Andrew Stimpson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Andrew Stimpson (born 1980 in Largs, Scotland) is a Scottish man who tested negative for HIV fourteen months after an initial test returned a positive result. While there have been anecdotal reports from Africa of people fighting off the virus, Stimpson's case was the first to have been medically tested.

After having supposedly contracted the disease from his HIV-positive boyfriend Juan Gomez (born 1961), Stimpson first stated that he felt "tired, weak and feverish" and had three blood tests at the Victoria Clinic for HIV and Sexual Health in West London (a specialist outpatient clinic of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, which is largest HIV Unit in Europe and is responsible for providing the HIV care to more than 20% of those diagnosed as living with HIV in the United Kingdom). In 2002, he was diagnosed as HIV-positive. After these results, Stimpson claims he contemplated suicide, keeping the virus a secret from his family, bar his youngest sister.

In October 2003, Stimpson was offered another test, which came back negative. He claimed he was "baffled" and "convinced there must have been a mistake." He sued the hospital, believing they had made a mistake, but two later tests confirmed that both results were correct.

As Stimpson was supposedly in the early stages of HIV, he was not taking any medication for the disease, but he had however made a personal choice to start taking multivitamin and mineral tablets along with other dietary supplements. Stimpson and Juan began having unprotected anal sex (with Stimpson in the passive role) after the positive test result, assuming they had nothing to lose.

While the hospital couldn't initially confirm whether Stimpson had actually been cured of the disease, Stimpson was urged to undergo further tests in hope of reproducing the result in others. He was initially reported to have turned this down, but subsequently underwent further testing at St Mary's hospital in London. On the 14th November, 2005, Stimpson told the Daily Mail: "There are 34.9 million people with HIV and if I have something to contribute, then I am willing and ready to help."

On November 16, the story appeared to have come to a close when it was revealed that Stimpson may never have been infected with HIV in the first place. A UPI story quoted the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital as saying: "It is probably there was never any evidence of him having the HIV virus...We don't know exactly what happened." However, this remains unsubstantiated and, according to the UK organization AVERT, results of additional tests are pending.