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The Blood Products Laboratory did not have expertise in propagating retroviruses and Professor Weiss believed they would need to seek collaboration to produce a mass-use anti-HTLV-3 RIA.

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Professor Weiss said he had been "barely involved" in negotiating with companies regarding funding. DHSS negotiated on his behalf.

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Professor Weiss wrote in his statement that "we did not begin to develop an ELISA. Wellcome Diagnostics Ltd proposed to substitute ELISA for RIA in a screening test based on the competition format HIV antibody test that we had developed as a research tool, and Dr Tedder and I readily agreed."

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An article in The Guardian reported that a blood donor had passed the AIDS virus to three people - a mother, a baby, a 78-year-old man in the Brighton area.

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In a memo, Mr Williams of the Department of Health and Social Security drew attention to three incidents of UK blood being given by donors found positive by the screening test for HTLV III. He also added: "These incidents reinforce the current policy of the Department....(ii) developing a screening test and carrying out pilot studies of the test (in North London Transfusion Centre shortly)".

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Wellcome sub-contracted Porton Down to produce the antigen. This could be used by the BPL to make screening tests for RTCs.

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The Department of Health and Social Security internally agreed that the Tedder/Weiss test was the "most sensitive RIA for HTLV-III presently available".

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Professor Tedder and his colleagues were already thinking that they needed to get away from RIA to EIA.

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Dr Brian McClelland stated he wished there to be "no doubt of the extreme pressure being placed on the transfusion services to ensure that no 'high risk donors' donate blood - a task which is essentially quite impossible unless some form of screening test is available."

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Regional transfusion directors in Scotland had contemplated introducing an American test in the absence of progress toward a UK choice until the SHHD put a stop to that because they had given assurances to the DHSS that Scotland would follow its lead.

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There were delays owing to changes in direction for screening testing kits from RIA to ELISA test kits following the onboarding of Wellcome. Dr Brian McClelland wrote to Wellcome to express deep concern about the lack of test kits being made available. He emphasised that urgency was required and it was better to have some testing in place rather than none at all.

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Pharmaceutical companies planning to market AIDS screening tests in the UK were notified that the Department of Health and Social Security proposed to set up an evaluation programme for investigating the performance of screening test systems.

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Dr Gunson said in a Central Blood Laboratories Authority meeting that "if the United Kingdom needed to be converted for enzyme testing it would pose a serious problem for the continuance of RIA testing. It was therefore considered vital that a British test be developed."

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Dr Smithies said that the Department of Health was "taking all practical steps" to introduce HTLV-3 testing for people with haemophilia and also added that the evaluation was still at the preliminary stage of "arranging that all tests for antibody to HTLV-III should be evaluated in order that recommendation can be made of the most suitable to use in the blood transfusion services and also by the NHS.".

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A report on the results of the Food and Drug Administration evaluation of HTLV-3 antibody screening tests stated that a large number of false positive tests were liable to be produced, and underlined a need for there to be a comparative evaluation of the tests.

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The Department of Health and Social Security maintained its stance on "firm plans to evaluate all the anti-HTLVIII kits that are marketed in the UK and this work will be started as soon as possible. An evaluation protocol is being devised and when it is ready all companies in the field will be given the opportunity to comment on it."

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Dr Tedder, Professor Weiss and Professor Adler confirmed that though their test worked reasonably well as a laboratory tool, adequate scaling up was still to be achieved if it was to be used. It was agreed that it would probably be necessary for the Blood Transfusion Service to go ahead and use the first successful test that became available.

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The Expert Advisory Group on AIDS Screening Tests Sub Group Report on the Introduction of a Test for Antibody to the AIDS Related Virus was published.

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Alun Williams wrote to Mr Harris and Ms McKessack, correcting John Patten's statement in Parliament that "we hope to have a screening test within a few weeks". Alun Williams stated: "It would be more accurate to say that we hope to begin evaluating screening tests within the next few weeks."

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The chairman of the EAGA said in a meeting that while it was important to introduce a reliable screening test as soon as possible "an effective evaluation of the tests was essential and should not be rushed". Professor Bloom was the only person who was recorded as expressing concern regarding the delay of introducing a reliable screening test.

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