Bogus HIV tests
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Alfa Scientific Designs is charged by the Federal Trade Commission with falsely representing that its Alfa HIV-1/2 Rapid Tests accurately detect HIV in its third legal action to date against a marketer of HIV tests. San Diego-based Alfa supplied the faulty HIV tests to Medimax, Inc., which was charged by the FTC in December for falsely representing on the Internet that its HIV tests accurately detected the disease (1"The Gray Sheet" Dec. 6, p. 24). On Nov. 17, FTC announced a settlement of charges against Las Vegas-based Cyberlinx Marketing related to claims over the Internet that its tests accurately detected HIV, including a ban from marketing any HIV test kits and repayment of sales proceeds. Alfa has agreed to a stipulated preliminary injunction that will halt all sales of its HIV tests. The complaint and stipulated preliminary injunction were filed Jan. 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California