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AHF makes money from treating positive people. They miss out on that funding if people do not sero-convert. Therefore it can be see that AHF have a vested interest in discouraging a tool that can prevent seroconversion. Blood money talks.
AHF questions the efficacy and cost effectiveness of PrEP as a public health measure. AHF seeks improved scientific evidence before pushing for public policy commitments to spend limited public health resources on PrEP or other measures. AHF does not deny that ARVs can someday become an effective prevention tool, nor does it deny that patients in consultation with their doctors should have access to PrEP. To compare Michael Weinstein with Peter Duesberg and Mbeki is outrageous, not to mention the L word. Such ad hominems are inimical to scientific method and designed to bridle free expression. Indeed, they are a form of bullying. The salient facts are 1) AHF has been a pioneer in delivering ARV treatment to tens of thousands throughout Africa since 2002, and 2) Weinstein has been a strong opponent of Duesberg and Mbeki's HIV denialism. Peter Staley wants us to believe that PrEP as a public health measure lies securely within the sphere of consensus discourse, when PrEP actually lies in the midst of the sphere of controversy. He wants to ostracize AHF and Weinstein to the sphere of deviation. One should note that Weinstein is in the company of experienced activists, led by Larry Kramer often seen as the father of AIDS activism, and respected doctors like Joseph Sonnebend who also have been outspoken critics of the rush into PrEP.
I am with Weinstein here. The reason is simple. The drugs in PrEP, Trudava, a combination of Tenofovir and Emtricitabina(emtriva for short) are very toxic drugs. It always amazes me that 'Big Pharma' can have short trials and then announce to the world these drugs have few side effects. But the reality for HIV Positive people who are taking these drugs regularly is vastly different. The incidence of liver and kidney disease from the Tenofovir side of the combo is rising with the kidney disease side effect especially problematic. I say this because kidney failure is often fatal and kidney disease is irreversable. I have a friend in Australia who has kidney disease from Tenofovir and another who was withdrawn from the regime due to kidney abnormalities. Clinical practice in developed countries are finding the incidence of kidney infection due to Tenofovir is reasonably high. POZ has even had articles warning of this phenomenon and the increasing risk to people on ART. What amazes me is Gay men are willing to take PrEP but not willing to throw on a condom and yet the medicine they are taking has side effects and can be life threatening in itself. The other problem in this world which is in the midst of an ICE epidemic is compliance. You must take this medicine everyday to make sure you don't contract the virus. But people on ICE are not compliant sort of people when it comes to other medications other than ICE. In Australia our experience is vastly different to that of the USA if indeed HIV figures are falling over there. I'm not sure of the reality of that scenario anyway as the USA is pretty good at fudging figures. There is an HIV epidemic here and it coincides with the ICE epidemic. I see PrEP are a very dangerous quick fix that is not feasible if people are self medicating party drugs as they will not be compliant as needed. So in summing up PrEP is not the answer as it has far too many nasties, requires compliance from people not used to drug regimes and is affected by the psarty drug culture.
It's not just a coincidence that Michael Weinstein strongly resembles Jack Nicholson's villainous character "The Joker" from the movie Batman. Everything Weinstein has done under the guise of AHF is putrid with the foul stench of a self-serving megalomaniac. I knew this guy was up to something nefarious many years ago when AHF bought out Dr. Todd Fralich's huge and thriving state-of-the-art HIV-specialized medical practice in Fort Lauderdale, which Weinstein quickly destroyed by carelessly transforming it from the ideal model of patient care that had been created by Dr. Fralich's excellent team of physicians and medical staff into a ghetto-styled-drug-clinic operated by a confederacy of dunces. Immediately recognizing Weinstein's vile profiteering motives and his general medical ineptitude, the original physicians and medical staff rapidly fled, followed synchronously by their immense HIV patient population, all of whom realized in short order that the AHF dictatorship was an alarming indication that it was crucial to escape from the looming peril in an urgent mass-exodus that resembled the cloud of dust left behind when The Roadrunner zoomed away from Wile E. Coyote. In the present day, Weinstein feels so financially threatened by the possibility that PrEP might actually curtail the epidemic-fueled organizational growth rate that he has enjoyed as the very-well-compensated leader of AHF, that he incessantly wastes the organization's money on relentless full-page fear-mongering advertisements that intentionally malign a scientifically valid protection mechanism, pushing instead in favor of one that has already proven itself for decades to be reliable only as a failed prevention strategy (condoms). It is in his best personal interests to push for more prevention failure so that his wealth will grow further on the backs of those stricken by the HIV epidemic. This is exactly how a parasite thrives.
Regardless is true or not that the AHF is delevering denialism messages.... what puzzles me the most is ... what is all the fuzz with PrEP in South Africa??? Do all HIV poz people there have access to ART ??? Wouldnt be more important to work in that? and new technologies of condoms? like condoms that get your dick harder?
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I guess it is out of the question to deploy PrEP for our brother and sister in poorest of Mexico or Cuba. I am swinging to the left as a Gay Rights Advocate and HIV person in the mass distribution of the morning before RX pill to stop HIV infection and/or to End AIDS, within this generation. I am taking Stribild and feeling great, building muscle and working full time, again and believe the medicine is good medicine. I think the battle between AHF on the west coast and AIDS Med on the east coast is a bit sissy and childish in the egos of this debate of PREP at times, as it is being defined in the science of now and reaching our public opinion. Many of the independent thinkers within AIDS , and non- aligned consumers, see this as a no brainier, if PrEP or Gilead’s morning before RX pill is safe and effective to End AIDS, as we know of it, then lets try it. In the caution of studding, while knowing from the past, in stepping out on experimental drugs, both in AIDS and within woman’s reproduction health, could have been long-term medical back lash to appear years down the road, like a cancer. Most of the people that I have spoken to with concerns about PrEP take a position that they do not want to spend their taxpayers’ money on a person to give PrEP, so they can have as much sex as possible on our dime, for it may be likened to giving a Diabetic, a coupon for a free 10-pound bag sugar, a week for life. The cost of preventative care and the message of sex for the poor are on the table. The other point of this concept of protecting or stopping new HIV infections with PrEP; at what cost and what about other infections like Hep C that is waiting, as we draw a false line in the sand; to create a larger problem with Hep C or other public health issues. On the other hand, as we wake up into the realty about the young here in American coming to sexual maturity at light speed and looking at the sexual revolution of now, within the young and all ages are having multiple sex partners, due to advertising in all media and the boldness of the sexual intercourse connection, being easily obtained on the Internet and texting and apps’ hook ups, then I think, one must proclaim, we have a problem in America and abroad in public health, where Dr Farland, would say, “We only have a snap shot of the real numbers of HIV in the Americas and Abroad." Having looked at the issues and realizing a lot of unsafe sex is happening in our communities of urban living, we must weigh out the best for the masses and help in curbing new HIV infections, if not stopping any new HIV infections to move, in a forward direction, for I believe there is a middle road. If Gilead brought the treatment or cost of prevention down being affordable for the masses, it would be more practical.
June 16, 2015