Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 17, 1990                   TAG: 9005170312
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AIDS TEST SOMETIMES LIES, DOCTORS REPORT

Dr. Tab Ansari of Emory University in Atlanta said his laboratory tested the blood of 165 people who had tested negative for the AIDS virus and found that 30 were infected.

He said in an interview that the study raises the possibility there are people who are chronically infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, but who never get sick or develop easily found antibodies.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Ansari said his team used a new type of test to find HIV antibodies that had escaped detection by routine hospital laboratory blood tests.

"All of the ones that they found positive, we found positive," Ansari said. "But in addition, there were quite a few that were negative in their assay that were picked up as positive." - Associated Press