What five minute procedure can transform a healthy person into a dying patient, turn a simple yeast infection into a symptom of fatal illness, make it illegal to have sex in several states (even with a condom), prohibit certain international travel, preclude insurance coverage, and force a pregnant woman to choose between taking toxic chemicals or losing custody of her child?
An HIV test, of course.
The power and authority of HIV tests are rarely, if ever, questioned by mainstream media and conventional medical professionals although, remarkably, no HIV test has ever been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the actual diagnosing of HIV infection.
Most experts do not know that HIV tests are approved only as prognostic tests and intended to be used for predicting a possible future outcome (prognosticating), not for determining if a person "has HIV." The FDA's lack of approval for any HIV diagnostic test speaks to the fact that no HIV test can directly detect or quantify HIV, or determine the presence of specific HIV antibodies in human blood.
Now it seems the FDA has become uncertain as to the role of HIV in AIDS. The newest HIV test kit approved in November of 2002 (again, as a prognostic, not a diagnostic) contains interesting new language regarding the causal link between HIV and AIDS:
"Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), AIDS related complex (ARC) and pre-AIDS are THOUGHT TO BE CAUSED* by the Human Immundeficiency Virus (HIV)." OraQuick Rapid HIV-1 Antibody Test, OraSure Technologies, Inc.
Previous test kits used this language:
"Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) IS CAUSED* by at least two etiologic agents...(HIV-1) and...(HIV-2.)" OraSure HIV-1 WB Kit, Epitope, Inc.)
(*Capital letters were added for emphasis and do not appear in the original text. Thanks to Dr. Rodney Richards for supplying this information.)
So why does most of the world believe HIV tests tell us with great certainty who is infected with the virus?
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