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I’m not giving up on gay men

I’m not giving up on gay men

Have you ever had an overwhelming and surreal sense of déjà vu?

 

It’s bad enough to have to repeat experiences. I like to believe that as human beings we are intelligent creatures that learn from our past mistakes and that doing so takes us to a higher plane of existence.

 

But I’m beginning to wonder.

 

The fearless leader of our previous administration made HIV prevention work very difficult. I believe the official “abstinence only” response mandated by the government led to a lot of people becoming infected with the virus, simply because the only answer available to them didn’t work for them.

 

Over the past few months I’ve seen that exact same single-minded response around HIV prevention. As much as I thought it couldn’t get any scarier than the eight years between 2000 – 2008, I was wrong. Because this time that attitude is coming from our own community.

 

In November 2010, MSNBC.com reported “an exciting breakthrough in the fight against AIDS.” That breakthrough was in a little blue pill. Not Viagra, but potentially just as exciting.

 

Truvada wasn’t a new discovery but in a study of 2,499 gay men, Truvada had shown to be effective in preventing HIV infection among gay men. Daily doses of Truvada cut the risk of infection by 44 percent when given with condoms, counseling and other prevention services. Men who took their pills most faithfully – 90 percent of the time – had even more protection, up to 73 percent.

 

AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the self-proclaimed “nation’s largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care,” pounced on the makers of Truvada, crying foul. Too little, too risky, and too careless with gay men, they said. “If we were talking about protecting the general population with a treatment that was only 44 percent effective, would we be celebrating?”

 

It bothers me that AHF will only recite the 44 percent number, rather than the higher 73 percent of those who take the pills more strictly. And we did celebrate when it was discovered that HIV treatment worked as a preventive measure among the general population – and made it available to the very select group of mostly non-gay medical providers.

 

AHF president Michael Weinstein also claims that the study provided intensive counseling, frequent blood draws and tests for sexually transmitted infections, something that isn’t representative of any real world situation.

 

Why the hell not? When people get tested for HIV, they receive intensive counseling, condoms, and are also tested for other sexually transmitted infections.

 

“If someone tells almost any man that it is safe to have sex without a condom, they will likely do so,” Weinstein said.

 

Well, guess what? Many gay men are having sex without a condom already.

 

“A large percentage of patients already infected with HIV do not take their medications,” Weinstein continues. “How likely are uninfected men to take pills every day for the rest of their lives to prevent an infection?”

 

UGH! People who are HIV-positive are not considered “patients” unless they are hospitalized. Way to be in tune with your community. Any preventive measure is only reliable to the extent the person adheres to the protocol. Because some women don’t take the birth control pill 100 percent of the prescribed time, should we not allow the pill at all?

 

“The potential use of drugs to prevent HIV infection is based on the premise that we cannot succeed in getting gay men to use condoms,” Weinstein persists. Then he lists several examples of how we are not successful in that effort: no condoms in bars, no community leaders speaking out forcefully for protecting gay men from HIV.

 

Well … I am a community leader, and I am speaking out forcefully. Preaching the “condom only” message for HIV prevention is counterproductive. Many gay men use condoms, and until a cure and vaccine come along, I imagine it will continue to be the best line of defense against HIV.

 

But, it is not the only means of prevention. For the many gay men who do not use condoms, there are still ways of reducing the risk of infection … and a little blue pill may be the one that works for them. We are a very large and very diverse group of gay men, and we need to have a wide and diverse number of options available to us. Cutting one of those options short of its possible potential before it has a chance to succeed is plain wrong.

 

“Giving Up on Gay Men” was the title of the open letter from AIDS Healthcare. Narrowing the options of HIV infection risk reduction methods for the many men who do not prescribe to one’s own stated beliefs is truly giving up on gay men.

 

Shame on you.

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