Subject: Blood Banks to Get Training in Test On AIDS Antibody
Date: Published: 2/11/85 74 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal (c) copyright Dow Jones Inc. 

   Blood Banks to Get
   Training in Test
   On AIDS Antibody
    ---
   Procedure Detects Exposure
   To Suspected Virus; Use
   May Start This Week
    ---
   By Marilyn Chase
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Stret Journal

   NEW YORK -- The Centers for Disease Control today plans to
start training blood banks around the country to use and
interpret the controversial new AIDS antibody blood test that
may be licensed as early as Friday for screening blood
donations.
   The agency, an arm of the U. S. Public Health Service, said
at an AIDS conference here Friday that it plans a series of
one-day courses this month.
   The test, developed under license to the Public Health
Service, is aimed at blocking the spread of cases of acquired
immune deficiency syndrome through blood or blood products.
Such cases account for about 2% of the 8,215 reported U. S. 
cases of AIDS. 
   The test, called an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or
ELISA, detects an antibody that indicates exposure to the
suspected AIDS virus.  But developers have said that false
positive and false negative results could unleash unwarranted
panic or allow infected blood to slip through undetected.
   Also, the test doesn't denote active AIDS, and a positive
result doesn't mean a person necessarily will develop the
disease.  Instead, the test only indicates that an individual
has been exposed to the virus and possibly could transmit it.
   Agency guidelines recommend telling people with AIDS
antibodies that their long-term prognosis isn't known; that
they may remain chronically infected without symptoms; and
that despite apparent good health, they could infect others
through sharing needles, sexual intercourse, or other
intimate contact.  Unborn children of women with positive
results from the test also may risk infection, the agency
said.
   As reported, the National Gay Task Force has urged
homosexuals not to take the test, which could become a basis
for job or insurance discrimination.  Promiscuous homosexuals,
Haitians and intravenous drug users already are discouraged
from donating blood because AIDS has occurred mainly among
those groups.
   At the conference, New York and San Francisco public
health officials disagreed on the test's use.  David Sencer,
New York director of public health, said, "It's appropriate
for the test to be licensed for use in blood banks," but he
said he will delay releasing results for several weeks, or
even months, until more is known.
   Mervyn Silverman, San Francisco's outgoing health chief,
said, "Risks of the test outweigh benefits."  He said that
without alternative testing sites for homosexuals, gays might
use blood banks as diagnostic centers and, because of false
negative results, allow contaminated blood into the system.
   Separately, Luc Montagnier and Jean-Claude Chermann of
France's Pasteur Institute said preliminary tests in Paris
show that a drug called HPA-23 reduced the AIDS virus in 34
patients.  They stressed that the drug curbs but doesn't cure
the virus.  Eleven of the 34 patients have died since
treatment.

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