The details of how a bogus test result reportedly shut down the billion-dollar adult industry for a week are still shrouded in secrecy -- but porn actress Dylan Ryan says she understands what the performer, known as "Patient Alpha," must be feeling. That's because she experienced firsthand the terror, and unparalleled relief, of a false-positive HIV test.
It happened before she entered the business, so she has unique insight on both the adult industry and what it's like to experience an HIV scare as a non-performer. Eight years ago, she went to a reputable testing site in San Francisco -- she was starting a new monogamous relationship and wanted to play it safe. They gave her an FDA-approved rapid fingerstick test that can turn around results in a mere 20 minutes -- but 40 minutes later she was called into an office by a man "who had a worried look on his face," she said in an email. He told her she had a positive result -- but, as she started to cry, he added that a confirmation test, which would take a couple of days to process, was still needed. "It felt terrifying but also like it couldn't possibly be," she said. "I ran through all the possibilities over and over."
She debated whether to tell anyone and ultimately decided against it: "It felt too shameful, too scary and if there was a chance I wasn't positive, I wanted to hold on to that for as long as possible. I dreaded having to call partners and possibly tell and then lose my new person." When the test results came in, she was called into the office and "sat in the waiting room, feeling like I was going to vomit at any moment," she said. "I could have sworn that everyone was staring at me." The same counselor from before called her into the same room where she had received the bad news just days before, but this time, as soon as he shut the door, he said, "I have good news." Ryan started to cry, "even harder than the last time I was in the room," she says.
False positives can arise because of certain medical conditions (like lupus, Lyme disease and syphilis), sample contamination, or clinicians' failing to follow proper follow-up protocol. It's estimated that the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, which is currently the standard screening approach for the general population, has a false-positive rate of one to five per 100,000 tests. ELISA is sensitive enough that if someone gets a negative result, a follow-up test generally isn't needed -- but a positive result always calls for a confirmation test, most often by the more targeted Western blot test. That brings the rate of false positives to roughly 1 in 250,000 cases, according to the AIDS charity AVERT. The adult industry has relied on a different test with a smaller "window period" between exposure and possible detection: The pricey and specialized PCR/DNA technique can yield results as early as two weeks after exposure by detecting HIV itself rather than the antibodies caused by the virus.
The Free Speech Coalition, the organization currently working to create a new testing system following the bankruptcy of Adult Industry Medical (AIM), hasn't revealed any specifics about how the performer in question received a false positive. Most have chalked that up to respect for patient confidentiality or the chaos of a business in transition, although one conspiracy-minded pornographer has suggested it's a coverup. One thing is certain: Uncertainty and paranoia isn't unusual following a false positive.
"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy," Ryan said of her experience with a false positive. "I know that testing has improved exponentially since [then] and I am glad that fewer people will experience that kind of momentary life upheaval."
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