GorillaOffTopic, Everything But Gorilla Trades

It is a stressful world we live in and health issues can often make it even more stressful. Now the Gorilla asks you, how stressed out would you be if you were a New Yorker having an HIV test at a free clinic, and when you got the initial result, you were told it was positive? Would you freak out? Would you be afraid you would die? Would you cry? That is exactly what happened to hundreds of people who were incorrectly told that they had tested positive for HIV at a New York City STD clinic this winter.  The Department of Health confirmed that almost half of the results given by the clinic were in fact, false positives. From November to April, 213 people tested positive after taking a rapid mouth swab HIV test. It was not until a second test was taken that the people found out that they did not, in fact, have HIV. Now that’s a big mistake for the maker of the test, OraSure Technologies.  Meanwhile, despite the false positives, the city continued to administer the tests. Thus, it seems they have some explaining to do. The Department of Health has stopped using the swab and it is investigating the reason for the false positives. The DOH says that a blood test was immediately administered after the swabs were done, revealing the real result. However, the psychological harm had already been done. Swab tests were introduced in 2005 as a popular test for STD’s at city clinics. The number of people tested for HIV grew 24% that year.  ”Nobody was misled or harmed,” said Dr. Susan Blank, assistant DOH commissioner and director of the bureau of STD control. Well it’s a big huge “OOPS” for the city, and even though no “harm” was done, the undue stress was not called for. Can anyone say “lawsuit?”