( AIDS-prevention experts have had their ...)Circumcision Studies to Continue Says Health Panel,Health

AIDS-prevention experts have had their hopes dashed after National Institutes of Health panel ruled that there was not need to stop the two ongoing studies of male //circumcision as a method of reducing risk of HIV infection.

Last year a South African medical committee halted a circumcision study after an early look at the data, which showed that circumcision reduced risk of HIV infection by at least 60 percent. Scientists finding that the protective effect was so beneficial, believed that it would be unethical to continue the experiment and withhold the findings.

French researcher Bertran Auvert and colleagues in Johannesburg and France conducted the South African study. 3,274 men participated as subjects for the study. Its results were published in January in the journal PLoS Medicine.

The NIH committee monitoring similar studies in Rakai, Uganda and Kisumu ,Kenya took a preliminary look at results of those two experiments on Tuesday and ruled that they should continue until the scheduled completion time next year.

The decision has however ensured that there will be no early release of the data for discussion at the 16th International AIDS Conference this August in Toronto, which otherwise would have led to circumcision being the big news of the global AIDS meeting.

According to Robert Bailey, the University of Illinois epidemiologist who is lead investigator of the Kenyan study, ‘It doesn't mean we don't have a 60 percent figure, or better.’ The interim results remain a secret, even to the investigators involved, because the trial is known as "blinded." This is to ensure the scientific integrity of the eventual findings.

Bailey also mentioned that there was a possibility that the monitoring board would look at the data once again in six to eight months to determine whether an early halt to the experiment was warranted.

The study involved 3,000 previously uncircumcised men in Kisumu where circum
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