71–80 of 220 posts
As someone who is in this high-risk community: good news. (Well, except for that price tag.) People, to a first approximation, are just terrible at pill compliance. Doesn’t matter the demographics, people just aren’t perfect at taking a pill, every day, at the same time, forever and ever. Having that injection where you can set it and forget it? Nice advance. Not game-changing, but still a nice move forward. And I th…
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…
The article states, "...abotegravir – a component of Cabenuva – was 89% more effective in preventing infection among women than Truvada" That 89% when was compared to Truvada. Do healthcare workers actively take Prep or is it administered within the 72 hour period after exposure? Prep from what I understand can be hard on the body's organs and you will need to do a kidney function test every few months when on it
Median income in the US is ~$31K apparently. So even in a rich country, this is like 50% more than the income of a typical person.
My understanding is the funding for the trials was partly from NIAID. This seems like yet another case where public funds are used for research, but a company ends up with the ability to dictate pricing.
I'm glad that this works and that there is another, more convenient and effective treatment option. But shouldn't we have some setup where if tax dollars pay for the research, the government should own a share of the IP commensurate with their funding level, and should then be able to have some say in pricing?
Or, if you think that the government itself shouldn't own IP for a product on the market, can we create an independent non-profit which receives ownership, and whose charter aligns with actually treating as many people as possible?
I'm not saying that when real, innovative work happens, pharmaceutical companies shouldn't get some meaningful return on the money they put in. But when the public supports the work, we shouldn't get nothing.
> 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.
2. We have a 40 year head start on HIV vs. COVID. Surely it can't be that hard, in the digital age, to set up a central database with the following columns, updated in real time: [Datetime of Test, Zip code, Result (pos/neg)]
As someone who is in this high-risk community: good news. (Well, except for that price tag.) People, to a first approximation, are just terrible at pill compliance. Doesn’t matter the demographics, people just aren’t perfect at taking a pill, every day, at the same time, forever and ever. Having that injection where you can set it and forget it? Nice advance. Not game-changing, but still a nice move forward. And I th…
It's a shame that PrEP is still so expensive.
Because you can totally work the systems to get it affordably. Besides insurance, there are clinics, there are coupons, there are programs…but you have to have the information literacy and the time to figure out how to jump through all those hoops.
Me, I work remotely, I have insurance, I live on the north side of Chicago, I can get my Truvada easily. You live on the west side of Chicago with no Howard Brown nearby, and you work a service sector job where your hours are algorithmically doled out to you? Far, far harder.
In a few decades we as a species have found a way not only to completely eradicate it to undetectable levels (it still hides in cells to protect itself) but now we are at a monthly injection.
The way we have created a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 is also absolutely incredible. It's great to be alive these days, now if only we can get a firm solution over cancer and other diseases like dementia, etc!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a generic ideological flamewar tangent. That includes several good reasons for downvoting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
. [just gonna stop commenting on this site]
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…
Compliance is a big issue, as is price. In the US, Truvada's retail price is about $2,000 for a 30 day supply. Truvada costs about $40 in other countries.
> In 2018, for instance, there were approximately 36,400 newly infected patients living with HIV in the U.S. This number seems insane to me in the USA . Why is a well known deadly disease, with well understood transmission vectors, still spreading so prominently here?
Why is it spreading? Because ACCESS TO CARE is extremely unevenly distributed. It can be extremely difficult for people with limited resources to get proper care.