NotAIDS! News
February 17, 2007

False positive HIV tests can cause catastrophic trauma to a pregnant woman, leading to depression, suicide, elective abortion, or the unnecessary administration of highly toxic substances like AZT or Nevirapine to the newborn and/or mother.

Women in New Jersey have suffered a civil rights defeat in the State of New Jersey when the legislature recently passed a bill that forces each pregnant woman and her newborn to be tested for HIV.

Despite the fact that only two infants tested positive in 2006 in New Jersey, and none in 2007, the State opted to blast personal liberty and violate civil rights with a law that is both unncessary and cruel.

Women who are pregnant have a high "false positive" rate, and when specificity and accuracy are evaluated in the general population, all HIV tests are of questionable value.

Because the protein markers used in these tests, like p24 or gp41 (p=protein gp=surface protein or glycoprotein, number X=molecular weight in kilodaltons), are not specific to the possibly benign retrovirus identified as HIV, there are some who argue that all positive HIV tests are false positives .

Biologically, pregnant women are much more likely to exhibit these or the other nonspecific protein markers that are used in diagnosing HIV.

Therefore, any policy, or worse, any law that forces expectant mothers to take what some consider to be a useless and irrelevant HIV test, risks causing catastrophic trauma to the pregnant woman, leading to depression, suicide, elective abortion, or the unnecessary administration of highly toxic substances like AZT or Nevirapine to the newborn and/or mother.

A bill signed into law Wednesday by the Senate president, Richard J. Codey, in his capacity as acting governor, requires two tests for pregnant women, at the beginning of the pregnancy and again in the third trimester, unless the mother objects. If the mother objects, the objection will be noted and the newborn will then be tested for HIV, with the only exception being on religious grounds. Newborns will also be tested if the woman tests positive.¹

Like the many national laws around the world, including the United States, denying entry of HIV positive individuals, official government policy and law are based on faulty HIV positive tests, and at the foundation, a faulty theory of HIV.

The reality is that studies have not in fact uncovered any process by which the elusive so-called "human immunodeficiency virus" kills CD4 immune t-cells, or any other actual cause-and-effect pathogenic process.

Riki E. Jacobs, who heads the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation, a New Jersey nonprofit AIDS service organization, is even opposed to the new law passed late 2007.

"I am adamantly opposed to this bill. New Jersey already reduced the perinatal rate of transmission with mandatory counseling of pregnant women. The issue is getting those women who are not in prenatal care in for services and testing. I definitely think it is an invasion of privacy."

Both the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the New Jersey National Organization for Women chapter have questioned the legality of the bill, signed into law by Richard J. Codey, NJ senate president, and acting governor.

What's even more confounding is that it appears infants can be born testing "HIV positive" even though the mother doesn't, which destroys the entire assumption about "mother to child transmission" or "MTCT" in AIDS industry careerists' lingo.

A Reuters news brief reported recently the results of a London study.

Infants can be born with HIV infection even if their mother tests negative for the virus in pregnancy, the results of a brief report show.

The study, which is published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, involved a review of the prenatal test histories for 25 infants diagnosed with HIV infection at a referral hospital in London from 2001 to 2005. The study focused on 21 of the cases in which prenatal care had been provided in the UK.

Twelve of the mothers had not been tested for HIV infection during pregnancy, Dr. Hermione Lyall, from St. Mary's NHS Trust in London, and colleagues report. Of the remaining nine, four tested positive, but five did not.

Infants whose mothers were not diagnosed with HIV infection fared worse than other infants. Infected infants typically had severe infections, which proved fatal in six cases.

The important message is that a negative prenatal HIV test in the mother does not mean an infant is not infected with HIV and this possibility should be considered for any child with symptoms of immunodeficiency, the investigators emphasize.²

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1. "N.J. Orders HIV Testing For Pregnant Women - Some Groups Call Law Unneeded and Intrusive" By Keith B. Richburg, Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 28, 2007; Page A03
2. Negative prenatal test doesn't assure infant free of HIV, Reuters, Thu, Jan 31, 2008 (Reuters Health)

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