by Bob Roehr in the Bay Area Reporter
Researchers staged a "debate" over a new concept in HIV prevention: pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, at a recent conference in San Diego.
"Pre-exposure prophylaxis is the most important concept in the [HIV] prevention field today," Robert Grant told the Infectious Disease Society of America at its annual meeting October 4-7. The concept would use existing antiviral drugs to prevent HIV infection.
The forum was a debate between Grant, a University of California, San Francisco researcher, and Ward Cates, president of Family Health International. Both support the PrEP concept and are conducting research to demonstrate its viability, but they drew straws to see who would take the pro and con sides of the argument.
Read the rest.*And for more info on this topic, check out Robert Grant's slides on PrEP from an October 11 "Power of Prevention" presentation in Chicago. See also Dr. Peter Anton's "Future Sex" slides on microbicides, including rectal microbicide research and development, here from the same Chicago presentation.
*Both these slide sets are part of the wealth of resources on new prevention technologies that can be found here - the home of the International Rectal Microbicide Working Group.
I agree with much of Mr. Grants comments.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with his take on sex and risk taking. I love his kids comment
about abstinence as "proof of adult stupidity"!
I do however wonder if antiviral drugs are used in a larger way as a form of
pre-exposure prophylaxis if we could possibly face new forms of resistance.
We currently are seeing resistant bacteria from over/misuse of antibiotics.
It's just a concern/question that I have about giving these medications to the
general public who may misuse them.
Mark Hammann - Gay Men's Outreach Worker - AIDS Committee of Durham Region - Oshawa, Ontario CANADA
I think this is an excellent question, Mark, and one we need to be considering as the research progresses. Very specific guidelines will need to be formualted so we don't have a lot of worried, low-risk people taking these drugs, and creating situations like you describe...
ReplyDeleteJim