CAN YOU REALLY TRUST THE "AIDS TEST"?

By Christine Johnson

HEAL Magazine 1995

The primary evidence offered to substantiate the hypothesis that HIV
causes AIDS is an epidemiological correlation
between HIV and AIDS. It is claimed that all AIDS patients are infected
with HIV, as demonstrated by positive HIV
antibody tests, and that a positive HIV antibody test means that a person
is infected with HIV.

First, it is impossible to claim that HIV has been present in all AIDS
cases. The CDC admits that 43,606 American AIDS
cases have never been tested for HIV. Using the Center for Disease
Control's (CDC) statistics, Professor Peter Duesberg
of the University of California at Berkeley calculates an additional
18,666 have not been tested, totaling 62,272.[1] In Africa
virtually no one is tested. The resources for HIV antibody tests are
simply not available in most sub-Saharan African countries. Instead,
Africans are diagnosed with AIDS on the basis of a clinical case
definition [2] which consists of
cough, fever, persistent diarrhea, and weight loss of greater than 10% of
body weight. These identical symptoms can be
caused by any number of diseases endemic to African countries. In fact, on
the rare occasions when groups of African
"AIDS" patients have been tested, approximately half of them have been
found to be HIV negative.[3]

Even if all cases throughout the world had been tested and had been found
to be positive, this would still offer no proof that
AIDS patients are infected with HIV, since during the initial development
of HIV antibody tests (and even to this day), the
tests were never verified by an independent gold standard. A gold standard
means that it is necessary to correlate a
positive antibody test with findings of actual virus in the body of the
person being tested and a negative test with findings of
no virus in the body.

HIV antibody tests have been subjected to severe criticism by an
Australian research team headed by Dr. Eleni
Eleopulos [4] for a multitude of reasons. The most important is that an
antibody test is not valid unless it has been
authenticated by use of an independent gold standard which, for HIV
antibody tests, must be the presence of HIV
itself. Dr. Eleopulos's team thoroughly searched the literature on
antibody testing and found that no researcher had
yet met the requirement of a gold standard. Thus, they conclude that the
relationship between a positive HIV antibody
test and HIV infection has not been substantiated.

The necessity for a proper gold standard cannot be emphasized too much.
Eleopulos explains: "The use of viral
isolation as an independent means of establishing the presence or absence
of the virus is technically known as a
gold standard, and is a quintessential element for the authentication of
any diagnostic test. Without a gold standard
the investigator is hopelessly disoriented since he does not have an
autonomous yardstick against which he can
appraise the test he is aspiring to develop."

Without a gold standard there is no way to be sure that a positive HIV
antibody test indicates HIV infection or what it
indicates. False positives due to cross-reactions have been
well-documented for dozens of different reasons. A crossreaction is when
the test finds an antibody to another microbe or even to some normal
cellular component and
registers it as an antibody to HIV.

Cross-reactions with non-HIV antibodies have been documented in the
presence of the following: any other retrovirus
besides HIV, the flu virus, common cold virus, herpes simplex-2 virus,
hepatitis B virus, all Mycobacterium bacterial
species (including tuberculosis, leprosy, and M. avium [MAC]);
vaccinations such as for flu or hepatitis B; pregnancy
or prior pregnancy, blood transfusions, hemophilia, blood clotting factor,
sperm, a highly oxidized physiological
condition (which occurs with extensive use of drugs or blood products);
autoimmune disorders such as lupus,
rheumatoid arthritis, and Sjogren's syndrome; cancers such as multiple
myeloma; alcoholic hepatitis, alcoholism,
liver disease; naturally-occurring antibodies such as antibodies to
carbohydrate, nuclear antigens, human T-cells,
mitochondria, and cellular actin; tapeworms and other parasites; malaria,
malnutrition, and others.

The reason members of the AIDS risk groups (gay men, intravenous drug
users, hemophiliacs, and recipients of blood
transfusions) have high levels of positive HIV antibody tests is due to
the fact that all these groups are exposed to a
multitude of foreign antigens and infectious agents and thus have numerous
antibodies to many non-HIV antigens.
Because of these factors, it is to be expected that cross-reactivity with
the HIV antigens in the test kits would be the
rule rather than the exception in these groups. The same holds true for
Africans: Both ELISA and Western Blot tests
are nonspecific in African populations, meaning the tests cross-react with
antibodies to other diseases on such a
frequent basis as to make the results worthless for HIV detection.[5-9]

According to Langedijk, "[a]lmost all reactions, especially in low-risk
populations, represent false positive results."[10] Both on ELISA and
Western Blot. In the general population, it has been generally accepted by
mainstream AIDS
researchers that positive results are likely to be false positives. Many
articles have been written in the scientific
literature expressing concern about this problem.[11-13] As Germanson has
noted, "At some point of extremely low
disease prevalence, it is expected that the positive predictive value
(PPV) of the most powerful assay series will deteriorate to a sub-standard
level of
performance." A low PPV means that a positive result is not likely to
predict infection.

The mathematics of the relationship between test specificity, disease
prevalence, and positive predictive value
consistently predict that in low-prevalence populations almost all
positives are false positives. In the general
population, which the CDC estimates to have a prevalence of HIV infection
of 0.04%, using a test with a specificity of
99.9%, the result is that 71% of all positives will be false positives. At
a specificity of 98.6%, 97% will be false
positives. (Send a SASE to the author for a chart of these calculations.)

The above discussion only scratches the surface of what is wrong with HIV
antibody tests. It is not recommended by
this author to get tested for any reason; to do so is to open a Pandora's
box of trouble.

References

1. Duesberg, P. 1993. "The HIV gap in national AIDS statistics."
Bio/Technolpgy.- 11:955-6.

2. Gilks, C. 199 1. 'What use is a clinical case definition for AIDS in
Africa?' BMJ. 303.1189-90.

3. Duesberg, P. 1992. AIDS acquired by drug consumption and other non
contagious risk factors. Pharmac. Ther.
12. 55:201-277.

4, Papadopulos-Eleopulos, E., Turner, V., Papadimitriou, J. 1993. Is a
positive Western Blot proof of HIV infection?
Bio/Technology--- 11:696-707.

5. Hunsmann, G., Schneider, J, Wendler, I. et al. 1985. HTLV positivity in
Africans. Lancet. October 26, 1985.

6. AIDS vaccine efficacy trial sites selected by WHO. 1991. The Blue
Sheet. 34(43):1-3.

7. Weiss, R., Cheingsong-Popov, R., Clayden, S. et al. 1986. Lack of HTLVA
antibodies in Africans. Nature. 319:794795.

8. Biggar, R., Melbye, M., Sarin, P. et al. 1985. ELISA HTLV retrovirus
antibody reactivity associated with malaria
and immune complexes in healthy Aflicans. Lancet. ii:520-523.

9. Kashala, 0., Marlink, R., Ilunga, M. et al. 1994. Infection with human
immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV- 1) and
human T-cell lymphotropic viruses among leprosy patients and contacts:
correlation between HIV- 1 crossreactivity
and antibodies to lipoarabinomanna. J. Infec. Dis. 169:296-304.

10. Langedijk, J., Vos, W., Doornum, G, et al. 1992. Identification of
crossreactive epitopes recognized by HIV- 1
false-positive sera. AIDS. 6:1547-1548.

11. Weiss, R., Thier, S. 1988. HIV testing is the answer -- what's the
questiong NEJM 319:1010-1012. Meyer, K.,
Pauker, S. 1987. Screening for HIV: Can we afford the false positive rate?
317:238-241.

13. Germanson, T. 1989. Screening for HIV: Can we afford the confusion of
the false positive rate? J. Clin. Epi.
42:1235-123