Daily Pill Greatly Lowers AIDS Risk, Study Finds

[The Straight Story]

Daily Pill Greatly Lowers AIDS Risk, Study Finds

In a development that could change the battle against AIDS, researchers have found that taking a daily antiretroviral pill greatly lowers the chances of getting infected with the fatal virus.

In the study, published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that the hundreds of gay men randomly assigned to take the drugs were 44 percent less likely to get infected than the equal number assigned to take a placebo.

But when only the men whose blood tests showed they had taken their pill faithfully every day were considered, the pill was more than 90 percent effective, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, head of the division of the National Institutes of Health, which paid for the study along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“That’s huge,” Dr. Fauci said. “That says it all for me.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/health/research/24aids.html?_r=1

[Deep13]

1. Wow. I wonder if it might be used as a treatment.

I also wonder about other retroviruses like flu.

[Roon]

8. I take this drug as part of my cocktail

it's called truvada.

[Deep13]

10. Is it keeping you pretty healthy (I hope)? nt

[Roon]

11. Oh yeah!

My labs improve with every draw. Thanks for asking! :-)

[grahamhgreen]

2. Great news!

[xchrom]

3. all of this is good news. -- we still need a 'cure'. nt

[AlabamaLibrul]

4. The same pill that most AIDS patients can't afford. About $1,000 a month.

It costs about $15 in places like Africa, so there's a fairly robust online market for the generics from overseas.

All while Big Pharma laughs all the way to the bank.

[sarcasmo]

5. Which is the really sad thing, if it s 15 in Africa why not 15 here. GREED is the answer

Big Pharma Greed soaking Billions out of Americans.

[AlabamaLibrul]

6. Bump for the evening crowd / to draw attention to the price disparity

American pharma companies will make any dime they can, while generic makers who distribute to the third world are quite fine with $15 a month for this supposedly $1000/mo drug.

[BlueIris]

7. Definitely worth noting. nt

[XemaSab]

9. Not to piss on everyone's parade

but if gay men think that they can have unprotected sex because they are on a pill that's 90% effective, this could wind up being WAY worse than the current "safe sex" protocol.

If a man has two unprotected hookups a week with HIV+ men, then the odds dictate that he'll get HIV before two months is out.