KC-area clinic offers cheap, fast coronavirus testing, but experts warn against it
A clinic in Lee’s Summit began offering antibody testing for the new coronavirus on Monday. Test results take about 10 minutes and cost $20.
On Wednesday, patients pulled up in a drive-thru line to get tested. But experts warn that the antibody tests that are currently available are not accurate.
Doctors at the University of Kansas Health System said antibody testing is improving, but remains problematic. It’s different from the standard testing in use at hospitals and clinics around the country.
The antibody tests do not discern between COVID-19 and other types of coronaviruses, and a subset of people who have contracted COVID-19 do not end up producing antibodies.
“There’s a lot of problems with these antibody tests right now,” said Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infectious prevention and control at the health system. “There are a lot of labs trying to make these tests. Some of these tests may not be validated correctly ... Some of these results may not be truly reflecting if you really did have the disease or not.”
Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the health system, cautioned people about relying on antibody tests which can produce false negative or positive results, giving people a false sense of security either way.
“Be thoughtful about it before you go pay money,” he said.
Blue Lotus Family Medicine in Lee’s Summit began using the tests this week. The tests use blood to identify antibodies that the body produces to fight the virus.
Physician Tiffanny Blythe said about 80 tests have been conducted so far.
The tests were ordered from Confirm Biosciences. Blythe said the kits have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but that the FDA has made testing exceptions under the Emergency Use Authorization.
A search of that company on the FDA’s website showed no results under the list of approved exceptions.
“Based on the underlying scientific principles of antibody tests, we do not expect an antibody test can be shown to definitively diagnose or exclude SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the FDA’s website said.
Blythe said the tests can detect if someone has contracted the coronavirus in the past 8 to twelve weeks. That’s different from the diagnostic tests which can detect if someone has the virus at the time of testing. Those are administered nasally and results can take up to a week.
Regardless of the results, Blythe said she tells patients to continue social distancing practices and other precautions.
“All the same rules apply,” she said.
Sharon Lee, physician and co-founder of Family Health Care in Kansas City, Kansas, said people are going to die because of the testing at the Lee’s Summit clinic.
“It is a bad, bad thing that’s being done out there,” she said.
If accurate antibody tests were available, Lee said, all the hospitals would be using them.
“What’s happening is we have a doctor in town who is selling, unconscionably, selling false information to people because it is not an accurate test,” she said. “I’m a doctor and I’d like to think people in our profession are more responsible than that and ethical.”
Lee said she had made complaints to the Missouri Board for the Healing Arts and the Jackson County Health Department.
The Jackson County Health Department said it was looking into questions sent by The Star, but did not respond in time for publication.
This story was originally published April 15, 2020 at 5:41 PM.
