In new study, HIV prevention pill Truvada is startlingly 100 percent effective

[Dexter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/04/in-new-study-hiv-prevention-pill-truvada-is-startlingly-100-percent-effective/

As far as emotions go, AIDS researchers tend to be a staid bunch who look skeptically at every new finding. But the results of a study released this week on the HIV prevention drug have many cheering from the rooftops. The study conducted at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco involved more than 600 high-risk individuals including gay and bisexual men, as well as heterosexuals and injection-drug users. These individuals were healthy at the time of enrollment and were put on a daily regimen of a blue pill called Truvada as a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). In previous tests, the pill had been shown to prevent infection about 86 percent of participants. In this trial, it was 100 percent. That's right, not a single person in the study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, became infected while on the drug. "Tremendously good news," University of California-San Francisco researchers Kimberly A. Koester and Robert M. Grant (one of Time's most influential people of 2012 for his work in AIDS) said of the results in a commentary accompanying the publication of the study.

[Relic]

Something of particular interest to you?

[Dexter]

Something of particular interest to you?

Yes, I am quite interested in stopping the spread of AIDS.

[GourmetDan]

Something of particular interest to you?

I was thinking the same thing...   

[Paladin]

"In this trial, it was 100 percent. That's right, not a single person in the study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, became infected while on the drug."

And how exactly did they conduct the tests? Did they tell the participants to go out there and be as promiscuous as possible and then come back and report? Also, how long did the trials take place?

I am glad to hear there may be an effective prophylactic against Aids but I do question the nature of the trials.

[Dexter]

"In this trial, it was 100 percent. That's right, not a single person in the study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, became infected while on the drug."

And how exactly did they conduct the tests? Did they tell the participants to go out there and be as promiscuous as possible and then come back and report? Also, how long did the trials take place?

I am glad to hear there may be an effective prophylactic against Aids but I do question the nature of the trials.

It's hard to make a proper control group with something like this because of the danger involved. I had some of the same thoughts you did.

[Oceander]

It's hard to make a proper control group with something like this because of the danger involved. I had some of the same thoughts you did.

Good point.  I was just wondering if, or how, they would know that someone had been exposed to HIV in such a way that they would have been infected but for the pill.

I'm not saying that it's not an encouraging sign, just that I'm not sure if the study really has the meaning it's given without knowing all the details of how the study was put together.

[EC]

Allowing for factors like "luck" and "not getting laid" in this, we're probably looking at a prevention rate more in the 90-95% range. Still impressive, especially for a shifting antigen virus. Wonder if the mechanism can be adapted to other viruses of the same nature?

HIV isn't a particular worry for me, but I am damned sick of catching colds!