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FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

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Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of downvotes, I'm curious what evidence there is on either side of this claim.

> I'm curious what evidence there is on either side of this claim Looking at the list of the most deadly non-tropical infectious diseases [1], most can be vaccinated against and/or cured. The standouts remain lower respiratory infections, e.g. influenza, and HIV/AIDS. When confronted with a novel coronavirus, it took a few months for the world's medical systems to devise various treatments and a vaccine. Neither of t…

I came here to post about the Hep C cure. You did a great job.

Only thing I would embellish on is that, much like software - when something is wrong its easier to treat the symptoms than to fix the problem a lot of the times. So it's really no wonder alot of treatments are amelioration rather than cures.

I recently did a major refactor at work to fix database and caching problems in our backend. It took months but only yielded 50% scaling improvements. Past teams just kept stacking shit and adding hardware and we can all understand why.

Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#52
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the reason, given that PrEP exists. The actual reason is that Truvada, like other healthcare, can be hard to get in the American system.

Have we considered telling people to "just stay home" and to "not have sex"? Maybe that's the trick.

No, that's the strategy for lower-caste straight people. Telling them that leads to socioeconomically capturing a large percentage of them by burdening them with children before they can hit early potential.

Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of these seem to support GP's comment.

I don't really understand the downvotes and reactions of the other commenters to the gp's post. There's a whole bunch of studies showing there's less incentive to find cures opposed to ongoing treatments under for profit health systems. On a website where products as a service are discussed regularly i'm confused as to how the parallels between that and profit driven 'healthcare as a service' are ignored or looked at…

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Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#54

> In 2018, for instance, there were approximately 36,400 newly infected patients living with HIV in the U.S. It's 2021, why are we only seeing 3 year old HIV infection numbers? How come I can see coronavirus infection numbers updated pretty much hourly but reporting on HIV infection rates in this country is lagging 3 years?

The death toll in the US for COVID over the last year is up to 60% of the total for AIDS deaths over the last 50+ years. That leads to an urgency for COVID data that doesn't quite exist for HIV/AIDS which presumably hasn't been changing as rapidly.

Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#55
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people really, really like having risky and unsafe sex?

No, that's not the reason, given that PrEP exists. The actual reason is that Truvada, like other healthcare, can be hard to get in the American system.

Condoms also exist, and are trivial to buy, in the American system.

Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#56
Pharmacy (i.e. the cost of drugs) is a big contributor to rising healthcare costs and injectables are an increasingly more popular and very expensive way to deliver drugs. This is a good example of how R&D and drug development works in the US. Invest time and energy in a much more profitable form of treatment for a disease that is already managed.

Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#57
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the reason, given that PrEP exists. The actual reason is that Truvada, like other healthcare, can be hard to get in the American system.

Condoms also exist, and are trivial to buy, in the American system.

And I'm sure transmission rates would be even higher if condoms were harder to get.

Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#58

> In 2018, for instance, there were approximately 36,400 newly infected patients living with HIV in the U.S. It's 2021, why are we only seeing 3 year old HIV infection numbers? How come I can see coronavirus infection numbers updated pretty much hourly but reporting on HIV infection rates in this country is lagging 3 years?

I think you know why. For all our societal progression, we've still got a way to go.

Re: FDA approves first monthly injectable to treat HIV infection

#60
post #15
post #6

I have always heard that Truvada (prep) was extremely effective at preventing HIV infection. These new injectables are reported by the article to be 89% and 66% more effective at preventing transmission. What is this based on? Was I misinformed about Truvada's effectiveness? Is this a decrease in an already very low chance of transmission? Or is this in comparison to people forgetting to take their daily pills vs a s…

I don't have stats, but Biktarvy has been advertised for PReP lately. Descovy is approved by the FDA for such use. The shot is around the same price (at list anyway) as some of the other treatments, so if it's even equally effective the convenience might win.

Biktarvy doesn't make any sense for PrEP, Descovy is emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide, Biktarvy is emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide plus an integrase inhibitor which just adds possible additional side effects and isn't necessary.
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