The Mystery of the Disappearing Virus

I've been closely following the case of Andrew Stimpton, the British man who claims to have been cleared of the HIV virus.

While the claims have yet to be backed up with irrefutable scientific proof, if it indeed is true, it would be an unprecedented event. Till date, there has been no proven case of spontaneous clearance of the virus. As of right now, there just isn't enough evidence either way.

Last week the NHS went on record to say that Andrew probably never had HIV in the first place, and he was the unfortunate victim of a testing error.

Scientists have reason to be sceptical about Andrew, and I'll outline why this is the case.

In August 2002, Andrew complained of flu like symptoms and general malaise, and his doctor recommended a HIV test. At that point, Andrew had been engaging in protected sex with his HIV+ve partner. The test came back ambiguous, and the doc recommended another test after a few months. This test came back positive.

Andrew gave up using protection during sex with his partner, and received no treatment. After 14 months, another, more sensitive HIV test, came back negative. Three subsequent tests came back negative as well. Andrew decided to sue the hospital for their earlier false positive test, but DNA testing of his prior samples identified them as his.

This is the extent of what has been covered by the media. As you can see, there is a definite lack of scientific information available, and there has been unnecessary sensationalism. What is needed is a clear explanation of the facts.

The typical, routinely performed HIV test is the ELISA. This detects the useless antibodies produced against the virus. The caveat here is that the antibodies take several weeks to develop after infection, and it's very possible for someone to be HIV+ve and have an initial negative result. This is what was assumed to be the case with Andrew in August 2002.

The normal course of events should be thus: if an ELISA test comes out positive, it is repeated. Only multiple positive ELISA tests are considered conclusive. If a subsequent ELISA comes out negative, however, a more sensitive test called a PCR is performed. The PCR is the gold standard, and is considered irrefutable.

So what happened in Andrew's case? We don't know. That sort of information is just not available right now.

It is known that some people are just immune to HIV. They have certain mutations that don't allow HIV to infect their cells. This has been known for 10 years now. Other people have certain genes that greatly retard HIV growth, and while they do become positive, they proceed very slowly. This has also been known for a long time now. But for someone to become positive, and then negative? This is new.