do-it-yourself HIV test, future of dating?

[Maljonic]

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dating/articles/1125aidstest.html

Gardiner Harris
New York Times News Service
Nov. 25, 2005 11:22 PM

WASHINGTON - The two young single women, attractive and confident, were sitting at the bar of a popular Washington after-hours spot when they were asked how a relatively quick do-it-yourself HIV test might affect their dating life.



One of them, Julie Powers, 23, laughed. "I would definitely make someone take it," she said, "hopefully before the sex." And she would not be embarrassed, she said, to insist that a man submit to the test.

Her friend, Victoria Maulhardt, 25, nodded and added, "Especially if you're getting serious with someone."



Their comments were not idle speculation: A rapid at-home HIV test could be available on pharmacy shelves within the next year or so. Encouraged by a federal drug advisory committee earlier this month, OraSure Technologies in Bethlehem, Pa., is expected to apply to the Food and Drug Administration soon for permission to start selling its HIV test over the counter. Now it's available only in clinics.



Taking the test involves a simple swab of the gums. Results appear within 20 minutes.



And if the results are negative, certain inhibitions may disappear.



"I think there would be a lot more unprotected sex if there was a 20-minute test that people could take," said Michael Mathews, 40. Mathews was sitting in another Washington nightspot, this one with frosted windows and a clientele that was almost uniformly male.



"We're all sick of hearing about condoms and prevention and safe sex," Mathews said. If a test could allow gay men to skip such prevention efforts, many would, he said.



Ken Deckinger, co-founder and chief executive of the dating service HurryDate, said that an easily available AIDS test could quickly reassure a dater of a prospective partner's health, allowing a couple to jump into bed faster than they might have before.



The test, he wrote in an e-mail exchange, will "speed up the natural relationship evolution process."



"This, of course, will most likely lead to more casual encounters," he wrote.



Helen Friedman, a clinical psychologist in private practice in St. Louis, said she could envision daters "bonding over this and saying, 'Let's take this test together,' " and then, safely reassured, going from there.



The test is part of a growing stable of medical products that people can use at home to address their sexual behavior; self-administered pregnancy tests and the morning-after pill are others.



The HIV test also addresses an issue that more and more singles face: knowing next to nothing about their next date. The popularity of Internet dating and group set-ups has led more and more singles to participate in blind dates, no references included.



But while technology has helped foster the trend, it is also helping singles cope with it. Google can provide screenfuls of information about a prospective match. Other Web sites offer criminal background checks and lists of real estate holdings. So perhaps it's no surprise that coming soon to a CVS near you is a quick way to tell if a would-be Mr. or Ms. Right has an infection that could kill.



And perhaps soon to fade from the popular imagination will be scenes like the one from "Sex and the City" in which the sexually ravenous Samantha is asked by a prospective partner to get tested for HIV. (She becomes so nervous, she passes out at the clinic.)



Friedman said she expected the tests to be taken by people who routinely get anxious, often for very little reason, about their partners or their past. She has clients who take at-home pregnancy tests repeatedly and then, for good measure, go to a doctor for another test, she said.



Members of a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee suggested in a meeting this month that the people most likely to take the test are college students recovering from an uncharacteristically wild night. But the test is no hangover cure.



An HIV infection will take anywhere from two weeks to three months to become detectable, so the test can offer no assurances about a partner's most recent sexual history - or fidelity.



Still, Arthur Aron, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said surreptitious testing of bodily fluids was bound to happen once the test becomes widely available.



"In the context of jealousy, people do amazing things," Aron said.



Maulhardt, on the other hand, nursing a drink at the Washington bar, dismissed the idea. "I wouldn't want to do it behind someone's back," she said.



Besides giving daters more chances to have quickie sex and then be horrible to each other, a rapid at-home HIV test could of course help stem a stubbornly high rate of HIV infections in the United States, particularly among blacks, homosexuals and drug users. More than a million people here have been infected with HIV, almost two-thirds through male-to-male sex. The rate of infection among blacks is more than eight times that of whites.



Last year 38,685 more Americans were found to be infected with HIV, and studies have shown that 40 percent to 45 percent of new cases develop into AIDS within a year of diagnosis. AIDS takes nearly a decade to develop after an HIV infection, so the seemingly rapid onset of AIDS in these cases means that many Americans - at least 250,000, studies estimate - carry the virus for years without knowing it, perhaps infecting others.



That is why many public health officials are so eager to put OraSure's test on pharmacy shelves. Getting that quarter-million people to shed their ignorance and get screened could be the key to reducing the epidemic's toll in the United States. But persuading some daters to make use of the test may still be difficult.



"I could not envision saying, 'Gee, this has been really great, but before we go any further, here's a box for you with a little bow on it?' " said Amy Drummond, a single woman from Alexandria, Va. "No."



Matthew Montroi, a 23-year-old single from Washington, said he could imagine a woman asking him to take the test as they became more intimate and moved from using condoms to using birth control pills.



"But I'd probably never ask her to take one unless we were sitting at dinner and she just happened to mention that she'd had 50 partners before," Montroi said. "I'd probably leave at that point anyway."



Then he paused.



"Well," he said, "if she was really hot, I might stay and ask her to take the test."

"I really think we've got what they want," she explained. "And if they want it, they can have it on our terms."

 

[Escape]

Taking the test involves a simple swab of the gums. Results appear within 20 minutes.

What a mood killer!

 

[TdC]

And perhaps soon to fade from the popular imagination will be scenes like the one from "Sex and the City" in which the sexually ravenous Samantha is asked by a prospective partner to get tested for HIV. (She becomes so nervous, she passes out at the clinic.)

yay, so you possibly get to freak out at home, or worse at someone else's home? nice :/

 

[Chilly]

Anything that decreases the risk of contracting/passing on HIV cant be all that bad. This seems like a cracking idea tbh.

 

[Maljonic]

That last bit was also supposed to be in the quote, I messed it up.

I think it would be a good thing if it could detect the virus right away and any other STDs too. Or even better, if some could invent some cool virus-detecting shades...

 

[JBP|]

If it picked up all the other STI's or whatever the correct terminology is, then it would be worth taking i guess.

 

[TdC]

I don't think it's a good idea. It lulls you into a false sense of security. I could shag someone with HIV, take the test the next day, register negative and shag someone else with no second thoughts.

Imo the "proper" HIV test is something you commit to over a period of time so that you know with 99.99% surety that you and/or your partner are in the clear.

I'm worried that people will see the "quick" test as a license to have unprotected sex. It's not ok; there are other things you can get, etc. etc.

 

[Athan]

What TdC said.

-Ath

 

[leggy]

This is potentially quite devastating. I agree with the logic that something has to be done about a serious HIV/AIDS pandemic but a home testing kit worries me a little.

The number of people who currently commit suicide after hearing they have HIV is frightening. Can you imagine what it will be like when more and more of them find out while pished and trying to get laid?

The other problem is that it is unlikely to detect antibodies in someone who has had the virus less than 3 months. I don't know how accurate it is to be perfectly honest but I believe current blood tests have to be confirmed after 3-6 months.

Despite my concerns I'm not convinced there is a reasonable alternative. People just dont practice safe sex enough. Myself included if I'm honest but I'm not promiscuous and am generally responsible.

 

[old.user4556]

It's a fucking disasterous idea; another reason to increase human complacency.

We've got enough teen pregnancies already, enough people with HIV/AIDS - bring out a test which isn't going to be 100% correct is only going to make think "oh, i've used a test, lets fuck without a condom - we might not gets aids, but you might get preggers and i'll get the clap".

I can't be arsed putting together a well argued reply, so i'll say it's a shit idea.

 

[Whipped]

Make a pill that you can take before a night out, that becomes effective after 5 pints, and when activated removes your sex drive. That should solve a whole ton of problems.

All nights out may not be as fun

 

[leggy]

Ecstacy?

 

[Chilly]

I read most of that article, but not every word - was there any actualy technical info about the test? IE its accuracy and limitations? If not then all you guys speculating about it being no good and inaccurate are doing just that, speculating.

Just because current tests may be quite complicated, it does not mean new techiques have not been invented, it said in that article that the test was already available at clinics (and presumably used) so it cant be that crap?

 

[Whipped]

I don't think anyone's got a problem with how acurate the test is. More the fact that there are many STDs that are prevented from protected sex and this test may encourage more people to have unprotected sex.

I think that's where everyone was going anyway.

 

[Bodhi]

Ecstacy?

Yes please.

 

[Chilly]

I don't think anyone's got a problem with how acurate the test is. More the fact that there are many STDs that are prevented from protected sex and this test may encourage more people to have unprotected sex.

I think that's where everyone was going anyway.

That's fair enough.

 

[Asuyi]

I think it is a good thing, it is much better than having to drag your partner to the clinic to take the test together there.

 

[TdC]

28th November 2005

it lives! it liiiiives!!!1

 

[Chilly]

this must have been in the archive

 

[old.Tohtori]

"I think there would be a lot more unprotected sex if there was a 20-minute test that people could take,"

Hmh. This is the reason it might backfire.

Let's forget all the other things out there, as long as it's not HIV!

Anyhoop, this test proves nothing really.

You're drunk, you go home with someone, she asks if you got hiv(like that ain't reason enough to kick her out) and you can always say, like men have said all through the times "Oh i took it yesterday".

Goes in the same pile as "I'll pull out in time", "Ofcourse i love you after i just met you", or "Oh damn i gotta be at work!"(at 4am)

 

[Skyler]

I love reading old threats that have been brought up from the dead.. because there is always one person that quotes someone who posted something 2 years ago and responds to them as if it was posted yesterday.. I love it!

You win Tohtori!

TdC was right back then though.

 

[old.Tohtori]

I love reading old threats that have been brought up from the dead.. because there is always one person that quotes someone who posted something 2 years ago and responds to them as if it was posted yesterday.. I love it!

You win Tohtori!

TdC was right back then though.

Well i didn't resurrect it! Or quote anyone! No wait...are you saying i win the internet?

 

[mycenae]

its good in that it might lessen the rate of people contracting HIV....but the thing is, in thew western world, HIV isn;t our currently biggest growing problem, its the OTHER STI's, which there is no quick, do it yourself test for, and things like herpes, syphilis, and all that malarkey, whilst they're maybe not as regualrly life threatening to those who have them, they are life threatening in the fact that they make women and men infertile, thereby preventing new life from occuring. ( and anyway, anyone ever seen a willy infected with some of the nastier STI'S? Its not a pleasant site!)
The places where these HIV tests really need to be made available, such as in africa where they have a national pandemic going on, well, thats blatantly never going to happen.

 

[TdC]

TdC was right back then though.

I was? err I mean, sure I was!

 

[Calaen]

Sounds good,


Gotta beat the umbrella scrape tbh, until you have had it done you cannot possibly imagine it !!!!! I have hear it is even worse when you do actually have something. But it is only for HIv so blah.

 

[Dillinja]

Isn't it quite easy to tell if someone has AIDS anyway? They look pale, skinny and cough a lot.

 

[Doomy]

Isn't it quite easy to tell if someone has AIDS anyway? They look pale, skinny and cough a lot.

Dur. Thats only if you got bad AIDS.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Isn't it quite easy to tell if someone has AIDS anyway? They look pale, skinny and cough a lot.

That's a smoking daoc player

 

[Skyler]

I don't think I'd like it, it's scary..

and yes TdC you were right...

oh and no Tohtori, you don't