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David E. Dassey, MD
County of Riverside Department of Health Riverside, Calif

JAMA. 1986;255(6):743.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The otherwise excellent update on human T-cell lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III) antibody testing¹ contains a statement that I believe needs correcting. It states that practitioners may receive referrals of antibody-positive persons for "medical counseling on a fatal and incurable disease... that has an incubation period of up to five years."

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is not a disease; it is a syndrome whose criteria were strictly chosen for epidemiologic purposes. By definition, then, AIDS encompasses the fatal form of HTLV-III disease. Evidence mounts that those with irreversible disease due to HTLV-III represent only a small fraction of all those infected. The term "incubation" should not be used in regard to development of the terminal form of this viral infection; if anything, "incubation" should refer to the period between exposure and the development of biochemical or clinical objective findings. Used in this way, the incubation of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Senior Contributing Editor, Sharon Iverson, Assistant Editor.

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