Remember last year when Truvada was being touted as a breakthrough in AIDS prevention? Reality has now hit home:
"Three months later, the advance has hit a wall. While study findings show the drug prevents HIV in noninfected, sexually active gay men, doctors say they're wary about giving healthy people a $12,000-a-year medicine that has side effects including nausea and kidney damage, and may not be used as regularly as needed. They also say they're not often asked to make the drug available for that use."
Says Martin Markowitz, clinical director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City. "People who can't use a condom, are they likely to take a pill every day?" he asked. "And in the real world, who will pay?"
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/28/BU101I09P4.DTL#ixzz1FMcSkXAu