Being "False Positive": An "Inconvenience"? Debates and Questions Regarding the Notion of Vaccine-Induced Seropositivity (VISP) in the Recruitment of Healthy Volunteers for a Preventive Anti-HIV Vaccine Trial

This article considers a stage in the clinical trial process seldom documented in social sciences: recruitment of healthy volunteers for an HIV preventive vaccine trial through a media campaign. It analyzes one of the consequences of participating in such a clinical trial: the development of vaccine-induced seropositivity (VISP) and how this biomedical notion is mobilized both in recruitment procedures' normative discourses and from the volunteers' points of view, and its consequences on their decision to participate. The interpretations of VISP by volunteers depend on several factors: socialization, itinerary into the recruitment procedure, sexuality, etc., and generates diverse feelings such as indifference, doubt, or even fear. Fear of VISP represents the principal refusal reason for those who interrupted their participating step, just before inclusion stage. Addressing VISP phenomenon is important because it represents a major challenge for the information and the communication procedures for the next anti-HIV prophylactic trials recruitment campaigns.