Home AIDS test drawing mixed reviews

A new home test for the AIDS virus has gone on sale nationwide, two days after receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

The news yielded mixed views in the Southern Nevada AIDS community.

Home Access Health Corp. of Hoffman Estates, Ill., became the second company to win FDA approval of test kits that allow people to take a blood sample at home, mail it to a laboratory and learn by telephone if they have the HIV virus that causes AIDS.

The first test that was granted FDA approval, Johnson & Johnson's Confide home HIV test, was introduced in Texas and Florida during the last week in June. The test is now available in all states except New York and California through a toll-free telephone number.

Jeffrey Leebaw, a Johnson & Johnson spokesman, said the Confide home test will be available in drugstores "sometime in the fall." He would not say which drugstore chains will carry the test kit.

The Home Access Express test is the first to be offered in every state through a toll-free number. In addition, the Home Access Health Corp. offers 24-hour counseling seven days a week.

The Express Test promises test results in three business days. Sheryl Kravitz, a corporate representative, said the regular Home Access tests "will hit the shelves sometime in September or October." The regular Home Access tests sold in drugstores will offer results in one week for $39.95, $10 less than the faster Express Test and the Johnson & Johnson test.

To conduct the test, the person pricks a finger, places drops of blood on a card and mails it in a prepaid, protective envelope to a laboratory. The sample has a personal identification number.

To get the results, the person calls a toll-free number and gives his or her identification number. People with positive or inconclusive results receive the news from counselors who can refer them for long-term counseling and medical treatment.

Negative results are usually given by a recording, although the caller may request a counselor at any time. All information remains strictly confidential.

The home test promises greater than a 99.9 percent accuracy rate, equal to that of a test conducted by a physician. Dr. Alan Frank, medical director of Home Access Health Corp., said the accuracy results were arrived at through "extensive clinical trials."

Frank said the test is extremely easy to use for those who have had no previous experience with collecting a blood sample.

Chris Reynolds, an HIV prevention specialist with the nonprofit Aid for AIDS of Nevada, said his "primary concern is not with accuracy, but with the absence of the pre-test and post-test counseling which are available at a clinic."

He was skeptical "about relying on someone doing a test at home who has not been trained in the sterile use of equipment."

However, Reynolds and Jeff Smith, executive director of Aid for AIDS of Nevada, agreed that the advantage of home tests is that "because of at-home privacy, you may reach a segment of the population that is reluctant to go to a clinic."

Yet Reynolds noted, "If you think about it, you might see your neighbor when you walk into a clinic to be tested, but you could see that same neighbor when you're at the drugstore buying the test. Either way, that neighbor won't know the results."

Smith emphasized that it's "just as important to speak to those individuals who receive negative results."

"My concern is that those individuals will just hear the recording and hang up. And those individuals who receive positive results may just hang up out of complete denial and end up putting themselves and others at risk. Counseling is provided at the clinic so that we can reinforce risk reduction issues as well as make sure that people have access to medical care."

The number for the Home Access Express test is (800) HIV-TEST. The number for the Johnson & Johnson test is (800) THE-TEST.

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