They said these tests are very accurate — the only drawback being the chance of false positives.  They said this occurs once in a few thousand tests. 

If I do the math correctly, the risk of a false positive is higher than infection for many sexual encounters.  

Do you Doctors feel that this is really a material risk or can one go to such a clinic, take the Determine test with confidence?

I would like to take advantage of this offering but the false positive disclaimer concerns me. 

Thank you.

Welcome back to the Forum.  All tests have false positive rates, fortunately, the false positivity rates for currently approved the generation HIV tests is very, very low, occurring once in every tens of thousands tests.  In addition to the inherently low false positive rates in current tests however, in evaluating persons with newly positive tests for HIV, typically a second, unrelated test is performed (only tests which are positive on the first test are tested with the second test, tests negative the first time are not tested again).  The chance of a false positive test in the second test is about as low the chance with the first test BUT, when the two tests are done sequentially, the chance of both, unrelated tests becomes vanishingly low and is not something to worry about. I know from our past exchanges that you are quite cautious but I would not let concerns about the possibility of false positive results keep you from seeking testing for HIV.

JHope this explanation is helpful.  EWH

Specific to my question, going to a planned parenthood clinic to get a rapid Alere Determine 4th generation test should not be a concern reagirdjng the possibility of a false positive?

As you can see from previous exchanges my anxiety surrounding testing is rather high. 

This time around I am considering a 6 week post exposure test in addition to a negative 4th generation result I got at the 4 week mark (which i thought was conclusive but see that you have changed to six weeks)  The exposure was kissing, rimming and hand jobs once about six weeks ago. 

Would you think I should get the 6 week conclusive result in the face of possible false positive given my exposure?

Thank you 

I’ll use my final question  in the following manner:

For the exposures i mentioned which included rimming deeply both ways, would a four week negative Alere Determine test be conclusive?  or to be sure 100% a test at 41/42 days is required?

Thank you again...

Test performance varies over time since exposure.  Well over 99% of positives that are going to be positive would be positive on the Alere test at 4 weeks with a VERY small numbers of positives occurring between weeks 4 and 6.  This is true for all tests that are going to be positive.  OTOH, the events you describe, including bidirectional DEEP rimming are no risk events.  Thus you can be confident that any further testing you do related to this the events you described will also be negative.

As you know, with this 3rd response, the thread will now be closed.  Take care.  EWH