[fwdude]

"In a move that is expected to prove transformative to the national HIV-prevention effort, the federal government has announced that almost all health insurers must cover the HIV prevention pill, known as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, with no cost sharing — including for the drug itself and, crucially, for clinic visits and lab tests."

This entire farce is exactly farcical for numerous reasons.

I will start with the old adage, "you can lead a horse to water, ...." Just because a so-called "remedy" is made more available, that does not presuppose that the targeted problem population will avail themselves of the solution, or do so properly and effectively.

I will also say that I'm not convinced that PrEP is really as effective as the biased "researchers" lead on about. These types of studies are always plagued by the "Hawthorne effect," a description of study participants behaving much more carefully when they know they're being closely watched by the researchers. There have already been several breakthrough infections in people who were on PrEP, so the ballyhooed "100% effective" claims are not exactly correct, at least not in real life in the long term.

Additionally, perfect, or even effective, adherence is extremely rare in the population targeted for PrEP. After all, how can you expect responsible adherence to a medication regimen in a population irresponsible enough in their sexual behavior to require the preventative medication to begin with? Frequent missed doses leads to lower levels of the drug in the system, allowing subsequent exposure to HIV to get a foothold, even allowing it to mutate to a point of drug resistance, introducing a whole new problem.

[daniel1212]

I will start with the old adage, "you can lead a horse to water, ...." Just because a so-called "remedy" is made more available, that does not presuppose that the targeted problem population will avail themselves of the solution, or do so properly and effectively.

Which stats affirm:

"Despite biomedical advances in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention with antiretroviral pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the burden of HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM) remains high [1]. MSM are a high‐priority risk group for PrEP use based on their behavioral and biological risk factors [2, 3]."

"Of 3508 sexually active, HIV‐negative MSM, 34% met indications [condition that leads to the recommendation] for PrEP. The proportion with current PrEP use was 32% among MSM meeting indications and 11% among those without indications." 

"PrEP is a key part of HIV strategy globally. In the United States, PrEP is available through multiple mechanisms including national and state health insurance programs covering health care costs for those with low income, private insurance plans, programs for those without health insurance and copay assistance from the drug manufacturer or US states [5, 6]." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8488229/#:~:text=Results,11%25%20among%20those%20without%20indications)