Below is an example of headline-hungry media chasing a non-story and failing to put claims into any kind of mathematical perspective.

Just look at these major media headlines:

Briton cures himself of HIV, medical world stunned
Patient cures himself of HIV
Doctors baffled as HIV man ‘cures’ himself
MIRACLE HIV SCOT COULD CURE MILLIONS

Too bad nobody bothered to call a statistician who would have likely come up with a much different, albeit less headline-grabbing, conclusion. But first the backstory:

Andrew Stimpson, 25, was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2002 but was found to be negative in October 2003 by Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust. The negative test has been repeated and Mr. Stimpson recently went public with the story.

“There are 34.9 million people with HIV globally and I am just one person who managed to control it, to survive from it and to get rid of it from my body.

It is certainly one possibility that out of 34.9 million cases, Mr. Stimpson was cured. Another far more likely posssibility is that the original test was a false positive. Unfortunately, none of the articles published so far have made mention of the possibility of a false positive and are instead running with the attention grabbing story of the “miracle cure.”

Look at these quotes:

“It’s the statistical equivalent of going to the moon without a spaceship. HIV researchers will be jumping up and down about this.”

“All the doctors have told me it is a medical miracle that I am clear [of the virus].

‘You’ve cured yourself! This is unbelievable; you’re fantastic.’”

Perhaps it will also be in Scotland that a vaccine for HIV will be discovered thanks to a man name “Stimpson”.

Doctors believe Stimpson’s body rid itself of HIV.

Doctors also believe Stimpson’s case can offer important insights into the behavior of the virus, and possible means of defeating it.

Only Marginal Revolution seems to have their thinking caps on:

The story is pathetically simple once one gets past the headlines. A man tested positive for HIV, he took a lot of vitamins and just over a year later tested negative (several times). Now what are you going to believe that he cured himself of HIV or that the first test was wrong? HIV tests have high accuracy but when millions of people take these tests it’s an easy bet that there will be significant numbers of false positives.

Over the past 2 years Mr. Stimpson has repeatedly declined requests for additional tests and an unfortunate side-effect of his “miracle” is the false hope may give or the Aids-curing hypotheses that will inevitably result from this sample size of one:

Take the same vitamins as Mr. Stimpson
Drink the same water as Mr. Stimpson
Go to the same doctor as Mr. Stimpson
Live in Scotland like Mr. Stimpson

Another point about Mr. Stimpson: upon learning of his “miracle” he attempted to sue the testing lab before being told he had no case. He appears to have recently sold his story for an undisclosed monetary payment. What good is a miracle if you can’t cash in on it somehow?

Update: Since selling his story, Mr. Stimpson’s handlers have modified his “no testing on me” position to “I’ll do whatever I can to help find a cure.” (Yeah, right).

Let’s hope that HIV “denialists” do not somehow cite this as “evidence” that HIV does not cause aids. (There is enough bad science in the original story without them getting involved.)

technorati: hiv aids

trackbacked: Political Teen

This entry was posted on Monday, November 14th, 2005 at 9:54 am by Insider and is filed under I knew I'd use my Econ major. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.