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A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

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Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#41

Post by aleeds »

mrcactu5 wrote: post #39
gaythrowaway wrote: post #10

I'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up. PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore con…

HIV is a pretty rare disease. About 1 in 300 people in the USA. So I don't understand 1 in 4 gay men are HIV+.

About 2% of men are HIV positive. So just blindly using 1/4 you get 1/200 people are HIV positive. Assuming that the place discussed is a little bit above average, and you get a number that is consistent with the population having a 1 in 300 HIV rate.

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#42

Post by PhantomGremlin »

DanBC wrote: post #13

The NHS has recently announced an expansion of the trial: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/hiv-prevention-pregramme/ There was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative treatment. Both sexual health and prevention is normally part of Public Health and not the NHS, but public health weren't paying. This is because funding to local authorities has been slashed. Remember this when conservative su…

There was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative treatment.

This is the part I really don't understand. I suppose its a consequence of big bureaucracies.

This is a clear case of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". It is so much cheaper to pay for the PrEP than to pay for treatment of HIV.

And in the UK the HIV treatment is "free", i.e. part of their national healthcare, right? So wouldn't it make so much sense for them to flood the country with PrEP, giving it at very low cost to anyone who expresses an interest?

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#43

Post by DanBC »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #42
DanBC wrote: post #13

The NHS has recently announced an expansion of the trial: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/hiv-prevention-pregramme/ There was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative treatment. Both sexual health and prevention is normally part of Public Health and not the NHS, but public health weren't paying. This is because funding to local authorities has been slashed. Remember this when conservative su…

There was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative treatment. This is the part I really don't understand. I suppose its a consequence of big bureaucracies. This is a clear case of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". It is so much cheaper to pay for the PrEP than to pay for treatment of HIV. And in the UK the HIV treatment is "free", i.e. part of their national healthcare, right?…

It's incredibly frustrating to me too.

Firstly, this is only for England. Health is devolved in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Preventative stuff and a lot of sexual health stuff (STD screening, free contraception) is paid for by "Public Health", which is part of local government.

Treatment is paid for by the NHS, which is sort of nationally funded by NHS England to local Clinical Commissioning Groups.

Sometimes you'll have "joint commissioning" -- for example in Gloucestershire there's joint commissioning across public health and the NHS for Mental Health.

But yes, it's stupid bureaucracy and budget holding and it's caused harm.

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#44

Post by barry-cotter »

mrcactu5 wrote: post #39
gaythrowaway wrote: post #10

I'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up. PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore con…

HIV is a pretty rare disease. About 1 in 300 people in the USA. So I don't understand 1 in 4 gay men are HIV+.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_and_men_who_have_sex_wit...

The CDC reports that in 2009, MSM accounted for 61% of all new HIV infections and that MSM who had a history of recreational drug injection accounted for an additional 3% of new infections. Among the approximately 784,701 people living with an HIV diagnosis, 396,810 (51%) were MSM. About 48% of MSM living with an HIV diagnosis were white, 30% were black, and 19% were Hispanic or Latino. Although the majority of MSM are white, non-whites accounted for 54% of new infections HIV related MSM infections in 2008.[7] A recent study estimated that for every 100,000 MSM, 692 will be diagnosed with HIV. This makes MSM 60 times more likely to contract the virus than other men and 54 times more likely than women

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#45

Post by gaythrowaway »

frozenport wrote: post #32
gaythrowaway wrote: post #10

I'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up. PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore con…

Having a large group of people who don't know they have HIV is shocking.

Yes, it is, and obviously this makes it difficult to prevent it from spreading. It can be asymptomatic for months to years.

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#46

Post by gaythrowaway »

throw_this_away wrote: post #15
gaythrowaway wrote: post #10

I'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up. PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore con…

I really wish more people knew about PEP as well. It seems equally important (in both the gay and straight communities), but it seems to get even less publicity than PrEP

Definitely. PEP, which for people who aren't familiar with it is a course of drugs which can be taken within 72 hours of a potential exposure to HIV to prevent becoming infected with HIV. It's not 100% effective, but it is an important tool to prevent the spread of HIV.

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#47

Post by gaythrowaway »

mrcactu5 wrote: post #39
gaythrowaway wrote: post #10

I'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up. PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore con…

HIV is a pretty rare disease. About 1 in 300 people in the USA. So I don't understand 1 in 4 gay men are HIV+.

I didn't mean to imply that 1 in 4 gay men are HIV+ but in certain populations the rate of HIV infection is that high unfortunately.

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#48

Post by nothrabannosir »

Macacity wrote: post #28
nothrabannosir wrote: post #7

I'll second the call to donating: https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/about-us-donate > “I’m thinking, ‘You don’t know I have to walk sometimes because I can’t afford my Oyster [the London bus and tube pass]. You don’t know that I’m literally eating once a day because I’m so broke, and I’m sleeping on someone’s sofa because no one is going to pay me to do this,’” he says. “I am no different to how I was when I was a sex w…

> Donations will never be paid to an individual, only ever put back into the running costs and expansion of the website. Just fyi. This does not mean that you should not donate.

Thanks, I hadn't seen that. Although, honestly, that only sounds like more reason to donate..

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#49

Post by BillinghamJ »

argigg wrote: post #26
anonymous58020 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you'll never see the day when that happens Only because political correctness prevents us from shaming those newly infected with HIV. Instead they're victims who deserve our unconditional sympathy.

There has been plenty of shame since the 80's, it didn't stop HIV then and it's not suddenly going to start working now.

You were marked as [dead] btw. Have vouched.

Re: A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive

#50

Post by masonic »

This is sloppy reporting:

"In the space of 12 months, the number of gay men in London being diagnosed with HIV had dropped by 40%. Across England it was down by a third."

The New Scientist article they link to has it correct -- this is a drop in reported new infections, not a drop in infected persons. It still hasn't been corrected.

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