For Ann Perry and any others who may be interested, there was
an editorial in JAMA, October 1988 Vol. 260(13) p. 1830 which
addressed this issue.  Many of the babies who test HIV positive are
not infected and will not develop AIDS.  The authors said that only
30- 50% of babies who test HIV antibody positive at the time of birth
are actually infected.  The remaining infants test positive because
of maternal antibodies.  The infants who test positive but who are
not infected will test negative after a year or so.  They are trying
to learn why the virus is not transmitted to all children of
infected moms. Therefore, the 5 year old born with AIDS, probably
never had it and that is why he tested negative at the age of 5.

Many of the HIV positive babies are infants of moms who are IV drug
users and often remain in hospital as border babies.  Many people
don't want to adopt them because they may die.  The cost in terms
of denying these babes a good home, not to mention the cost of care
is tremendous.  An equally important question may be: How many babies
are kept in hospital, treated with universal precautions
during most of their infancy, and essentially isolated from love on
the basis of a false positive test?  We need a test which will sort
out the false from the true positives.

Unfortunately, there still remains the concern that babies who are
breastfed may become infected through breast milk.  If many HIV
positive infants are *not* infected at birth, then much as we all
support and promote breastfeeding, we probably shouldn't encourage
breastfeeding in this group.

Hope this helps; although, my final comments will probably stimulate
some reaction.

Sheila


Sheila J. Evans                              (519) 661-3395
Faculty of Nursing                      Fax: (519) 661-3928
University of Western Ontario           email [log in to unmask]
London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C1