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From: bywater!arnor!dgreen@uunet.UU.NET
Newsgroups: soc.motss,sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: Something from GayNet re:HIV vaccine.
Message-ID: <1991Feb13.235627.16452@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 13 Feb 91 19:37:38 GMT
References: <1991Feb8.113638.4686@cs.ucla.edu> <1991Feb11.005044.7108@cs.ucla.edu> <1991Feb12.142731.29249@cs.ucla.edu>
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sys0002@dircon.co.uk (Julian Hayward) writes:
|> bywater!arnor!dgreen@uunet.UU.NET replies to:
|> 
|> >|> > HIV vaccin (VAXSYN) is also under trial in Montreal.  ...
|> >... I was part of a group of
|> >HIV- guinea pigs for it.  No adverse effects, except for the typical
|> >vaccine thing: a sore arm.  Oh yeah, and a minor sociological
|> >adverse effect: I produce misleadingly positive HIV antibody tests now.
|> >Of course, this is not a problem for HIV infected individuals.

|> Out of interest, how can they tell if the treatment is successful when
|> it causes HIV- individuals like yourself to show HIV+? Is there a further
|> test which can identify the difference from real HIV infected cells?
|> I'd imagine you'd have a difficult time explaining this to an insurance
|> company, perhaps they are more intelligent in the US/Canada.

An experienced Western Blot interpreter can tell the difference between
an infected an uninfected HIV antibody+ result (there are several 
antibody bands missing on uninfected individuals).  However, the three
bands that show up on my Western Blot are pretty strong and I show a
strongly positive Elisa, so who knows what happens if an idiotic 
interpreter comes across it?

As for insurance, I haven't been in a situation to test this problem
(until recently HIV Ab tests were illegal for insurance purposes--they
may still be, but I think I remember hearing about some contrary
judicial decision in California.)

____
\  /Dan Greening	IBM T.J.Watson Research Center	 NY (914) 784-7861
 \/ dgreen@ibm.com	Yorktown Heights, NY 10598-0704	 CA (213) 825-2266