Join the What Doctors Don't Tell You community now -
and be informed for when it really matters

Register now for our vital and insightful health updates that have been described as some of “the best in the world”.

email to friend Printer friendly

News

Hiv test giving false positives in 5% of all cases

01 November 1998

Thousands of people wrongly believe they are HIV infected because of the standard Western blot test which is giving false positive results in nearly 5 per cent of cases.

This alarming inaccuracy has been uncovered by University of California researchers, who urge anyone who has been tested positive by a Western blot result to seek further advice, and possibly to be tested again. There is a better than 50 per cent chance that the test was a false positive if one of the three gene products tested known as p31, or polymerase protein was a negative.

The researchers have found that the p31 test in the Western blot procedure is very likely to throw up false positives. They tested the blood of five million donors and found that, of the 421 donors who were tested positive by Western blot, 39, or 9.3 per cent, of these were possibly false positives because they had not reacted to the p31 element of the test. Of these, 20, or 51.3 per cent, were proven by the PCR test not to be infected with HIV-1. This means that the Western blot test was giving a false reading in 4.8 per cent of all cases (JAMA, 1998; 280: 1080-85).

Hiv test - Too inaccurate for comfort - The HIV test for detecting AIDS is surrounded by controversy. Leaving aside the arguments about the supposed link between HIV and AIDS - still hotly d...

Breast cancer screening - false positive results - I write to thank you for the the article on breast cancer (Vol 3 No 10).

When the prostate test can be false - The prostate cancer test, PSA, can give false readings if the man has ejaculated in the previous two days. The test can produce a false positive read...

Hiv tests prove to be highly inacurate - The medical establishment maintains that HIV antibody tests are 99.5 per cent accurate, but new evidence suggests that a startling array of factors ca...

Cancer test smeared - A new test for cervical cancer, a supposed improvement over the pap smear tests now used, has shown a high rate of false positives. ...

Newborns to be tested for hiv - All newborn babies in the US are likely to be tested for HIV even though the test itself is not accurate, researchers have discovered. ...

Over one third of mammograms give false reading - Up to one third of women given a mammogram could suffer the anguish of a false positive where the test incorrectly detects breast cancer and consequen...

catalytic trace element therapy - Q-I am trying to get information about 'catalytic trace element therapy' from an unbiased source. It appears that this practice is well known on the C...

Register for our health updates and free gifts.

How You Beat Asthma
How To Beat Your M.E.
How You Beat ADHD
How You Beat Arthritis
How You Beat Backpain
How You Beat Depression How You Beat Pain
How You Beat The Menopause
How You Beat Heart Problems
WDDTY Health Shop

Join the What Doctors Don't Tell You community now - and be informed for when it really matters

Hiv test giving false positives in 5% of all cases

Join the What Doctors Don't Tell You community now -
and be informed for when it really matters