Are You Positive?

by Stephen Davis

  * * *

  Sarah is still in Starbucks, celebrating her victory, having ordered another latte and a bran muffin to go with it. There’s one more loose end to tie up, and she hopes Dr. Fowler will have the answer. She finds his number at Johns Hopkins, puts on her hands-free headset, and dials her cell phone.

  “Hello?” Sarah hears in her earpiece.

  “Dr. Fowler?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so glad you answered. This is Sarah Meadows. I’m a reporter for the Arizona Tribune newspaper. I covered the AIDS trial in Phoenix where you testified last October, or was it early November?”

  “I recognize your name. I also think I saw you at the HIV trial in South Carolina as well. Wasn’t that you sitting in the gallery when I was there?”

  “Yes, it was. Thank you for noticing.”

  “I try not to miss noticing beautiful women, Miss Meadows.”

  Oh, my God. “It’s Mrs. Meadows, Dr. Fowler.”

  “Your husband is a lucky man, and that doesn’t make you any less beautiful.”

  Was this a mistake? Never mind that. Ask him what you want to know. He’s an expert in his field, regardless of anything else. “Dr. Fowler, I have a problem I was hoping you could help me with.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “For the last six months, I have interviewed a lot of people who have been told they are HIV-Positive; and the one thing I hear over and over again from them is their hope to one day test HIV-Negative and be rid of this curse. Is that possible, do you know?”

  There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “That’s not an easy question to answer, Mrs. Meadows. Yes, it is possible that someone who tests HIV-Positive can suddenly test Negative at some point. I mean, it’s happened – not very frequently, but it’s happened. Most people – the vast majority of people – once they have tested positive, are going to test positive for the rest of their lives.”

  “Why?”

  “It has to do with the way antibodies work, Mrs. Meadows. You are aware that these HIV tests are antibody tests?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, just to refresh your memory, antibodies are created in response to a perceived threat to our health as a way of protecting us from diseases. Once we make an antibody, it usually stays in our systems forever, in case we should encounter that threat at any time in our future.”

  “In other words, we keep our antibodies for life?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “I think I get the picture….” Sarah grabs a pen and some paper to take notes.

  “When someone tests Positive on an HIV antibody test, it means that they have an antibody that is reacting with one of the proteins in the test kit. We know, of course, that it doesn’t mean they have HIV; but it does mean their immune system doesn’t like one or more of the proteins it finds…”

  Sarah knows where this is going. “…and they’re going to have that antibody forever; and any time they are tested against that same protein, there’s going to be a similar reaction – a positive test result.”

  “Correct. You’ve got it.”

  “So what that means, Dr. Fowler, is that unless a person loses that antibody, or the protein in the test kit is changed and is no longer there, they will test positive for the rest of their lives.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it means.”

  Sarah is reminded of the stories she has read recently. “So how have some people tested negative after a while?”

  “Maybe there are some antibodies we don’t keep if our immune system decides they’re not needed any more, but we don’t necessarily know how or why. It may also be because something changed in our immune system to suppress this antibody for the time being.”

  “Do you mean the immune system got stronger, or weaker?”

  “That’s another good question. The immune system may have gotten stronger and not needed that antibody any more, or it may have gotten weaker and not had the antibody there to react with the protein. We simply don’t know.”

  Sarah puts her pen down. This obviously is not going where I hoped it would. “Is there anything anyone can do to increase their chances of changing their HIV test results?”

  “I think there may be some study going on right now, maybe at Harvard Medical, but don’t hold me to that, looking at the few people who have seroconverted back to HIV-Negative, trying to find out how and why they did it. But right now, we have no answers; so there is nothing I can suggest to anyone to intentionally change their results – other than eating right, doing the things to ensure they have a strong immune system, and praying that some day they might be one of the lucky ones.”

  “And maybe one day we’ll find out, through these studies, how to make it happen for more people?”

  “Maybe. But I wouldn’t raise anybody’s hopes right now. There are just too many questions.”

  Despite her joy over getting the interview with Campbell, Sarah suddenly feels very sad and depressed. “So you’re saying that someone who has tested HIV-Positive has to live with it for the rest of their lives.”

  “I hate to say it, but yes. Obviously, there are things they can do for themselves, like doing their own research until they are convinced from all the scientific studies that HIV poses no danger to them, and they might just as well forget their diagnosis and get on with living healthy and happy lives.”

  “But there’s still the social stigma that goes along with being HIV-Positive.”

  “Yes, which is why people like you and I have a responsibility to do whatever we can to change society’s understanding of HIV and AIDS; and I can see that you’re doing whatever you can already.”

  Sarah’s not so sure she deserves the compliment. “I hope so, Dr. Fowler, but I wish there was more I could do. These people still live with the fear and the trauma of being called HIV-Positive, and it’s hard to shake that after twenty-some years of brainwashing.”

  “You’re so right about that. But on the other hand, it’s an opportunity for each individual to stop believing what they’re told by the so-called authorities and what they’re fed by our controlled mass media and start to think for themselves. That’s really what it’s going to take on a one-by-one basis – reclaiming total responsibility for ourselves and our own well-being.”

  Sarah wishes the answer could be different, but she knows Fowler is right. She just doesn’t know what to say next. Fowler senses her disappointment and tries to paint a brighter picture.

  “Mrs. Meadows, let me put it this way: Until such time as the HIV tests are changed, removing all the proteins that react with non-HIV antibodies, or until such time that the world wakes up to the fact that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and forgets all about this harmless little retrovirus, most HIV-Positives are going to have to resign themselves to their test results and rise above them.”

  “I just talk to so many people who are in pain over this, Dr. Fowler, and long for the day they are set free from it all, that I wish things could be different.”

  “Don’t we all, Mrs. Meadows. Don’t we all.”