PrEP roundup & More
Fauci’s replacement; RFK Jr continues to make people nervous
It’s time for our weekly-ish roundup of what’s new in the crazy world of HIV AIDS. Today, we have three stories that clearly indicate that uptake of PrEP is disappointing, which is no surprise; plus we meet Fauci’s replacement at NIAID, and we get to witness more hand-wringing about how RFK Jr just won’t fall into line, dammit.
First we have this lovely story about PrEP in Canada:
NEWS ‘It’s PrEP B*tch,’ Canadian drag queens help to promote HIV prevention in new music video
Here’s the video, if you can stomach it:
From the article (emphasis mine throughout):
“It’s PrEP Bitch’ aims to empower individuals to reclaim their sexual freedom and embrace acceptance without fear,” a The PrEP Clinic press release said.
To achieve this, The PrEP Clinic has enlisted an eclectic lineup of talent including Canada’s Drag Race queens Jada Shada Hudson, Tynomi Banks, and BOA, along with revered South Asian female DJ Lady Pista and other prominent figures in the arts and performance industry.
The campaign’s hero piece is a song and music video paying homage to music’s ability to connect and unite communities.
This is the “hero piece?” Really? Does anyone else seem to notice the creepy fusion of entertainment and “science” that is happening everywhere—Dylan Mulvaney shilling “HIV” tests being one example? Let’s move on to the next items.
Second, there is some concern about PrEP in China, and of course Gilead Pharmaceuticals had to get involved.
I wonder why China is suddenly being focused upon with regard to PrEP. I guess not enough people are taking it over here. By the way, the acronym YMSM means “young men who have sex with men.” I don’t know how this study was even published, because it doesn’t really tell us anything. Here are the highlights, if you can call them that:
Few studies focused on the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) -related aspects, and the applicability of prior evidence to young men who have sex with men (YMSM) students was unknown. This study aimed to assess the awareness, willingness, uptake, and adherence (AWUA) to PrEP among YMSM students in China and to explore the associated factors with these stages.
[…]
According to the cascade analysis approach, 88.71% of the participants were aware of PrEP, among which 66.7% expressed willingness to use it. Among those who were willing to use PrEP, only 13.80% took it, and of those who took it, 44.68% adhered to it.
Add this to the pile of studies that aim to “prove” PrEP’s effectiveness and only end up proving that people don’t want to take PrEP, even when it’s easily accessible or even free. Here’s another study focusing on China.
Gilead Sciences' BICSTaR study illuminates path for HIV management in Asian populations
Recent advancements in HIV treatment and prevention, including the roll-out of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and the bictegravir/emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (B/F/TAF) treatment regimen, have highlighted the critical need for ethnic-centered approaches in healthcare.
Ethnic-centered approaches in healthcare? Is this a euphemism for racial targeting? Here we go again with all the complicated acronyms, which I’m beginning to think are being used intentionally to confuse people.
Wong spotlighted the BICSTaR (BICtegravir Single Tablet Regimen) study as a pivotal project, assessing the effectiveness and safety of B/F/TAF in real-world settings for both antiretroviral treatment-naïve (TN) and treatment-experienced (TE) individuals living with HIV in various regions.
The rest of this article is no surprise to any of us, given that the study was literally sponsored by Gilead Pharmaceuticals. Given their conclusion, I think that there is definitely a move to promote “long lasting injectable PrEP” in place of the vaccine that will never eventuate. We need to “enhance adherence” among “diverse patient populations.” Their language is so, so creepy.
"Our R&D strategy is focused on developing and delivering a full complement of options, particularly long-acting oral and injectable formulations that meet different dosing needs for different people," he said. "This strategy is part of a broader effort to reduce the stigma associated with HIV treatment and enhance adherence among diverse patient populations."
We’re done with PrEP, for now. Next, we have Fauci’s replacement at NIAID, who is very eager to promote the “End the HIV Epidemic” (EHE; we’re going acronym crazy here) program.
The EHE initiative aims to achieve a 90% reduction in the number of new HIV infections in the United States by 2030. […] Since Fiscal Year 2019, NIH has funded 253 projects across 50 geographic areas prioritized by EHE. The latest EHE awards to CFARs and ARCs support 47 projects, 8 implementation science hubs, and 1 coordinating center. Hubs provide technical support, coaching, training, and consultative services to funded EHE research teams. The coordinating center provides infrastructure for collaboration and sharing best practices in HIV implementation science. In addition to the CFAR/ARC supplements, NIH supported multiple larger research projects in 2023, including 3 R01 awards, 2 R34 awards, and 1 coordinating center. In September 2023, NIH released a Notice of Special Interest to solicit project proposals from independent investigators for Fiscal Year 2024.
The block quote above is boring, but I include it because it highlights just how useless all of this is. There are no actual results to report; merely a goal of “reducing new infections by 90% by 2030” (however that is defined) and a list of all the projects they are wasting spending money on. Is HIV AIDS also a giant money laundering scheme?
Lastly, Robert F. Kennedy Jr is certainly making people nervous, thanks in part to his mentioning the HIV AIDS controversy in his book, The Real Anthony Fauci.
RFK Jr. is completely out of his depth. And a fired staffer is just the tip of the iceberg.
This article is way longer than it needs to be, so I won’t go into details, other than to note that RFK’s “HIV AIDS denial” is certainly continuing to cause alarm.
What defines Kennedy’s views on practically every public policy issue is a childlike aversion to generally accepted truths. If the world zigs, then Kennedy must zag.
[…]
Have the Covid vaccines saved millions of lives — and are they incredibly safe? Sure, says every available piece of scientific evidence. But in Kennedy’s view, “it’s the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
What causes gender dysphoria? Well, he says, it must be chemicals in our drinking water. What about Wi-Fi? Oh, that causes cancer, Kennedy confidently states. What about HIV? Surely, it is the virus that causes AIDS — everyone agrees with that. Not Kennedy.
Remember how, early on, the phrase “the virus that causes AIDS” was repeated constantly in the manner of a mantra? Indeed, if we go back in time to 1984 and the infamous press conference announcing the “probable cause of AIDS” despite the fact that the evidence had yet to appear in the medical literature, we recall that “the virus” wasn’t even called “HIV.” It was given the unremarkable name of HTLVIII (human T lymphotropic virus type III)—that was quickly changed, with the cunning linguistic shift of referring to it as “human immunodeficiency virus,” to cement in the public’s mind just what this alleged infectious agent could be capable of.
Of course, this was only the beginning of the trickery and sleight of hand that we’ve seen exhibited time and time again over the years with “HIV.” From the promise of a vaccine, to the use of “viral load” to amplify genetic fragments associated with a virus because actual infectious virus could not be found, to the enthusiasm that the protease inhibitors would “end AIDS,” to the unprecedented effort to medicate vast swathes of HIV-negative individuals with “anti-HIV drugs” via PrEP, it’s been an incredible forty years of gaslighting. Let’s not let this continue for another forty years.
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You know this is an interesting thing, highlighting China. Considering the population size, there's surely a sizable chunk of gay men interacting in the larger cities. Yet we're not hearing about a raging AIDS epidemic over there, especially considering the apparent lack of update for PrEP. I get that China isn't exactly an open book, but still. Given that we know that the 'HIV' antibody tests react in a stratified way according to racial groups, with Asians in general being the least likely to test positive, it's possible that what we're seeing with the lack of PrEP uptake is that guys don't see a need for PrEP because 'HIV disease' isn't something they're living with in the aggregate.
Have you noticed how over the years the terminology in HIV/AIDS research has shifted from "gay men" to "MSM" (men who have sex with men)? "Gay men" connotes men who are both sexually and romantically attracted to men, including the potential for emotional intimacy and committed relationships. "MSM" is cold, clinical, soulless. It's as if pharma/researchers/public health practitioners are saying, "Go ahead and have all the casual and anonymous sex you want and we'll offer you lots of pills and shots to keep you safe." So creepy and dehumanizing...