Ready for H.I.V.'s Sexual Revolution? (Truvada to encourage more sodomy)

New York Times ^ | MAY 23, 2014 | DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

[reaganaut1]

Pretend it’s 1960, and the Food and Drug Administration has just done something startling. It has taken a drug it had previously approved for infertility — brand name Enovid — and approved it for the opposite use: birth control. That pill — soon simply the Pill — triggered the sexual revolution.

But not overnight. Doctors at first resisted giving it to unmarried women. Women were shy about carrying evidence that they actually planned to have sex. Feminists like Margaret Sanger and Katharine D. McCormick braved vilification to champion it. Madison Avenue chimed in: Ads featured Andromeda, the princess of Greek mythology, nude and breaking free of her chains.

Some of the dire predictions of moralists did come true: Gonorrhea rates rose. Side effects like blood clots emerged. But the revolution stuck.

For gay men — not to mention millions of Africans, drug users and others at risk for contracting H.I.V. — the world is again at such a moment.

The F.D.A. has taken a drug — Truvada — that was approved for H.I.V. treatment in 2004, and approved it for prevention, a use called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. On May 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed PrEP, saying it could benefit up to 500,000 Americans.

Predictably, a backlash has arisen. Some men who use it instead of condoms are called “Truvada whores.” Some complain of being “slut-shamed” by their own doctors, who are reluctant to write prescriptions. Opponents said that syphilis and gonorrhea rates, already high among gay men, would worsen.

For now, Truvada has no Andromeda or Margaret Sanger. The C.D.C. recommendations were released quietly, with no news conference. And Gilead Sciences, its maker, doesn’t advertise it for PrEP. But it may yet become accepted.

[RichInOC]

Fascinating. Normally the government hates competition.