HUFFINGTONPOST.COM - Foster City drugmaker Gilead recently updated its application with
the federal Food and Drug Administration for approval to market its HIV
treatment medication Truvada as a HIV prevention pill.
If the FDA approves Truvada for preventive use, it "would be the
first agent indicated for uninfected individuals to reduce the risk of
acquiring HIV through sex," according to a company statement at the time
of the filing last month.
Gilead's application, however, has sparked debate among public health
advocates who argue that the wide availability of the drug would
discourage safe sex and would, in fact, increase the incidence of HIV.
"I believe that this could be catastrophic in terms of HIV
prevention," said Michael Weinstein, president the AIDS Healthcare
Foundation, based in Los Angeles. There are nearly 42,000 Californians [PDF] living with HIV as of June 2011.
Weinstein added that as an HIV treatment, he thinks Truvada is a
"fabulous drug - it's one pill once a day, and it has a low side-effect
burden," which include nausea, vomiting and weight loss.
This new pharmaceutical prevention approach to HIV and AIDS is known
in scientific circles as "pre-exposure prophylaxis," or PrEP, and it
involves taking the antiretroviral medications on a daily basis.
Clinical trials supported by the National Institutes of Health have
shown that when taken daily, Truvada, a blue oval pill, reduced the risk
for contracting HIV by between 44 percent
among gay men in four countries and 73 percent by heterosexual couples
in Uganda and Kenya. One trial among women in sub-Saharan Africa was
stopped in April 2011.
Overall, these studies have generated enthusiasm among many medical researchers.
The drug is "an incredible achievement, a wonderful new tool that
could be available to people who need additional protection against the
acquisition of HIV," said Veronica Miller, executive director of The
Forum for Collaborative HIV Research and a visiting professor at the UC
Berkeley School of Public Health. click here to read more
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2012 WorldNow and KHQ. All Rights Reserved. For more information on this site, please read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
