H1N1 vaccine can cause false positive HIV test

May 21, 2010 •

Vacina contra H1N1 pode gerar falso positivo em teste de HIV

The Department of sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and Viral Hepatitis of the Ministry of Health released a technical note on the possibility of false-positive results in enzyme immunoassays for HIV among people who received the vaccine against swine influenza virus. 

As the department was due to accelerated industrial production of vaccine against the H1N1 virus, there is currently no available data on all the side effects, but it was observed that people who took the vaccine to be tested for HIV-1 showed false positive, ie, the results indicated that the AIDS virus is present when, in fact, is not. 

According to the Ministry of Health, this is because, in taking the vaccine, the body begins to produce antibodies Immunoglobulin M (IgM), the body's first defense against infection. In this process, the presence of antibodies directed to other infectious agents that may be similar to HIV, produce false positive results in examinations. 

Under the guidance of the Department of STDs, if tested positive, it is recommended to perform a verification result. The second examination should not be reactive in case of cross-reactivity with antibodies produced in response to the vaccine against swine influenza virus. Still, the negative result in these tests does not rule out HIV infection, since the patient may be in the state of seroconversion, or other disease that interferes with the results. 

The Ministry of Health recommended that the professionals responsible for diagnosing HIV-1 should inform patients who received the swine flu vaccine on the possibility of false positive results in tests. If necessary, patients should also call for the creation of a new collection after 30 days, until the diagnosis is definitive. more...

Los Angeles Times, Gary Goldstein, Reviews "HOUSE OF NUMBERS"

A contradictory view on AIDS

As documentaries go, Brent Leung's "House of Numbers" is not especially well-organized or focused. It plays as if the producer-director decided -- and rightly so -- that it was time for a "state of HIV/AIDS" update, hopped the globe to interview researchers, physicians, journalists and other experts (as well as several of the disease's victims), and then figured out what his film would really be about. No matter, Leung manages to present a barrage of intriguing theories debunking our generally accepted beliefs and misperceptions about how HIV/AIDS is acquired, tested, diagnosed, defined and treated. It's a vital yet thorny approach whose inconclusiveness is bound to sadden or infuriate anyone who's lost a loved one to AIDS.

Leung serves as the movie's on-camera narrator and conscience, but, best efforts aside, the filmmaker's lack of screen presence undercuts the energy provided by his impressive range of interviewees, whose contradictory positions on HIV/AIDS become the project's raison d'etre. There's no denying, however, the value of exploring such game-changing topics as how HIV-infection numbers are cooked for monetary and political gain; how the effects of global poverty may have led to so many AIDS-related deaths; how such widely used AIDS drugs as AZT have, themselves, often proved fatal; and whether HIV really exists.

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Gary Goldstein --

"House of Numbers." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. At the Westwood Crest Theatre.

Margaret Heckler, The Age of Aids, on Frontline

Margaret Heckler was President Reagan's secretary of health and human services from March 1983 to December 1985. Here she says AIDS was her number one priority, but that she had to balance her department's response against the Reagan administration's fiscal priorities. Heckler maintains that preexisting Public Health Service budgets were enough and that additional funding to fight AIDS was unnecessary. "I think that really, we could not have gained anything more by increasing the cash expenditures," she tells FRONTLINE. "We were in the right direction. We were placing the emphasis on those who could provide the answers. In a peculiar case, this was not a problem that money could solve; it was a problem that the scientists could solve." Heckler also addresses the infamous April 1984 press conference where she and virologist Robert Gallo announced his discovery of the AIDS virus. Heckler suggested a vaccine would be available within two years. "That turned out to be totally incorrect," she acknowledges. "But at that time, we did not know that the replication of the virus would be so difficult -- and it still is a problem. ... That is the story of AIDS. There were new discoveries, lots of myths that we could easily dispel, but then very serious medical and scientific questions that had to be dealt with." This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on Jan. 11, 2006.

[When did you first hear of AIDS?]

I was quite surprised to learn from a conversation with David Winston, who had been a staff member of the Senate Health Committee under then-Sen. [Robert] Schweiker, and who had served with Gov. Reagan at the Health Department in California. … I asked his recommendations on the priorities I might set, and he said, "Oh, well, you must begin with AIDS." I said, "AIDS?" I had never heard of AIDS. "What is AIDS?" He said, "This is a disease that is killing young people, and the hospital wards in San Francisco are crowded -- in fact, bulging." I said, "Well, I have never been briefed on this; I have never heard of it." I had just gone through the whole confirmation process, and it had never been mentioned.

I just returned to the department and asked to see Dr. [Edward] Brandt who was the [assistant health secretary] and I just said, "Dr. Brandt, I just heard of a disease that has never been mentioned to me before: AIDS." He said, "Madame Secretary, you don't want to know." I said: "I may not want to know, but I must know. I am responsible for this department, for everything that happens here, and this is frightening. I have just heard the worst stories about it." He then went on to give me a brief summary.

I immediately realized that this was a serious crisis, and my first step was to go to the White House and talk to [Chief of Staff] Ed Meese, because … I knew that this was potentially going to go over the budget, and I wanted to let him know, give him a heads-up on that. I told Ed about the disease, that I felt this was the most serious priority I had … and said that if I need for the funds, I have to come back to him, and I would do so. …

Subsequently, many times, I did mention AIDS [to the White House], and I brought people from the [Health and Human Services] Department to our domestic policy meetings -- I was chairing that meeting -- and for the Domestic [Policy] Council. I felt it was very important to exchange views and brief key people at the White House, which happened throughout the time that I was HHS secretary. …

I felt that since this was such a serious issue that I would become very involved in the total management of it, the oversight, and my goal was really to drive the department, with its scientific expertise, into resolving some of the basic medical questions for the patients as well as for the whole society.