When it comes to the little blue pill, gay men are in a house divided. Amid controversy over using HIV drug Truvada as an HIV preventative, Legacy comes out in favor of adding the pills to gay men's arsenals.
Last week, Houston’s Legacy Community Health Services joined a long list of AIDS United Public Policy Committee partners in a public letter that comes out against a dangerous misinformation campaign by the California-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which still backs a condoms-only prevention approach.
AHF calls using Truvada as a Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) “ineffective” in a new print media campaign, and Legacy and its brethren aren’t having it. If taken as directed, PrEP works, they say in the letter.
“A recent study found that 80 percent of gay and bisexual men knew ‘only a little’ or ‘nothing at all’ about PrEP,” Legacy officials shared on Facebook. “We all need accurate and complete information to make informed decisions about our health.”
As a co-signer, Legacy fully supports the policy and promotes its #PrEPworks hashtag (below). HRC agrees. So does the CDC. For that matter, so does Grindr. You know, the Big Three.
So is PrEP right for you? This website might help you answer that question. In a war of butt sex and self-proclaimed “Truvada Whores” against those who say there are no magic pills, we say that properly used it’s probably an effective tool in a nation where HIV is stabilizing – unless you’re gay. After all, only three in 10 gay poz men have the virus in check, and half of all gay and bisexual men under 35 aren’t even getting tested.