any HIV home tests currently advert...

any HIV home tests currently advertised and sold in succession the Internet can give users false information about their health status, possibly registering negative forward samples from people infected with the virus. According to a June 1999 consumer alert from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) several HIV kits sold for self-diagnosis were exampleed by the FTC, and in each case the results indicated that a known HIV-positive sample was negative.

The Internet advertisements for home-test HIV kits state that they are for sale single outside the United States, moreover consumers in the United States have been able to purchase the kits. Although the ads state or imply that the kits have been approved by dint of the World Health Organization (WHO), other well-known health organizations, or the US bread and Drug Administration (FDA), the WHO does not approve or license HIV ordeal kits, and the only fireside collection test system that the FDA has approved for sale in the United States is the household Access Express HIV-1 Test method This system allows people to consider probable samples in the privacy of their acknowledge homes and then requires them to project the samples to a laboratory for analysis.

The FTC warns the public in the alert that safe, reliable HIV testing can be done solitary by medical professionals or by means of clinics, or by using the household Access Express HIV-1 Test order The FTC advises consumers who have used HIV fireside tests to be retested.

Home-Use trials For HIV Can Be Inaccurate, FTC Warns (consumer alert, Washington, DC: Federal Trade Commission, June 1999) 1-2

COPYRIGHT 1999 Association of Operating range Nurses, Inc.

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