News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by killjoywashere on Sunday October 21, 2018 @06:42PM (#18270786)
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.
Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by esf on Sunday October 21, 2018 @07:13PM (#18270930)
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.

Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by dogma1138 on Sunday October 21, 2018 @07:08PM (#18270901)
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.

Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by esf on Sunday October 21, 2018 @07:24PM (#18270965)
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.

Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by dogma1138 on Monday October 22, 2018 @03:52AM (#18272896)
>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.

Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by chimeracoder on Monday October 22, 2018 @12:40PM (#18276124)
> 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.

Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by Dylan16807 on Sunday October 21, 2018 @08:26PM (#18271222)
> 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"?

Re:A Blue Pill Is Stopping HIV, World-First Study Shows by ghkbrew on Sunday October 21, 2018 @08:51PM (#18271331)
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.