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Medical tests are often designed that way. For example cheap/quick hiv tests have a low false negative and a high false positive. They are still useful, you fil
by kmonsen 4y ago
Medical tests are often designed that way. For example cheap/quick hiv tests have a low false negative and a high false positive. They are still useful, you filter out most people safely and the ones with a positive test can take a more expensive test to check.
- spywaregorilla 4y agoYes, but also no. If your test only flags a false positive 1 in a million times, searching for a disease that affects 1 in 100 million people, you'll get a ratio of 100:1 false positives. Still very useful as you explain, but I think it's misleading to imply that's what they're aspiring to. It's hard to make a test that never returns false positives.
- kmonsen 4y agoI don’t disagree with you, merely said that for some reason it was possible to make a cheaper and quicker HIV test that has a high false positive and a low false negative. I have myself tested positive twice without actually being positive when being deployed with the army, so agree on all your points that this is not great and not an intended goal,. Just what we get when we try to make the cheapest possible test today.