US soldiers in high-tuberculosis areas face new epidemic: false positives

Retesting is occurring as up to 30 to 100 percent of the tests show negative...we experience the same thing with some virus detection software on computers, is looks and acts like a problem, but in essence when further diagnosed...it is not..so it appears overall this is good news for many who were thought to have TB....BD

U.S. Army service members are increasingly deployed in regions of the world where tuberculosis (TB) is rampant, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military now faces a growing medical problem. But it is not TB itself that is on the rise—instead, the problem lies with the growing number of “pseudoepidemics,” or clusters of false-positives for TB that are the result of universal testing with a notoriously inaccurate tuberculin skin test (TST) and inconsistent procedures for interpreting those tests in low-risk populations.
These false positives tests have become more than a mere institutional inconvenience or a momentary medical scare for Soldiers being tested. They are a real financial and medical burden because they inappropriately diverting limited funds and resources.