how can one possibly "blind" the study so that a program participant doesn't know whether or not he has been given clean needles? From an ethical point of view, how can one deny a person who wishes to participate in a needle exchange program access to clean needles?
The great majority of studies have instead been cohort studies which are subject to "confounding factors." In paticular, participants in NSPs tend to be from the most highly marginalized, high risk segment of the IDU population. This major confounding factor has resulted in cohort studies only infrequently being able to establish any ability of NSPs alone to reduce HIV, HCV, or HBC acquisition. In combination with other interventions, however, needle exchange can show dramatic synergistic effects. For example, see the discussion of this point in (Degenhardt et al. 2010), which is a WP:MEDRS-compliant review article published in Lancet.
Ecological studies consistently found that implementation or expansion of HIV prevention programs that include needle and syringe exchange were correlated with reduced prevalence of HIV, but the authors of the US IOM report noted that "a causal link cannot be made based on these studies."
The authors of the US IOM report were hence being properly cautious in not overinterpreting the evidence available in 2006. On the other hand, Minphie's intent in selectively quoting individual words and out-of-context phrases from the US IOM report is to convey to the casual reader a completely false impression of its Chapter 3 summary and conclusions. Stigmatella aurantiaca ( talk) 18:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi all. Just a heads up, there was a DRN thread filed about this dispute, it was closed after a few volunteers (myself included) felt that an RFC was the next best step, but there is a fair few conduct issues mixed in here. Steven Zhang ( talk) 21:09, 25 September 2013 (UTC)