"One `False Positive' Points Up Pitfalls of AIDS Screening"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

"One `False Positive' Points Up Pitfalls of AIDS Screening"

Boston Globe (12/30/91), P. 1
Kong, Dolores

Abstract: The recent surge of Americans desiring an HIV test has raised the question of just how reliable these tests are. "The public has to realize that there is no such thing as a perfect test," says Dr. Paul Bachner, chairman of the AIDS committee for College of American Pathologists, and he adds that "there never will be, even when the test is performed exactly correctly." While the accuracy rate for HIV testing has greatly improved since the development of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test in 1985, today the combined accuracy of two ELISA tests and one Western blot test still results in one false positive occuring every 144,000 occasions, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Dr. Jay S. Epstein. Epstein adds that the potential for error can be affected by medical conditions, sample quality, and lab-work quality.

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