Truvada: The HIV prevention drug causing an epidemic of stigma

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. According to the CDC, taking the pill consistently and as indicated reduces the risk of acquiring HIV by 92 per cent among gay and bisexual men, though a 2014 study suggested that “optimal” use of the pill – verified by the drug’s presence in blood samples – may reduce the risk by nearly 100 per cent. “We need to evolve how we strategise STI prevention.” He credits the “explosive jump” in PrEP and the city’s embrace of sex-positive messaging as major contributors to the nearly 15 per cent drop in new HIV diagnoses among gay and bisexual men from 2015 to 2016. A decline of moral standards was expected by some but doubted by others, including young women A Pill for HIV Prevention: Deja Vu All Over Again?, 2013 Stephanie Cohen, medical director of the San Francisco City Clinic, says the city has long embraced the separate philosophy of harm reduction: her clinic tries to help people understand the risks they may be taking and what they can do to minimise them Like the concerns over previous tools, she recalls the initial anti-PrEP backlash from critics who asked, “Why can’t these people just use condoms?” For some older men who lived through the worst of the epidemic, embracing other forms of prevention has been difficult, Cohen says. In March 2018, New York City created a PrEP campaign called “Living Sure” that emphasises women’s empowerment and aims to curb a recent uptick in HIV transmission rates among black and Latina women.