News Roundup on PrEP & ARVs—No copay for Medicare patients; ARVs prevent ALZHEIMERS’?

More evidence that these drugs are not specific to “HIV”

Today I’ll be reacting to two recent items in the news; a piece about increasing the affordability of PrEP for Medicare patients, and an intriguing article about the potential for “anti-HIV” drugs to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. (But wait, aren’t these drugs highly specific to “HIV”? Isn’t that the entire “proof of concept” without which the HIV AIDS story would have crumbled to the ground long ago?) Let’s start with the PrEP piece, which has interesting implications regarding the efficacy of oral PrEP—it certainly seems that the establishment has given up on oral PrEP.

Recently, long-acting injectable PrEP, which must be administered by a physician, has been moved from Medicare’s Part D to Part B. In an interesting twist, oral PrEP also benefited from the same move from Part D to Part B, thus eliminating any copay for those receiving PrEP under Medicare. Here are two articles; the quotes in this post are all from the second Poz piece.

Surprise! The Copay for PrEP Just Disappeared (MedPage Today)

Medicare Now Covers All Forms of PrEP to Prevent HIV (Poz)

Medicare Part B, the federal health insurance for people 65 and older or with certain disabilities, now covers pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and related services for folks at risk of getting HIV. PrEP as HIV prevention is available as daily tablets and a long-acting injectable. Medicare will cover both.

Already this leaves out many people that don’t qualify for Medicare, although I imagine there will be a push for “free” PrEP in general—at whose cost? I’d also like to point out some deceptive language that I’ve noticed in recent pieces about the long acting injectables. They are referred to as being administered “every six months,” which is not true. The only fully approved long acting injectable is cabotegravir, marketed as Apretude, which is administered every other month. Approval for lenacapavir, the long acting injectable that is intended to be taken only twice a year, is at least two years away from being available to the public.