
A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive - rb2e
https://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/meet-the-man-who-stopped-thousands-of-people-becoming-hiv-po
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gaythrowaway
I'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a
sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a
safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up.

PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live
in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my
dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore continuing to
spread it. There is a big push from the local public health department to get
gay guys at risk of contracting HIV on PREP and it is starting to pay off.

PREP also is helping reduce the stigma of having HIV. Many people who are HIV+
live with a huge mental health burden of dealing with feeling like they are
going to be rejected as a romantic partner because of their HIV status. With
PREP as an option this helps reduce that burden. I'm not necessarily proud of
this but I'm not sure if I would be dating my current boyfriend if PREP were
not available because of the risk it could present to my health. He's an
amazing guy and having this issue out of the way for us has been very helpful
for us.

That's not to say that it doesn't have side effects and that it should be
carefully considered but it really needs to be publicized more as a
preventative treatment option in high risk populations.

~~~
mrcactu5
HIV is a pretty rare disease. About 1 in 300 people in the USA. So I don't
understand 1 in 4 gay men are HIV+.

~~~
barry-cotter
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_and_men_who_have_sex_wit...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_and_men_who_have_sex_with_men)

The CDC reports that in 2009, MSM accounted for 61% of all new HIV infections
and that MSM who had a history of recreational drug injection accounted for an
additional 3% of new infections. Among the approximately 784,701 people living
with an HIV diagnosis, 396,810 (51%) were MSM. About 48% of MSM living with an
HIV diagnosis were white, 30% were black, and 19% were Hispanic or Latino.
Although the majority of MSM are white, non-whites accounted for 54% of new
infections HIV related MSM infections in 2008.[7] A recent study estimated
that for every 100,000 MSM, 692 will be diagnosed with HIV. This makes MSM 60
times more likely to contract the virus than other men and 54 times more
likely than women

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nothrabannosir
I'll second the call to donating:

[https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/about-us-
donate](https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/about-us-donate)

 _> “I’m thinking, ‘You don’t know I have to walk sometimes because I can’t
afford my Oyster [the London bus and tube pass]. You don’t know that I’m
literally eating once a day because I’m so broke, and I’m sleeping on
someone’s sofa because no one is going to pay me to do this,’” he says. “I am
no different to how I was when I was a sex worker.”_

~~~
Macacity
> Donations will never be paid to an individual, only ever put back into the
> running costs and expansion of the website.

Just fyi. This does not mean that you should not donate.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Thanks, I hadn't seen that. Although, honestly, that only sounds like more
reason to donate..

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buro9
What a great guy and group of people.

I've emailed offering to help out if I can. Their costs of running the site
should be zero to them, if I can help make that so then great.

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DanBC
The NHS has recently announced an expansion of the trial:
[https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/hiv-prevention-
pregramme/](https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/hiv-prevention-pregramme/)

There was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative
treatment. Both sexual health and prevention is normally part of Public Health
and not the NHS, but public health weren't paying. This is because funding to
local authorities has been slashed. Remember this when conservative supporters
tell you that funding for health care has increased: they're not including the
cuts to public health.

This is explained a bit here: [https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/11/update-on-
prep/](https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/11/update-on-prep/)

A statement from public health: [http://www.adph.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/ADPH-PrEP-...](http://www.adph.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/ADPH-PrEP-Press-Release.pdf)

A statement from earlier NHS: [https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/08/august-
update-on-the-comm...](https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/08/august-update-on-
the-commissioning-and-provision-of-pre-exposure-prophylaxis-prep-for-hiv-
prevention/)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_There was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative
treatment._

This is the part I really don't understand. I suppose its a consequence of big
bureaucracies.

This is a clear case of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". It
is so much cheaper to pay for the PrEP than to pay for treatment of HIV.

And in the UK the HIV treatment is "free", i.e. part of their national
healthcare, right? So wouldn't it make so much sense for them to flood the
country with PrEP, giving it at very low cost to anyone who expresses an
interest?

~~~
DanBC
It's incredibly frustrating to me too.

Firstly, this is only for England. Health is devolved in Scotland, Wales, and
Northern Ireland.

Preventative stuff and a lot of sexual health stuff (STD screening, free
contraception) is paid for by "Public Health", which is part of local
government.

Treatment is paid for by the NHS, which is sort of nationally funded by NHS
England to local Clinical Commissioning Groups.

Sometimes you'll have "joint commissioning" \-- for example in Gloucestershire
there's joint commissioning across public health and the NHS for Mental
Health.

But yes, it's stupid bureaucracy and budget holding and it's caused harm.

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h4nkoslo
One consequence of gay organizations deciding to focus all of their energies
on punishing rubes in flyover country via gay marriage campaigns has been a
significant de-emphasis on HIV education / treatment / prevention. The latter
has actually done us significant amounts of good and it's a shame to see it
wasted in favor of spite.

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joshstrange
Last time I checked on my insurance it was going to be somewhere in the
neighborhood of $1K/mo for PrEP. Now minimums would be met soon enough but
still way too expensive. The website mentioned in the article appears to sell
it for ~$54/mo which is crazy.

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dankohn1
It's an inspiring story. I can't wait to see the movie adaptation.

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Animats
The real issue is simply that the cost for Truvada oral tablet (100 mg-150 mg)
is around $1,564 for a supply of 30 tablets. In the US, the patents expire in
2021.

~~~
dankohn1
No, $1,564 is the price when bought through US pharma. They're available via
the site recommended by [https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-
now](https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-now) for $80. So, presumably the
cost is more like $20 or so.

~~~
sbierwagen
What makes you think this spammy affiliate marketing site is sending you to
online pharmacies that will actually send you the drug, rather than take your
money and send you nothing?

~~~
minsight
This "spammy affiliate marketing site" is neither spammy, nor does affiliate
marketing. It saves hundreds, if not thousands of lives. Read the linked
article.

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andrewtbham
too bad these companies don't have an affiliate program.

[https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-
now](https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-now)

~~~
beaconstudios
I often use the same legal mechanism to buy modafinil, and have reached out to
my supplier about affiliating. They don't do it either. I have to wonder if
there's some kind of risk or law working against them.

~~~
chris11
Isn't the sale and import of modafinil restricted? I would think that becoming
an affiliate would introduce legal risk

~~~
beaconstudios
It's legal for personal use. You can import prescription only medication from
abroad, you just can't buy it domestically.

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argigg
Modafinil is Schedule IV in the US. The law may or may not be enforced with
respect with to Modafinil, but possessing that drug without a prescription is
illegal.

~~~
beaconstudios
The article was about someone from the UK, and I'm also from the UK. That's
the circumstance I was speaking from.

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masonic
This is sloppy reporting:

"In the space of 12 months, the number of gay men in London being diagnosed
with HIV had dropped by 40%. Across England it was down by a third."

The New Scientist article they link to has it correct -- this is a drop in
reported _new_ infections, not a drop in infected persons. It still hasn't
been corrected.

~~~
skuhn
_being_ diagnosed, as in new diagnoses.

