Quick update on PrEP

“Disparities in discontinuation”

It’s a new year, which means it’s time to double down on PrEP propaganda! I was alerted today to the following short piece in Physician’s Weekly:

Disparities Found in Rates of PrEP Discontinuation

From the article:

Disparities exist in rates of PrEP reversal and abandonment, according to findings published in AIDS. Lorraine T. Dean, ScD, and colleagues examined geographic differences in PrEP reversal and abandonment in counties participating in Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) and non-EHE counties.

So, because as we know, it is considered “unethical” to conduct actual placebo-controlled trials for anything adjacent to AIDS (and other diseases, more and more, but that’s a story for another day), we have these weird strategies in which we compare “outcomes” in countries that participate in this “Ending the HIV Epidemic” charade with those that are not participating in said charade.

You might wonder what “Ending the HIV Epidemic” is. Well, here you go:

UNAIDS - Ending the HIV Epidemic

(Notice how they don’t say “Ending the AIDS Epidemic.” Their choice of language is very telling.)

Here are the goals of EHE (emphasis mine):

Substantial gains were made worldwide in reducing the number of adults newly infected with HIV in the 10 years after the turn of the millennium. Yet progress is inadequate and slowing in many places, while new infections are rising in some areas.  From 2010 to 2014, the annual number of young people and adults acquiring HIV fell by just 8 per cent. Globally, the proportion of young people with accurate and comprehensive knowledge about HIV transmission has stagnated over the past 15 years, while condom promotion and distribution remain insufficient to meet young people's needs in much of sub-Saharan Africa.  Even as new prevention tools and approaches have emerged, prevention programmes have weakened in recent years owing to such factors as inadequate leadership, weak accountability and declining funding.

Although 90 per cent of people newly infected with HIV live in just 35 countries, the HIV epidemic remains global, affecting every corner of the world and adding substantially to health burdens in many regions.  However, epidemic patterns, progress and challenges vary considerably.

The main targets for combatting HIV/AIDS in the next 15 years include:

• By 2020, reduce by 30 per cent new cases of chronic viral hepatitis B and C infections and reach 3 million people with hepatitis C virus treatment;

• By 2020, 70 per cent of countries have at least 95 per cent of pregnant women screened for syphilis; 95 per cent of pregnant women screened for HIV and 90 per cent of pregnant women living with HIV receiving effective treatment;

• By 2020, screen every woman living with HIV for cervical cancer;  

• By 2020, expand access to family planning information, services and supplies to an additional 120 million women and girls in 69 priority countries;

• By 2020, reduce the number of tuberculosis deaths among people living with HIV by 75 per cent;

• By 2025, achieve a 25 per cent relative reduction in the overall mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory diseases;

• By 2025, reach 80 per cent availability of the affordable basic technologies and essential medicines, including generic medications, required to treat major non-communicable diseases in both public and private facilities.

These so-called “EHE goals” are interesting. Do you notice what I notice? Of the seven goals mentioned, only three have anything to do with “HIV.” We have one about hepatitis B and C treatments, one about “family planning information” (I’m fine with that one, actually), one about “overall mortality” from diseases that have nothing to do with “HIV,” and another about making drugs cheaper. It reminds me of some of those crazy bills that go before Congress in which they try to sneak something totally unrelated into a bill that’s ostensibly about a very specific thing so that the public is mostly unaware of what was snuck in. It almost reads as though “HIV” were an afterthought.

Having made note of this, let’s compare how well “EHE countries” did compared with “non-EHE countries.”

In 516 counties representing 36,204 patients, the overall rate of PrEP reversal was 19.4%, and the PrEP abandonment rate was 13.7%. Rates of reversal and abandonment were higher in non-EHE counties (22.7% and 17.1%, respectively) when compared with EHE counties (15.6% and 10.5%, respectively).

According to The Body Pro (the page is complete with a pop up ad for Biktarvy), “Reversal was defined as the initial prescription not being picked up within two weeks, while abandonment was defined as the prescription remaining unclaimed for a year.” I don’t have a lot to say about these statistics; the piece doesn’t give a time frame, which would be relevant. The more interesting part of this article is the language.

Note that absolutely nothing is mentioned about the effectiveness of this approach in actually “eliminating HIV” or “reducing infections,” and it certainly says nothing at all about people’s actual health in these countries. No, it is all about compliance. The only statistics in this piece are the ones in the block quote above, and they are focused exclusively on “retention in care.” On PrEP. These people don’t even test positive, yet there is this massive, concerted, and frankly creepy effort to keep these “patients,” who don’t even have the alleged virus these drugs were designed to treat, enslaved to often brutal pharmaceutical treatment for life, guilt tripped into being lifelong patients despite being healthy. Note the creepy language too—in addition to “retention in care,” we now throw around words like “abandonment” (a word with a generally negative connotation in many circumstances) and “discontinuation.” It’s creepy, it’s condescending, it’s Orwellian, and it has to stop.

To support my work on Substack, please purchase my book for yourself or for a friend, and leave a review on Amazon. You can learn about efforts to ban my book here. You can also buy my new book Almost Cancelled.

If you’re a new reader and would like some background as to my views on HIV AIDS, including the “existence” question, please refer to this post and the links contained therein.