What if the PrEP advocates were ... right? - Page 3

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/25/15 at 12:04pm

I could NOT follow that show so it was cool to have a few moments of clarity around PrEP. 

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 10/8/15 at 10:47pm

A friend of mine on Medicaid just went on it and he said that the prescription quoted the price without insurance as 1650.00 a month.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/8/15 at 11:01pm

Yes.

[haterobics]

Posted: 10/10/15 at 1:43am

Danny Pintauro explains the whole sentence about PrEP: 

 

https://youtu.be/wgQx36blp8Y?t=2m43s

 

 

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/10/15 at 10:49am

Oh he is so full of crap. Why is it so many gay men get a camera pointed at them and that's the cue to be directive and stern and school marmy?   He's being Candace Camerony. 

 

He has NO IDEA what conversations happen between negative gay men and their health care providers.  But he's sure that's the part of the sentence that doesn't happen.

 

I suppose it's all just internalized homophobia when your Zach Quintos and your Who's The Boss? Kid have to think the VERY WORST of their fellow gay men.  Or maybe they've internalized the loathing perpetrated on us for all these years by Larry Kramer?

Updated On: 10/10/15 at 10:49 AM

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 10/10/15 at 2:09pm

I think that it is unfortunate that there is so much slut shaming around this issue. I have been considering it, not because I want to run out and bareback but because condoms break.

Posted: 10/10/15 at 3:08pm

OMG its expensive!! and i will slut shame people. so many sluts nowadays 

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/10/15 at 3:32pm

Sólo debe caer muerto y ser prohibido permanentemente de este sitio de nuevo.

Posted: 10/10/15 at 3:38pm

Ur Spanish is off

[Jane2]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 11:26am

bump

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 11:30am

Voila!  Thanks Jane. 

 

One possibilty that that might have taken place is that informed partners of Charlue Sheen may have decided to go on pre-exposure prophylaxis to be extra cautious. Being the sex partner of an HIV positive individual is one of the qualifiers for the protocol. 

[HorseTears]

Posted: 1/30/16 at 6:35pm

I am not interested in being an alarmist.  Nor am I some anti-Western medicine kook, but this does sound alarming.  Don't suppose anyone's talked to their doctor about this yet?  Maybe there's nothing to worry about if you never miss a dose?  Help me make sense of this...

 

 

RESISTANCE TO HIV DRUG GROWING, NEW STUDY FINDS:

The virus that causes AIDS is becoming resistant to drugs used in treatment.

By Robert Preidt, HealthDay Reporter, US News & World Report

 

FRIDAY, Jan. 29, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- HIV resistance to the antiretroviral drug tenofovir (Viread) is increasingly common, a new study finds.

 

The researchers said their finding is surprising and alarming because the drug plays a major role in treating and preventing infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

 

"Tenofovir is a critical part of our armamentarium against HIV, so it is extremely concerning to see such a high level of resistance to this drug," study author Dr. Ravi Gupta, from the department of infection and immunity at University College London in England, said in a university news release.

 

Resistance often occurs when patients don't take their drugs as directed. To prevent resistance, people need to take the drugs correctly about 85 percent to 90 percent of the time, the researchers said.

 

For the study, the investigators looked at more than 1,900 HIV patients worldwide who had uncontrolled HIV despite taking antiretroviral drugs. Tenofovir-resistant HIV strains were found in 60 percent of patients in sub-Sahara Africa, the researchers found. That compares to just 20 percent of patients in Europe with tenofovir-resistant strains, the researchers said.

 

About-two thirds of patients with tenofovir-resistant HIV also had resistance to both other drugs used in their therapy. This suggests that their treatment was totally compromised, the study authors said.

 

In sub-Sahara Africa, up to 15 percent of HIV patients treated with tenofovir-based drug combinations will develop resistance to tenofovir in the first year of treatment, and this rate is likely to rise over time, the researchers estimated.

 

They added that tenofovir-resistant HIV strains could be passed on to other people and become more widespread, potentially weakening global efforts to control HIV.

 

It's not clear how likely drug-resistant strains of HIV are to spread. If these strains were less effective at spreading, Gupta said the researchers should've seen lower levels of the HIV virus in people with the resistant strain. But, that wasn't the case.

 

"We found that virus levels were no lower in individuals with the resistant strain and were high enough to be fully infectious. We certainly cannot dismiss the possibility that resistant strains can spread between people and should not be complacent. We are now conducting further studies to get a more detailed picture of how tenofovir resistant viruses develop and spread," he concluded.

 

Findings from the study were published Jan. 28 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/30/16 at 7:20pm

This is a treatment issue and not a PrEP issue.  People on treatment need access to the meds and support to take it on time, daily, as directed. We would never withhold treatment for any disease because somebody might miss a dose.  On the other hand, in the case of highly infectious disease like tuberculosis, sometimes it takes a public health nurse showing up on a patient's doorstep every single day and watching a patient swallow the pill. Public health isn't easy. 

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/30/16 at 7:27pm

As an aside, the world at large is on the verge of a post-antibiotic era, with potentially catastrophic conseqences for us all. In other words, we may all be ****ed already. Stories like this do no good for my ever-increasing generalized anxiety.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34857015

Updated On: 1/30/16 at 07:27 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/30/16 at 7:57pm

Antibiotic and antiviral are different. But you're right on us being effed on ever so many fronts. 

[HorseTears]

Posted: 1/31/16 at 3:13am

Obviously, more research has to be done, the authors of the study have said so themselves.  While it may not be something to start a panic about immediately, I do think it's something we need to keep our eyes on.  From another article on the new study...

 

 

Unlike previous studies, [senior author Dr. Ravi] Gupta said, the new research found tenofovir-resistant HIV reproduces itself just as much as non-resistant HIV does, which means that resistance can be passed on to other individuals.

 

"I think that if these trends continued . . . and you found a lot of HIV infections had resistance, then you would find the efficacy of PrEP is compromised," said Gupta, referring to pre-exposure prophylaxis, which is the practice of having uninfected people take anti-HIV drugs to try to avoid getting the virus.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/31/16 at 1:41pm

Boo!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 2:34pm

Namo, thoughts on this?  

Man on Daily PREP Regimen contracts HIV

 

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 4:25pm

It's definitely something to keep an eye on and a reminder that condoms and PrEP are a powerful combo for men who have sex with men whose serostatus they do not know.

 

Even more startling is the news later in the article that current infection rates indicate that 50% of black gay men will test positive in their lifetimes.  Increasing condom and PrEP efforts among the black MSM community would be a good idea.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 4:35pm

Thanks for repsonding.  I was at a loss at how to respond to people who were Chicken Littling about this.

 

That 50% stat horrified me. 

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 4:37pm

Yeah, that's terrible, really awful.

 

Also, we have to find ways to really encourage guys who are on treatment to take it as directed every single day.

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 2/26/16 at 12:41am

A recent article revolving around a survey said that 30% of negative gay white men around 30 years of age are on prep. I guess it stands to reason given the age range and the fact that they would have better access to health insurance and perhaps better incomes.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/29/16 at 1:12pm

Here's an article from HIVPlusMag that explains the science of this man on PrEP's infection.  The important distinction it makes is that taking the PrEP didn't cause the resistance, and in fact, his viral load is now suppressed thanks to adherence to treatment.  The article also details what an extremely rare case it is, which is of no comfort to him as an individual I am sure.  It's what would be called a low incidence/high impact development.

 

 

Phylogenetic analysis revealed a very narrow range of sequence diversity, consistent with infection from a single source, which led researchers to believe that the HIV was transmitted from a single individual rather than something the man got through an acquired resistance to the drugs he was taking.

 

http://www.hivplusmag.com/prevention/2016/2/25/first-case-where-man-becomes-hiv-positive-while-prep-rare-exception?utm_content=29759140&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 2/29/16 at 2:10pm

Also some people are not totally honest about the sex practices and their adherence to the prescriptions they are taking. (in reference to the man who got HIV while on prep). It is reminiscent of the few people that claim they got infected through oral sex. But as time passes we will find out if more men get infected on prep.