This week, I start a new series of posts regarding HIV/AIDS, where weekly, I’ll post about one or more related items I’ve seen in my news feed or elsewhere. A little over a month ago, a HIV POZ activist called me out for not doing enough– actually he called out the entire gay male community for not doing enough. While I don’t agree with all of his criticisms, he was very right that overall, the gay men’s community just isn’t talking enough about HIV/AIDS. I wrote a series of posts leading up to World AIDS Day, and began the plan to start this weekly post. My recent posts:
This week, I checked out all of the big gay men’s blogs and realized just how little, in the general LGBTQ blogosphere was actually being written about HIV/AIDS. Some bloggers have been doing a great job and others not so much. But that is partly the nature of blogging. We each make choices about what we write about. Well, I’m going to change what I’m writing about and start writing about HIV/AIDS at least once a week. This week, I have two posts I want to highlight:
1) Cambodia village reports mass HIV/AIDS infection
The story about a Cambodian village was published on Dec 16th. Here is a snip of the article:
Cambodian health authorities on Tuesday said more than 80 people — including children and the elderly — who tested positive for HIV/AIDS in a single remote village may have been infected by contaminated needles.
These numbers reflect 556 people tested in an extremely remote village. From the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, this disease has never been about homosexuality or sex. However, Far Right moralists hijacked the discourse and this continues to this very day. Those seeking to advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment must not wear blinders and focus narrowly on the gay men’s population for two reasons. First, to do so perpetuates the moralist discourse and fear mongering, and second, stands to make invisible other victims of this disease.
2) “PrEP on Demand” Study Halted Because it Was So Successful
This article was published on Nov 5th, and I came across it while investigating what other bloggers were writing about HIV/AIDS. Here’s a snip:
A French study of gay men at risk for HIV infection, known as IPERGAY, was closed due to high success rates so that Truvada could be made available to all 400 trial participants. Half of those participating had been taking a placedo.
PrEP is not new but adoption rates, or even awareness rates for it as an HIV prevention strategy remain low. PrEP most often is considered to be a daily regimen, ad many HIV activists worry if gay men will take the drug as needed. Failure to take it every day, with a virus that mutates quickly could compound problems in treating the disease in the future as well as leave people at risk of infection. Most published peer-reviewed research I have found have evaluated PrEP in combination with condoms, weekly testing and counseling.
PrEP on demand is different, and involves a four pill regimen with one dose of two pills taken between 24 and two hours before sex, followed by one pill the next day, and one the following day. In this article there are few details about the halted study itself, and published results are not expected until early 2015.
I’m interested in finding more published research about the effects and side effects of taking Truvada by otherwise healthy individuals or by those on other medications or with other chronic conditions.