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Truvada does nothing to change identification of HIV+ donors. Truvada does not change response to HIV tests, an HIV+ person taking Truvada as part of treatment

by esf 8y ago

Truvada does nothing to change identification of HIV+ donors. Truvada does not change response to HIV tests, an HIV+ person taking Truvada as part of treatment does not stop testing positive for HIV antibodies. Nothing changes from the existing blood donation situation due to Truvada.

killjoywashere 8y ago
Like most things in science, be suspicious of pure logical arguments. The question for any test, even a true-false, is first a matter of "how much". Antibodies fade over time, ergo various vaccine boosters, such as tetanus. At some point, we can't detect it.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  I don’t know why is this being downvoted. Anti bodies are produced to combat a pathogen if the levels of the pathogen are below of what would trigger the immune system you will not produce anti bodies and the ones that you have had produced will fade of over time you don’t have anti bodies for every pathogen you encounter flowing through your blood that would likely kill you. If the pill can reduce the virus to trace levels and prevent HIV from developing into AIDS it’s not unreasonable to question if it can affect current HIV detection protocols. Heck it wouldn’t surprise me if they measured the levels of anti bodies dropping while the levels of immune cells remaining normal to test the efficiency of the new drug. That said I know some HIV tests check for the levels of virions in the blood these are often used for AIDS prognosis I don’t know how sensitive these are and if they’ll be able to detect trace levels of the virus if anti bodies response tests will become unreliable. Also like with everything it’s not binary if this new treatment regiment can reduce the effectiveness of HIV testing by any meaningful margin it will be a problem. I have very hard time believing that current HIV testing is 100% false negative proof.
  - esf 8y ago
    The pill was already part of HIV trratment, it does nothing to change the effectiveness of HIV tests. The only unknown would be whether if you are one of the very, very few people that manages to contract HIV while taking prep, your antibody response is different during that initial window. But: Anyone in that situation is already covered by the questions about recent partners and already is not donating if answering the existing questions in good faith. If they are donating in this situation at all they are already just ignoring the questions.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      >The pill was already part of HIV trratment, it does nothing to change the effectiveness of HIV tests. Where is that stated? >But: Anyone in that situation is already covered by the questions about recent partners and already is not donating if answering the existing questions in good faith. If they are donating in this situation at all they are already just ignoring the questions. I think you missed the entire point of the GP this isn’t about someone acting in good faith or rationally.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > If the pill can reduce the virus to trace levels and prevent HIV from developing into AIDS it’s not unreasonable to question if it can affect current HIV detection protocols. It is, because a) we're talking about PrEP, a treatment for HIV- people b) Truvada has already been used to treat HIV+ for the past ~15 years. c) HIV screening for blood donations uses antibody testing, which has nothing to do with viral load.
- esf 8y ago
  It's not a pure logical argument. What you are describing has never been observed though in anyone taking any type of antiretroviral therapy in the now 20+ years of the HAART era. This is a completely unfounded what-if. The donors you don't want donating are already excluded by existing questions. And if you are that concerned about completely hypothetical unknowns then you might as well also not trust any of the batch testing done on the donors blood anyway. The questions can only ever be a useful prefilter, not a perfect safety net.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  > The question for any test, even a true-false, is first a matter of "how much". So if someone asks "Does strawberry intake affect HIV antibody tests?", the answer isn't "no"?
  - ghkbrew 8y ago
    Welcome to research and statistics. The most accurate answer is probably something like: "the effect of strawberry intake on HIV antibody testing is not significantly different than zero based on current evidence". There very well may be an effect it's just so small we can't tell it from the noise.

by esf 8y ago

killjoywashere 8y ago

Like most things in science, be suspicious of pure logical arguments. The question for any test, even a true-false, is first a matter of "how much". Antibodies fade over time, ergo various vaccine boosters, such as tetanus. At some point, we can't detect it.

dogma1138 8y ago
I don’t know why is this being downvoted. Anti bodies are produced to combat a pathogen if the levels of the pathogen are below of what would trigger the immune system you will not produce anti bodies and the ones that you have had produced will fade of over time you don’t have anti bodies for every pathogen you encounter flowing through your blood that would likely kill you. If the pill can reduce the virus to trace levels and prevent HIV from developing into AIDS it’s not unreasonable to question if it can affect current HIV detection protocols. Heck it wouldn’t surprise me if they measured the levels of anti bodies dropping while the levels of immune cells remaining normal to test the efficiency of the new drug. That said I know some HIV tests check for the levels of virions in the blood these are often used for AIDS prognosis I don’t know how sensitive these are and if they’ll be able to detect trace levels of the virus if anti bodies response tests will become unreliable. Also like with everything it’s not binary if this new treatment regiment can reduce the effectiveness of HIV testing by any meaningful margin it will be a problem. I have very hard time believing that current HIV testing is 100% false negative proof.
- esf 8y ago
  The pill was already part of HIV trratment, it does nothing to change the effectiveness of HIV tests. The only unknown would be whether if you are one of the very, very few people that manages to contract HIV while taking prep, your antibody response is different during that initial window. But: Anyone in that situation is already covered by the questions about recent partners and already is not donating if answering the existing questions in good faith. If they are donating in this situation at all they are already just ignoring the questions.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    >The pill was already part of HIV trratment, it does nothing to change the effectiveness of HIV tests. Where is that stated? >But: Anyone in that situation is already covered by the questions about recent partners and already is not donating if answering the existing questions in good faith. If they are donating in this situation at all they are already just ignoring the questions. I think you missed the entire point of the GP this isn’t about someone acting in good faith or rationally.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > If the pill can reduce the virus to trace levels and prevent HIV from developing into AIDS it’s not unreasonable to question if it can affect current HIV detection protocols. It is, because a) we're talking about PrEP, a treatment for HIV- people b) Truvada has already been used to treat HIV+ for the past ~15 years. c) HIV screening for blood donations uses antibody testing, which has nothing to do with viral load.
esf 8y ago
It's not a pure logical argument. What you are describing has never been observed though in anyone taking any type of antiretroviral therapy in the now 20+ years of the HAART era. This is a completely unfounded what-if. The donors you don't want donating are already excluded by existing questions. And if you are that concerned about completely hypothetical unknowns then you might as well also not trust any of the batch testing done on the donors blood anyway. The questions can only ever be a useful prefilter, not a perfect safety net.
Dylan16807 8y ago
> The question for any test, even a true-false, is first a matter of "how much". So if someone asks "Does strawberry intake affect HIV antibody tests?", the answer isn't "no"?
- ghkbrew 8y ago
  Welcome to research and statistics. The most accurate answer is probably something like: "the effect of strawberry intake on HIV antibody testing is not significantly different than zero based on current evidence". There very well may be an effect it's just so small we can't tell it from the noise.