Validate HIV Tests

Dear Editor,
    I am one of the sources of the quotes that Liam Scheff uses [“Postmarks Online,” July 8].
    It is true that many of the quotes are from the 1980s. The reason there are not very many more recent studies in the scientific literature is because it was erroneously accepted about 10 years ago that HIV tests were highly accurate, despite all this evidence to the contrary.
    One of the reasons this belief can be maintained is that nobody bothers to try to validate the tests against a meaningful yardstick, and the only one that makes sense would be purification of HIV, verified by electron microscopy, and analysis of the proteins and RNA in the pure particles.
    No scientist has ever purified HIV. Consequently, no HIV tests have been properly validated. The question is not really whether HIV tests are 99.9% accurate or 99% accurate or 90% accurate ... but whether they do detect the virus we call HIV at all. Without validation we simply don't know.
    If a request to validate HIV tests against a meaningful standard is denialism, then I plead guilty as charged.