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I came out into the buzz saw of aids i lived through the 80s and 90s watched all my friends die and by 1985 almost everyone i knew was dead or dying fast forward to 2014 there’s this new drug that’s available that allows you to take some responsibility for yourself have this pill come along when everybody was still dropping dead yeah people would have still lined
Up the consequence of taking truvada improperly is that you contract a deadly contagious virus hiv infection rates among young gay men are appallingly high of rising so the problem is people are gonna be out breath they’re gonna stop using condoms we have something that’s 98% effective it’s called a condom five out of six gay men are not consistently using condoms
So it’s not working there’s a syphilis epidemic and the gay male community and if this experiment turns out badly well the people who are promoting you take responsibility for that forty years ago the castro street fair was founded here in san francisco at the time homosexuals were fighting for basic rights and recognition a decade later the hiv/aids epidemic was
Ravaging the community and there was a new battle to be waged well over half a million people in the united states alone have died from aids today drug cocktails keep many with hiv alive and healthy but they are still some 50,000 new hiv infections each year two-thirds of which are among men who have sex with men and a cure remains elusive you know yes oh i have
To tell you yeah okay i don’t so prep stands for free exposure prophylaxis taking a medication every day to help prevent hiv attacks why don’t too many people know about it that’s the question in 2012 researchers in a major study estimated that truvada a drug used to treat hiv could be 99% effective at blocking hiv transmission if taken daily the preventative
Approach known as pre exposure prophylaxis the same year the us food and drug administration approved truvada for use as prep but the drug has proved to be a controversial weapon in the fight to eradicate aids david and matthew are the dj duo two dudes in love an attorney and a marketing professional with health insurance they can afford truvada as high price
More than a thousand dollars a month unsubsidized at its heart at its core it’s just about keeping myself safe and making sure that i’m not getting infected and that i am not unknowingly infecting somebody else the big criticism is that men will not adhere to taking this pill adherence to a daily pill is as natural as taking my flintstones vitamins in the morning
It’s pretty easy for me because i take pills everyday anyway i find it hearings is really quite easy and focusing on adherence seems like focusing on the wrong part of the problem michael weinstein is head of the aids healthcare foundation in los angeles he warns that promoting truvada as a preventative measure could lead to a public health disaster pileup ominous
Debate has been you can have your own opinion you can’t have your own facts scientific data says unequivocally that people who are taking this on preventative basis will not take it as directive you have something that’s 98% effective it’s called a condom for 30 years we have pushed and pushed for people to use condoms and it is it has not guy on us to the end of
This epidemic and when we have a powerful prevention tool like prep why would we possibly walk away from that san francisco city supervisor scott weiner represents the other pole in the trovato debate he made headlines in 2014 when he announced he was taking the drug good and smart public health is about meeting people where they are and helping them as opposed
To insisting and demanding that people go to where you want them to be the majority of gay men all right using condoms we know that five out of six gay men are not consistently using condoms so the problem is prep is that people are gonna be on prep they’re gonna stop using condoms and they’re gonna think they’re protected when they’re not and they’re gonna become
Infected but to suggest we should not make prep available wherever and for whomever it will be effective is the opposite of good public health if we see a drastic increase in sexually transmitted diseases because we’ve attacked the condom culture that’s been prevalent for the gay community for all these decades then that’s a big problem from the stigma sometimes
Attached to truvada that it promotes riskier behavior and less condom use aroused the derogatory term truvada hall if you’re on frontier promiscuous or take more sexual risks but actually if come to reclaim determines as users like adams abbas key are the stigma he makes these truvada t-shirts now when i mentioned the name michael weinstein why oh god he has
Some fears do you accept them as rational fears no realistic sexual behavior just doesn’t match up with the idealized sexual behavior that the condoms only crowd as espouse for the last three decades and the reality is that hiv transmission rates are researching they’re really high and that the condoms only mantra is not working it’s not registering with younger
Populations some of these guys have tried to own the term they call themselves truvada whole is there any argument in favor of calling these guys truvada in the derogatory sense no i don’t think you should call people who take true veda truvada i’ve met some who are on travail de but i also know people who are in long term sarah discordant relationships who are
Now free of the anxiety and also freed from condoms we talk about syphilis coming back and gonorrhea coming back and not coming back we have syphilis epidemic well yeah exactly an epidemic and drug resistant gonorrhea so prep is not a cure for that it’s not a prevention for that and it may make that worse it may make both of the it will make both of those epidemics
Worse dan savage is a well-known author and sex columnist he’s been cautious as he’s waded into the debate over prep well aware of what the consequences of promoting it could be i’m a i know gay men i get their letters every every day i know the like calculus that we engage in before we make certain sexual choices and removing the fear of hiv which is largely
Not a fear of death anymore but a fear of stigma and convenience from the equation will cause more guys to indulge their legitimate desire to be intimate in that way and that is gonna make syphilis epidemic worse absolutely one of the arguments urging caution is that the young generation don’t quite know just how bad it was and we don’t want to slip back into any
Form of recklessness right but the young generation who already don’t know how bad it was are already very spotty with their condom use and hiv infection rates among young gay men are appallingly high and rising so this attitude that we should just knock the prep out of their hands and deny them access to this drug and that will somehow inspire them all to start
Using condoms when they’re currently not using condoms that’s just idiotic there is a generational divide in the debate over prep and it isn’t hard to find in the castro while younger men see it as a viable option it’s often those who’ve lived through the aids crisis and watched their friends die who are most where are you on breath now why not about a thousand
Bucks a month your generation thinks as a cure you think that the tacos are chair we know that this drug works the slogan for my generation sadly was silence equals death and it he pulled a lot of death and i witnessed an awful lot of death real misery cleve jones a longtime leader in the gay community discovered he’d contracted hiv at the age of 30 he supports
Promoting prep we faced horrendous stigma but the stigma came from the outside world the young people today are facing a much different and in my mind much more pernicious stigma and it’s a stigma from their own gay brothers saying how could you be so stupid and i’m sick of it i’m just sick of it as the debate over truvada continues the reality is that right now
It’s an option only for those who can afford it unless the price of prep comes down or it is widely subsidized many in the united states and more in the developing world won’t have the choice to use it at all you’re seeing a lot of the debate happening in middle-class gay largely white communities who have access and so the next question is how are we gonna give
Access to everybody else and what i’m hearing is no no cure no vaccine but now we know that treatment equals prevention so let’s spread that word far and wide and let’s pressure the wealthy nations to pay for it and let’s pressure the pharmaceutical companies to pay for it and make it available to everybody because what other option do we have and for the debate
To be settled it’s a matter of waiting to find out if access to truvada really does cut hiv infection rates or whether more dire predictions prove true if i’m wrong if hf is wrong about this we’ll be the first to admit it but i hope that the people who are promoting this will do the same i mean in two years we’ll know
Transcribed from video
Truvada – Behind The Controversial Drug That Could Prevent HIV By AJ+
