Spring Break
Preventative drugs no substitute for condom use
Matthew Peterson Louisiana State University
Issue date: 1/23/09 Section: Opinion
(U-WIRE) - There's a new and incredibly dangerous fad in certain sectors of the gay community these days. Called "pre-exposure prophylaxis," or PrEP, it's the worst trend in sexual health since the Coca-Cola douche.
Rather than use condoms to prevent HIV transmission, men engaging in PrEP take a single dose of an illicitly obtained anti-HIV drug before having unprotected sex.
The idea is similar to post-exposure prophylaxis, which is a well-studied method of preventing transmission of a pathogen after accidental contact. Patients are prescribed the full cocktail of AIDS medications and must take them for four full weeks, according to United States Public Health Service guidelines.
Studies of post-exposure drug treatment confirm its effectiveness, particularly when therapy is started immediately. But concluding from this that a single pre-emptive treatment offers protection from AIDS is a Bush-level misunderestimation of HIV transmission.
Most immediately, there's no data to support the idea that PrEP actually works. Preliminary animal trials have shown interesting results, but human testing has been derailed for political and ethical reasons.
It might seem logical that some kind of pre-emptive treatment could prevent infection, but fundamental questions about the practice have yet to be answered.
How long should patients take the preventive? Is a single dose of a single drug sufficient? Could a sufficiently large viral exposure overwhelm any drug treatment?
At this point, no doctor can do better than guess at these answers.
And there are worse possibilities than PrEP simply failing.
Consider antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibacterial agents are now used so frequently that "superbugs" - bacteria unaffected by the most common antibiotics - have evolved. In many cases, patients infected by drug-resistant strains die for lack of any effective treatment.
Just as the overuse of antibiotics has caused the evolution of superbugs, so might the misuse of AIDS drugs in PrEP lead to an HIV strain able to shrug off today's antivirals. Calling this a public health nightmare would be gross understatement.
Rather than use condoms to prevent HIV transmission, men engaging in PrEP take a single dose of an illicitly obtained anti-HIV drug before having unprotected sex.
The idea is similar to post-exposure prophylaxis, which is a well-studied method of preventing transmission of a pathogen after accidental contact. Patients are prescribed the full cocktail of AIDS medications and must take them for four full weeks, according to United States Public Health Service guidelines.
Studies of post-exposure drug treatment confirm its effectiveness, particularly when therapy is started immediately. But concluding from this that a single pre-emptive treatment offers protection from AIDS is a Bush-level misunderestimation of HIV transmission.
Most immediately, there's no data to support the idea that PrEP actually works. Preliminary animal trials have shown interesting results, but human testing has been derailed for political and ethical reasons.
It might seem logical that some kind of pre-emptive treatment could prevent infection, but fundamental questions about the practice have yet to be answered.
How long should patients take the preventive? Is a single dose of a single drug sufficient? Could a sufficiently large viral exposure overwhelm any drug treatment?
At this point, no doctor can do better than guess at these answers.
And there are worse possibilities than PrEP simply failing.
Consider antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibacterial agents are now used so frequently that "superbugs" - bacteria unaffected by the most common antibiotics - have evolved. In many cases, patients infected by drug-resistant strains die for lack of any effective treatment.
Just as the overuse of antibiotics has caused the evolution of superbugs, so might the misuse of AIDS drugs in PrEP lead to an HIV strain able to shrug off today's antivirals. Calling this a public health nightmare would be gross understatement.
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Peace Love
posted 1/23/09 @ 6:03 PM MST
There is an even better way.
Its known by the acronym: SSYPISSA
Stop Sticking Your Penis In Some Strangers Ass.
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