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Is pcr testing reliable
Last Updated on January 20, by Shaun Snapp. The tests were never accurate which calls into question the overall pandemic. If you want to see our references for this article and related Brightwork articles, visit this link. COVID statistics is part of our everyday life. We constantly hear that despite so-called COVID measures there is an increase in cases and infections.
From the beginning, the assumption was that there is a reliable test for covid. I write this in November of , and I do not recall the accuracy of testing being covered by the establishment media since the pandemic began.
Everyone I speak to has no idea the covid test is not reliable. And I will get into the problematic timeline regarding the covid tests further on in the article. It is necessary since only DNA can be multiplied amplified at the levels which can be detected by fluorescence. Every multiplication is called threshold cycle or Ct. PCR also made its mark in forensic science. Suddenly there was no need for radioactivity or chemiluminescence-based detection, as the PCR could produce millions of copies of DNA from only a few cells.
This is a bit complex and easy to gloss over. The critical part of this quote to me is that the test requires amplification. So it is not like many other tests where you take blood or other fluids and then the item is either present or not present.
This test requires an amplification algorithm before determining either true or false. Then there is a question of how many times you run the algorithm. Past 35 is not even worthy. This viral genetic material, of course, is subject to the specificity. It appears as if the FDA desired also positives. I will address this later, but the point appears to have been to exaggerate the number of cases to create a pandemic.
The tests are very sensitive and can detect traces of the viral RNA. The main problem with mass use of a sensitive test is that it can be contaminated rather easy. Since the technique is specific and only few people are familiar with it, test companies hire people who have little or even no training to do the sampling and testing.
It means that every step from taking the sample to performing the test must be in a sterile environment to avoid contamination. In summary, a positive RT-qPCR test result cannot be accepted as proof that the person in question is currently infected and infectious—even if there is reasonable clinical plausibility of actual COVID infection, as well as a significant community prevalence of the disease.
So this means a positive test will be yielded when the virus is dead. The test cannot distinguish between a live and dead virus. This is simply amazing that it is not more widely covered. If, for example, such a pathogen flies over the nasal mucous membrane of a nurse for a day without them becoming ill or noticing anything, then it is suddenly a MERS case.
Where previously terminally ill were reported, now suddenly mild cases and people who are actually very healthy are included in the reporting statistics. This could also explain the explosion in the number of cases in Saudi Arabia. In the Corman-Drosten paper, we observe unusually high and varying primer concentrations for several primers table 1.
It should be clear that these concentrations are far too high to be optimal for specific amplifications of target genes. There exists no specified reason to use these extremely high concentrations of primers in this protocol. Rather, these concentrations lead to increased unspecific binding and PCR product amplification. No reason if Drosten wanted an accurate test, but a good reason if he wanted a test that produced false positives.
To obtain reproducible and comparable results, it is essential to distinctively define the primer pairs. The letter W means that at this position there can be either an A or a T; R signifies there can be either a G or an A; M indicates that the position may either be an A or a C; the letter S indicates there can be either a G or a C on this position.
This high number of variants not only is unusual, but it also is highly confusing for laboratories. Therefore, the confusing unspecific description in the Corman-Drosten paper is not suitable as a Standard Operational Protocol. These unspecified positions should have been designed unequivocally. These wobbly sequences have already created a source of concern in the field and resulted in a Letter to the Editor authored by Pillonel et al.
These errors are self-evident in the Corman et al. PCR test study was performed without a sample of a potential infected person. It means that the laboratories which perform the test must use the exact same reagents and perform the test in the exact the same way.
The technique which is used is not only complicated, and requires well trained personnel but also is very sensitive. However, the way around the fact that the test is not repeatable, is to only run the PCR test once. With only one test run there is no risk of conflicting results. If 2 of the samples show same result it is valid. Running the sample only one time means that the result could be an error which due to the reasons mentioned above is quite likely.
It is one of the most simple rules to clinical and experimental sciences. The genome of the coronavirus is the largest of all RNA viruses that infect humans and they all have a very similar molecular structure. The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of nCoV infection. This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens. There should be a Standard Operational Procedure SOP available, which unequivocally specifies the above parameters, so that all laboratories are able to set up the identical same test conditions.
To have a validated universal SOP is essential, because it facilitates data comparison within and between countries.
It is very important to specify all primer parameters unequivocally. We note that this has not been done. Further, the Ct value to indicate when a sample should be considered positive or negative is not specified.
As shown above, the test cannot discern between virus and virus fragments, so the Ct value indicating positivity is crucially important. This Ct value should have been specified in the Standard Operational Procedure SOP and put on-line so that all laboratories carrying out this test have exactly the same boundary conditions. It points to flawed science that such an SOP does not exist. The laboratories are thus free to conduct the test as they consider appropriate, resulting in an enormous amount of variation.
Laboratories all over Europe are left with a multitude of questions; which primers to order? How many PCR cycles to run? At what Ct value is the sample positive? And when is it negative? And how many genes to test?
Should the N gene be tested as well? And what is their negative control? What is their positive control? Any molecular biologist familiar with RT-PCR design would have easily observed the grave errors present in the Corman-Drosten paper before the actual review process. We asked Eurosurveillance on October 26th to send us a copy of the peer review report.
To date, we have not received this report and in a letter dated November 18th , the ECDC as host for Eurosurveillance declined to provide access without providing substantial scientific reasons for their decision. A final point is one of major concern. It turns out that two authors of the Corman-Drosten paper, Christian Drosten and Chantal Reusken, are also members of the editorial board of this journal [19].
Hence there is a severe conflict of interest which strengthens suspicions that the paper was not peer-reviewed. It has the appearance that the rapid publication was possible simply because the authors were also part of the editorial board at Eurosurveillance. This practice is categorized as compromising scientific integrity.
We find severe conflicts of interest for at least four authors, in addition to the fact that two of the authors of the Corman-Drosten paper Christian Drosten and Chantal Reusken are members of the editorial board of Eurosurveillance. Both are responsible for the virus diagnostics there [21] and the company operates in the realm of real time PCR-testing. RT-PCR is not recommended for primary diagnostics of infection.
These are severe design errors, since the test cannot discriminate between the whole virus and viral fragments. The test cannot be used as a diagnostic for SARS-viruses.
I am the co-developer of two quantitative methods that were painstakingly developed for quantitating glyphosate molecules in food, and for cannabinoid concentrations in hemp extracts. I am intimately familiar with instrument calibration, external standards, curve fit equations and quantitative analysis. PCR instruments are not capable of any of this.
They are useless for diagnosing infectious disease, as they cannot produce viral load concentration results from a given sample. None of the tests can tell if someone is sick i. Hmmm…so we do not have and have never had a test to determine if someone has covid — while there has been enormous focus on the aggregated numbers of cases that were accumulated through tests that do not work. This kind of test shows if you have antibodies against the virus. It could be used as a proof that you are already immune to coronavirus but could react to the other four common cold coronaviruses cross-reactivity.
Antibody test cannot tell if you currently have a virus. This test as the PCR should not be used to put someone in quarantine. The test shows if you have an antigen against a protein from the virus. Tests are promoted as good to be taken by everyone including kids. Because of the many false positive results rapid antigen test cannot be considered as reliable test.
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