A post on Facebook claims that Kary Mullis, the inventor of the biotechnological process of PCR said the following: “Anyone can test positive for practically anything with a PCR test, if you run it long enough with PCR if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody. It doesn’t tell you that you’re sick.”

We could find no record of him saying the exact quote anywhere, except in other fact checkers debunking his comments. But parts of this quote appear to have been taken from comments he made during a talk about HIV testing using PCR in 1997. It’s not true that anyone can test for anything using PCR tests. Those designed to detect the virus that causes Covid-19 are highly specific.

PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, is a common scientific method where specific genetic material in a sample is replicated to the point that it becomes detectable. In the UK, PCR testing is currently mainly used to detect the Covid-19 virus in people who have symptoms. Dr Mullis invented this method, not Covid-19 PCR tests specifically, and died in 2019, before the pandemic. We have fact checked several false claims about Dr Mullis before.

Parts of the quote in the Facebook post seem to come from comments Dr Mullis made at an event held in Santa Monica in 1997, during a discussion about HIV and AIDS. Dr Mullis was an advocate of HIV/AIDS denialism, meaning he believed HIV doesn't cause AIDS, which has since been widely debunked as false.

When asked about using PCR to detect the HIV...

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