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Author

  • The Perth Group

  • Eleni Papadopulos

  • Valendar Turner

  • John M. Papadimitriou

Publisher

  • Bio/Technology

Category

  • HIV Tests

Topic

  • HIV Test Accuracy

  • ELISA

  • Western Blot

  • HIV Antibody

  • False Positives

Article Type

  • Scientific Paper

Publish Year

  • 1993

Meta Description

  • The content discusses the reliability of Western Blot tests for HIV infection, highlighting potential false positives and the impact of various factors on results.

Summary

  • This is a scientific paper that questions the reliability of HIV antibody tests as a definitive proof of HIV infection. The authors argue that these tests are not standardized or reproducible, and the proteins used in the tests may not actually be specific to HIV. They emphasize the need for a gold standard, such as the HIV virus itself, to validate the accuracy of these tests. The paper calls for a careful reevaluation of the use of HIV antibody tests in predicting, diagnosing, and studying HIV infection.

Meta Tag

  • HIV

  • Western Blot

  • Infection

  • ELISA

  • Reproducibility

  • Laboratories

  • Antibodies

  • Specificity

  • Sensitivity

  • Predictive value

  • Gene products

  • False positives

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Original Publication
BIO/TECHNOLOGY VOL.11 JUNE 1993
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7763673/

View file
nameEPENatBioTech1993.pdf

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It is currently accepted that a positive Western blot (WB) HIV antibody test is synonymous with HIV infection and the attendant risk of developing and dying from AIDS. In this communication we present a critical evaluation of the presently available data on HIV isolation and antibody testing. The available evidence indicates that: (I) the antibody tests are not standardised; (II) the antibody tests are not reproducible; (III) the WB proteins (bands) which are considered to be coded by the HIV genome and to be specific to HIV may not be coded by the HIV genome and may in fact represent normal cellular proteins; (IV) even if the proteins are specific to HIV, because no gold standard has been used and may not even exist to determine specificity, a positive WB may represent nothing more than cross-reactivity with the many non-HIV antibodies present in AIDS patients and those at risk, and thus be unrelated to the presence of HIV. We conclude that the use of the HIV antibody tests as a diagnostic and epidemiological tool for HIV infection needs to be reappraised.

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