Comments on: HIV/AIDs Testing o.0? http://www.natures-medicine-chest.com/hivaids-testing-o0-3.htm/ Natural and Alternative Treatments - A Holistic Approach In Medicine Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:24:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mary http://www.natures-medicine-chest.com/hivaids-testing-o0-3.htm/comment-page-1/#comment-18627 Mary Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:22:51 +0000 http://www.natures-medicine-chest.com/hivaids-testing-o0-3.htm#comment-18627 No, I don't. There is a wide window between the time someone first gets infected and the time someone develops the antibody that the test checks for. False negatives can give false security. That's why blood centers (where you give blood) ask all those questions about risky behavior (sex, jail, drug use) because participation in risky behavior can indicate the possibility of infection even if the test comes back negative. On the other side, the HIV antibody test also has a high incidence of false positives. All tests that come back positive initially will have a confirmatory test performed (kind of like an HIV DNA test) before the results can be called truly positive. It is for both of these reasons that I don't think mandatory HIV/AIDS testing should be required as part of job screening or school admission testing. No, I don’t. There is a wide window between the time someone first gets infected and the time someone develops the antibody that the test checks for. False negatives can give false security. That’s why blood centers (where you give blood) ask all those questions about risky behavior (sex, jail, drug use) because participation in risky behavior can indicate the possibility of infection even if the test comes back negative.

On the other side, the HIV antibody test also has a high incidence of false positives. All tests that come back positive initially will have a confirmatory test performed (kind of like an HIV DNA test) before the results can be called truly positive.

It is for both of these reasons that I don’t think mandatory HIV/AIDS testing should be required as part of job screening or school admission testing.

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