[Felvtalk] slight positives v very very very positives?

[TatorBunz at aol.com]

I totally agree with you on this MC
It's either positive or negative!
 
In a message dated 7/19/2008 11:54:02 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
twelvehousecats at gmail.com writes:

there's  no such thing as very very very, or very very or very positive, or 
faint  positive: there is positive, or there is negative. give me a couple of 
days  and i will even be able to give you the reference from a far more 
reputable  source than myself, because i just found it for sure the other day. i 
believe  the wording, as some of us have less elegantly stated it before, was that 
the  spot responds with coloration, or no coloration. if you've never seen a  
snap-type ELISA test, it might not make that much sense, but it's a little  
piece of paper that has dots in different places that are treated to respond  
to different antigens or antibodies or test solution: it doesn't measure how  
MUCH, or how RECENT, or any of that, it just says that yes, that particular  
whatever IS there. i have never seen, anywhere, any reference to the color  
having any quantifiable value, especially considering the nature of the test:  you 
HAVE to read the dots at a specific time period after the test is started,  
or it is not valid, as the paper can continue to react past that time. so if  
the FeLV circle has NO COLOR at 10 minutes or whatever the specific test  
specifies, the test result is NEGATIVE. ten minutes later, for those vets who  
forgot to set the timer (doing snap tests incorrectly is one of the top ten  
mistakes vets admit to) that same circle may actually show color. the cat is  NOT 
positiive, because the accurate testing period is OVER. so a light spot at  10 
minutes is as positive as a dark spot at 10 minutes is, either -- it's the  
existence of color, at the specific time that counts. 

do vets not  realize this? i'm not sure. i don't remember the last time i 
read the idexx  instructions, but they're pretty detailed, and i don't think they 
were  unclear. so i'm not sure if vets are trying to cushion the blow, 
knowing that  one should never take the results of a single test, especially an 
ELISA, as  the final determinant, they haven't read the instructions themselves in 
years,  or well, it LOOKS lighter, and they've just forgotten whatever they 
knew about  the underlying science of the test.....





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