HIV/AIDS has been a major pandemic in today’s society, especially in the gay community. Over the years, there have been many advances in HIV treatment and prevention.
One of the newer forms of prevention is called PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis. This is a combination of drugs that is used to greatly reduce the changes of getting HIV when taken daily. It is a combination of two drugs: tenofovir and emtricitabine.
The trade name is Truvada and it was not originally listed on the Ontario Ministry of Health’s publicly covered drug formulary. This meant that the entire cost was borne by the consumer. The cost of Truvada was over $1000 per month. This put many at greater risk out of the market.
Ontario recently added PrEP to its list of covered drugs. This does not mean that PrEP is free, but rather that drug programs like Trillium would cover that cost. Trillium is not a free drug program, but all Ontarians are eligible. Individuals pay up to 4% of their net income in deductibles. This means that PrEP is now available to low-income people who probably wouldn’t have been able to in the past. The other big advantage of the Ontario Ministry of Health adding it to the formulary is that many private drug coverage plans will now cover it as well.
Truvada now comes in generic form, which has brought the cost down to less than $250 per month, much more manageable even for those who don’t have Trillium or have private insurance.
Regardless of the reduced cost, some argue that the cost of this is still too high for the Ontario government to cover. But as John Maxwell, Executive Director of the Toronto AIDS Committee, pointed out in a recent interview with CBC, the cost of treating a person with HIV is much higher than preventing it in the first place. Also, people taking PrEP should be screened for all STIs regularly and see their doctor every three months for a checkup.
Unfortunately, gay men who choose to take PrEP to help protect themselves from HIV are being slut shamed. Some might compare this to the shame women sometimes face for using birth control. But why is this? Isn’t it a good thing to protect yourself from a condition for life?
For decades, gay men and women have wanted to be seen as equals to heterosexuals. Monogamous relationships are most valued, or at least appear to be in the heterosexual community, and casual sex is a departure from that norm. Now that a traditional lifestyle is available to gay men and lesbians, any deviation from that is considered just that: deviation.
But given the gravity of the situation around HIV/AIDS, shouldn’t the fact that people can now protect themselves outweigh all other arguments? Regardless, each of us has to decide for himself if PrEP is right for us.