The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the self-described “largest community-based HIV medical provider in the nation,” will open an Atlanta branch later this month with support from basketball legend and HIV/AIDS activist Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

Johnson and AHF announced on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, plans to open new clinics in Atlanta; Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Fort Worth, Tex. Dubbed the Atlanta “Magic Johnson” Healthcare Clinic, the facility is scheduled for a soft opening on May 16 at 5700 Hillendale Dr. in Lithonia.

The clinic will feature a resident doctor who specializes in HIV/AIDS, a pharmacy and additional services like testing and counseling, according to the AHF.

“At the clinic, we’re going to offer HIV primary care, laboratory care, hopefully STD screenings and treatments and an on-site pharmacy that will offer free delivery to anyone in the area,” said Dawn Averill, associate director of growth and development for AHF.

Averill called the clinic a “one-stop shop.”

Atlanta has multiple agencies whose mission is combat HIV/AIDS, and Averill said that AHF’s new clinic would not dilute local treatment options but expand them.

“You can never have enough care, enough options,” Averill said.

Averill said the clinic’s location in Lithonia, which is east of Atlanta in Dekalb County, was chosen because it would allow AHF to expand HIV/AIDS services into an area where people who need care can find it.

“The percentage of people that are out of care is high,” Averill said. “We when did our research on Georgia, it was a very large number of individuals who had been documented but were not in care.”

The AHF will also bring a mobile testing unit when it opens its clinic that will service local communities.

“For a lot of people, it’s a transportation issue,” Averill said. “We try to break through their barriers to see what we can do. If those are your issues, we can fix that.

“We want to get out there, we want to find new people who are HIV positive and help them through the process,” Averill added.
Ga. among worst new HIV cases

Despite progress in treatment and early detection, Georgia still ranks among the worst states for new HIV cases.

Georgia was among the top states to report new HIV infections in 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Some 1,300 people are diagnosed each year in the Peach State, CDC numbers show.

Many of those diagnosed with the disease seek initial treatment, but fall through the cracks when it comes to continued care, Averill said.

“We want people to come in, get tested, we want to teach them how to be healthy, be sexually smart,” Averill added.

The new clinic will be a partnership with the Magic Johnson Foundation, a nonprofit organization created by the former NBA legend.

Johnson shocked the world in 1991 when he announced he was HIV positive. Since his announcement, he has become a fierce advocate of the struggle against HIV/AIDS.

“Magic Johnson is a hero and icon in the fight against AIDS, and we applaud him for the courage and leadership he has shown in this ongoing battle,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein at the World AIDS Day announcement.

Founded in 1987, AHF provides services to more than 130,000 people affected by HIV and AIDS in 22 countries annually. The foundation also has clinics in California, Florida, and Washington, D.C.

As the US Food and Drug Administration moves closer to approving a drug that would reduce the likelihood of contracting HIV, critics and some health campaigners have raised fears that the pre-emptive treatment might actually lead to higher infection rates.

On Thursday an influential advisory panel recommended that the FDA approve Truvada, a drug made by Gilead Sciencesthat is currently used as part of combination therapy to help slow the progression of HIV. The vote, which came after hours of debate among medical experts, is not binding but the agency usually follows its recommendations.

Many opponents of the drug are concerned that it will become a “party drug” that would encourage people who are at risk of contracting HIV to act recklessly. Others worry about dangerous side-effects associated with healthy people taking Truvada and that the virus could mutate, reducing the effectiveness of the treatment.

“I fear that men will take the drug inconsistently, have a false sense of security and increase risky behaviour,” said Joey Terrill, who works in public affairs at the Aids Healthcare Foundation.

Gilead filed last year with the FDAfor a new authorised “indication” for “pre-exposure prophylaxis” use of Truvada, which is a core part of HIV treatment around the world. Sales of the drug generate about $3bn a year.

Clinical trials showed that Truvada reduced the risk of contracting HIV in men who have sex with men by 44 per cent, and by 73 per cent among heterosexual couples where one partner was already infected.

Elizabeth Nash, an Aids campaigner, told the FDA panel she thought that 44 per cent was low for an intervention that was intended to be preventive. “It’s hard to think of other preventive measures such as birth control or vaccines where 44 per cent relative efficacy is deemed effective,” she said.

Critics also argue the use of Truvada could lead to drug resistance undermining its value for patients as a result of intermittent use of the medicine, that the studies have not determined the long-term effects of taking the drug and that reliance on Truvada could reduce condom use.

In the developing world, there are fears that patients could be forced to sell or share their medicines with those uninfected but at risk, creating tensions and leaving them without effective treatment.

Gilead has said it is willing to fund substantial HIV prevention programmes to support the use of its medicine to limit new infections around the world.

The company will underwrite testing, condom distribution and lower-cost supplies of the medicine if US regulators extend the use of Truvada.

Howard Jaffe, chairman of the Gilead Foundation, the company’s charitable arm, said the company sought to reach marginalised groups of people at risk of HIV, many of whom are uninsured and unable to access free healthcare in the US or other countries.

The action would mark a highly unusual extension for a pharmaceutical company into supporting public health infrastructure related to a disease, as well as a funding of approaches that potentially reduce the price and total demand for its drug.

“Cost is not going to be an issue,” he said. “We would be very happy to spend a lot of money on testing if it meant there was less HIV. We’re coming at this as citizens of the world, not necessarily as an 800lb gorilla looking to increase our revenues on the backs of people who are HIV positive.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1.2m people in the US are living with HIV and that there are about 50,000 new cases a year. Gilead projects that the target group of healthy people that would be eligible to take Truvada, which would cost about $14,000 a year, is in the tens of thousands.

By Denise Grady
May 10, 2012

SILVER SPRING, Md. — An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration is expected to vote Thursday on whether a drug already used to treat H.I.V. infection should also be approved to prevent it. Such a recommendation, if made, would mark the first time that government advisers have advocated giving antiviral medicine to healthy people who might be exposed through sexual activity to the virus that causes AIDS.

Studies have shown that people who take the medicine, Truvada, every day have a greatly reduced risk of infection.

The F.D.A. usually accepts the advice of its advisory panels, which are made up of outside experts, mostly from medical schools.

On Thursday morning, the panel evaluated studies of the once-a-day pill and heard scientific presentations about whether Truvada should be prescribed for people at high risk of infection, like gay men who have multiple sex partners, especially those who do not always use condoms, and people in relationships with someone who is H.I.V.-positive. Young black men who have sex with other men are at highest risk.

The drug is meant not to replace condoms and other safe-sex measures, but to be used with them for added protection.

Experts say better methods of prevention are needed because there are 50,000 new H.I.V. infections a year in the United States. Several speakers emphasized on Thursday that that number had not budged in 15 to 20 years. Counseling and condoms are not doing the job, they said, and many of the newly infected are men whose sexual partners do not realize they are H.I.V.-positive.

Worldwide, there were 2.4 million to 2.9 million new cases in 2010.

After the scientific presentations on Thursday morning, many panelists voiced concern about the possibility that people who become infected while taking Truvada could develop dangerous drug-resistant strains of the virus. And they asked why resistance occurs in people taking the medicine, given that it is such a powerful drug.

Dr. John W. Mellors, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh, said that one likely reason is that if people take the pills inconsistently, they may wind up with levels of the drug that are too low to prevent infection, but just high enough to allow resistance to occur.

An F.D.A. analysis found that people who are older and more educated are more likely to take the drug faithfully. So are men who reported having receptive anal sex without condoms. There is no data to tell whether Truvada would prevent H.I.V. infection spread by needle sharing.

Nausea and abdominal pain are common side effects for the first few weeks people take Truvada; those symptoms then diminish.

Because Truvada has already been approved to treat H.I.V. infection, doctors have been free to prescribe it for prevention, and some have been doing so. Prescribing a drug for something other than its approved purpose, called off-label use, is allowed by the F.D.A, though drug companies are not permitted to market or promote drugs for such uses.

Advocates of Truvada’s use for prevention say F.D.A. approval would help ensure the drug was more safely and effectively used. The medicine would have to be labeled with specific instructions for taking it, including which lab tests patients need to get for safety reasons. For instance, patients should be tested periodically for H.I.V. infection, because if someone who is already infected takes Truvada alone, drug-resistant strains of the virus may quickly develop. Some patients may also need to have their kidney function monitored. And the drug can also cause slight decreases in bone density that may need monitoring in some people. F.D.A. approval may also make it more likely that insurers would cover preventive use, which costs about $14,000 a year.

Truvada, which contains two antiviral drugs, is sold by Gilead Sciences, based in Foster City, Calif. Though it will be used alone for prevention, it must be taken along with other antiviral to treat H.I.V. First approved in 2004, it quickly became one of the best-selling H.I.V. drugs. Gilead reported Truvada sales of $758.3 million in the first quarter of this year, which would translate into more than $3 billion a year.

A Gilead official, Dr. Andrew Cheng, told the panel on Thursday that if Truvada is approved for prevention, the company will conduct safety monitoring and provide educational materials that will emphasize the importance of using other prevention methods as well, like condoms, counseling and regular H.I.V. testing. He said Gilead would also provide other services, including free condoms and testing for H.I.V. and hepatitis B; subsidized tests for viral resistance for people who become infected; and an assistance program for people with no prescription coverage.

A number of prevention studies of Truvada have been conducted in the past few years, with somewhat mixed results. A study of 2,499 gay men in six countries, published in 2010, found an overall risk reduction of 44 percent in men for whom Truvada was prescribed. When researchers looked more closely and checked blood levels of the drug, they found that many of the men had not taken it every day. Among those who did take it correctly, the risk reduction was about 90 percent. But only about 10 percent of the men took the pills exactly as directed.

Some studies in Africa and Asia have also shown significant risk reduction among healthy people whose partners were infected. But other studies in Africa were halted because the drug was showing no benefit in women; subsequent analyses revealed that many of the women were not taking the pills, sometimes because they did not think they were at risk.

The failure of some people in the studies to take the pills every day has led the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a medical and advocacy group based in Los Angeles, to contend that prescribing Truvada as prevention could backfire, leaving people vulnerable while lulling them into believing that sex without condoms is safe.

“You will definitely have a result that is far worse than what you had in any of the studies,” Michael Weinstein, the foundation’s president, said in an interview.

But a researcher who conducted the study in gay men, Dr. Robert M. Grant of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, which is affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco, disagreed, likening Mr. Weinstein’s argument to that of people in the 1970s who warned that air bags in cars would lead people to stop using seat belts.

“Did that happen?” Dr. Grant asked in an interview. “No.”

He said the goal of prevention research was to provide many ways to avoid infection so that everyone was using at least two of them.

Existing methods include condoms, counseling, male circumcision and widespread use of antiviral medicines by people who are already have H.I.V., even in the early stages, because treatment has been shown to significantly reduce the odds that they will infect others.

‘Mothers Against Discrimination’ Hershey PRESS CONFERENCES Friday May 11th
Harrisburg, PA—10:00am (Eastern) Crowne Plaza Hotel
Washington, DC—2:00pm (Eastern) National Press Club

WASHINGTON D.C. (May 10, 2012)¾On the eve of Mother’s Day, mothers and advocates from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and an informal new coalition known as ‘Mothers Against Discrimination’ (M.A.D.) will host two back-to-back press conferences in Harrisburg Pennsylvania (10:00am)(near the headquarters of Hershey) and Washington, DC (2:00pm) on Friday, May 11^th to speak out against AIDS discrimination at the Hershey-funded Milton Hershey School and urge continuation of a boycott of the candy giant throughout the Mother’s Day Holiday. The mothers and AIDS advocates will encourage the public to join, or continue to support, a global boycott of the company after the prestigious Hershey School rejected a 13-year-old boy due to his HIV-positive status.

WHAT: 10am—HARRISBURG, PA—PRESS CONFERENCE–‘Mothers Against Discrimination’ (M.A.D.) speak out, urge boycott against Hershey over Hershey  School’s rejection of an HIV-positive boy

WHEN:   Friday, May 11th – 10:00am (Eastern)    

WHERE:   Crowne Plaza Hotel (Downtown), 23 South Second Street, Harrisburg, PA 17101

WHO:   Evelyn Rivera, and her HIV-positive son, Marco Benjamin, Regional Mobilization Leader (NY, NJ, PA) for the ‘Keep the Promise 2012’ March on Washington

Reverend Jeffrey Jordan, Metropolitan Community Church, Philadelphia

Renee Williams, MCC parishioner & mother of an HIV-positive child

Jessie Gruttadauria, AHF Director of Public Health & Domestic Advocacy, and a mother

B-ROLL: Oversize 5lb Hershey bar with wrapper printed with boycott URL www.EndHIVStigma.org

AHF CONTACTS:

Ged Kenslea, AHF Interim Marketing & Communications Dir: (323) 791-5526 mobile

Tom Myers, AHF General Counsel: (323) 860-5259 mobile

A way to reverse the trend and get such results in Ukraine would be to put the stake on treatment; AIDS Healthcare Foundation wrote an open letter to the head of the Global Fund asking him to take action.

LOS ANGELES (May 9, 2012)—AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization which currently provides medical care and services to more than 166,000 individuals in 26 countries worldwide, including more than 5,000 in Ukraine in partnership with governmental clinics, has addressed an open letter to Gabriel Jaramillo, general manager of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to ask for urgent reorientation of its grants in Ukraine.

This country, which concentrates with Russia 90% of the HIV positives of the region, has been granted over 300 million dollars (USD) to fight the epidemics. This is ten times more than Myanmar, which has as many patients receiving life-saving anti-retroviral drugs. However, with the Global Fund’s money, only 4,600 people living with HIV are receiving anti-retroviral drugs in Ukraine, while UNAIDS estimate that more than a hundred thousand are still in need. It is evidence-based that treatment is prevention; therefore, such reorientation should put an end to this mortal trend.

AHF therefore asks for the re-programing of 75% of the already approved resources toward treatment and hopes that the value of money, one of the core values of the Global Fund, will help to trigger the long waited reverse of the epidemics in Ukraine.

]]> http://www.aidshealth.org/archives/12006/feed/ 0 http://www.aidshealth.org/archives/11909/ http://www.aidshealth.org/archives/11909/#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 21:48:10 +0000 Annie http://www.aidshealth.org/?p=11909 Outlet: Bloomberg News
By Ryan Flinn and Shannon Pettypiece
Date: May 9, 2012

Healthy people can protect themselves from the deadly HIV virus if they take Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD)’s Truvada every day. Whether patients will is an issue dividing AIDS advocates as U.S. regulators weigh approving the pill as the first preventative measure against the disease.

Truvada is safe and effective enough as a preventative medicine, Food and Drug Administration staff concluded in a report yesterday. An advisory panel recommendation for approval, set for debate tomorrow, hinges on who would get the pill and whether patients can be educated on the importance of following through with a prescription.
Enlarge image Risk of Unprotected Sex Debated in Gilead HIV Pill Review

Gilead, based in Foster City, California, will work with health agencies on public demonstration projects to further the drug’s use if approved. Photographer: Paul Sakuma/AP Photo

Doctors say the idea is to get healthy individuals in certain high-risk groups to take a $14,000-a-year pill every day to reduce the estimated 48,000 new U.S. cases of HIV each year. Some advocates say such a medicine to prevent the virus that can be avoided with condoms may encourage unprotected sex and increase infections.

“That’s an issue many of us have talked about for years,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention. “If you have this new option, would you be riskier? There is no evidence to show that that might be the case, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a concern.”

Truvada can reduce the risk of HIV as much as 94 percent for people who took the pill regularly, according to a study cited by the FDA. In other trials, only 10 percent of participants took the medicine as prescribed, and one study was halted after no benefit was gained.
Taking Their Medicine

“Among our own patients who are HIV positive, we have difficulty getting them to adhere, let alone people who don’t have the disease,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which provides medical care for 130,000 people worldwide. “Counting on adherence is not going to work.”

Another concern, Weinstein said, is that having a preventative pill will lead to a reduction in condom use among at-risk people. Resistance to the drug, “already a serious problem,” may increase if the pill is used as a preventative, according to a September editorial in the journal Lancet. A further issue is how the drug would be distributed.

“A shortfall exists in access to antiretroviral drugs for populations in need of treatment to prolong their lives,” according to the Lancet. “In the face of the current global economic situation, how can these drugs be provided as prevention to those high-risk populations, while people with the disease in need of treatment continue to go without?”

High-Risk Groups

The pill would be aimed at an estimated 415,000 Americans who are among those at high risk for contracting HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that leads to AIDS, from sexual activity, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These include people whose spouses or partners have the disease, as well as gay men who had more than two partners in the past year and didn’t wear condoms during sex. The number of people infected with HIV rose to 34 million worldwide in 2009.

Gilead, based in Foster City, California, will work with health agencies on public demonstration projects to further the drug’s use if approved, Howard Jaffe, president and chairman of the Gilead Foundation, said in an interview.

“If deployed correctly and efficiently, it could make a big dent in the epidemic in the U.S.,” Jaffe said. “Against the backdrop of no vaccine on the horizon, I think that there’s a strong case to be made for it.”

Gilead rose 2.4 percent to $50.64 at the close of New York trading. The stock has gained 23 percent in the past 12 months.

Expand Research

Getting approval as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, would allow researchers to expand the number of patients on the medicine and further educate at-risk populations, James Loduca, a spokesman for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said in an interview. Part of that process would involve focusing on certain people during particular times in their lives, he said.

“We don’t think PrEP is a lifetime prevention tool,” Loduca said. “It would be used in a targeted way for specific populations and in relatively short periods of time.”

Scott Owens, a hair dresser in Boston, was part of a study testing Truvada as a preventative medicine, and would “absolutely” recommend it to others. Still, he is worried that the medicine will give a false sense of security and increase risky behavior.

“The young people I talk to, they know there are these drugs now that work really good and they act like it is no big deal,” Owens, 47, said in an interview. “I feel like we are all at risk, no one is 100 percent safe.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net; Shannon Pettypiece in New York at spettypiece@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

WASHINGTON – Federal drug regulators on Tuesday affirmed landmark study results showing that a popular HIV-fighting pill can also help healthy people avoid contracting the virus that causes AIDS in the first place. While the pill appears safe and effective for prevention, scientists stressed that it only works when taken on a daily basis.

The Food and Drug Administration will hold a meeting Thursday to discuss whether Truvada should be approved for people who are at risks of contracting HIV through sexual intercourse. The agency’s positive review posted Tuesday suggests the daily pill will become the first drug approved to prevent HIV infection in high-risk patients.

FDA reviewers conclude that taking Truvada pre-emptively could spare patients “infection with a serious and life-threatening illness that requires lifelong treatment.”

Despite the positive results, reviewers said that patients must be diligent about taking the pill every day. Adherence to the medication was less than perfect in clinical trials, and reviewers said that patients in the real world may forget to take their medication even more than those in clinical studies.

First announced in 2010, Truvada’s preventive ability was hailed as a breakthrough in the 30-year campaign against the AIDS epidemic. A three-year study found that daily doses cut the risk of infection in healthy gay and bisexual men by 44 percent, when accompanied by condoms and counseling. Another study found that Truvada reduced infection by 75 percent in heterosexual couples in which one partner was HIV infected and the other was not.

The FDA’s panel of advisers will take separate votes on whether Truvada should be approved for:

— gay and bisexual men

— men or women in relationships with HIV-positive partners

— other people at risk of acquiring HIV through sexual activity

The FDA is not required to follow the advice of its panels, though it usually does.

An estimated 1.2 million Americans have HIV, which overwhelmingly affects men who have sex with other men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV attacks the immune system and, unless treated with antiviral drugs, develops into AIDS, a fatal condition in which the body cannot fight off foreign infections.

Because Truvada is already on the market to manage HIV, some doctors currently prescribe it as a preventive measure. FDA approval would allow the drugmaker Gilead Sciences to formally market its drug for the new use.

But support for FDA approval is not unanimous. Some researchers stress that condoms remain the best weapon against AIDS, and a prevention pill is not the chemical equivalent.

“We know that if the person doesn’t take the medication every day they will not be protected,” said Dr. Rodney Wright, director of HIV programs at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “So the concern is that there may not be adequate adherence to provide protection in the general population.”

Wright, who is also chairman of the AIDS Health Foundation, added that some upcoming medications may be more effective at preventing infection than Truvada.

Researchers also worry about Truvada’s mixed success rate in preventing infection among women. Last year a study in women was stopped early after researchers found that women taking the drug were more likely to become infected than those taking placebo. Researchers speculated that women may need a higher dose of the drug to prevent infection. They also said the disappointing results may have resulted from women not taking the pills consistently.

Still, many HIV patient advocacy groups say the drug should be a prescribing option to prevent HIV, alongside condoms, counseling and other measures.

“If we’re going to reduce the more than 50,000 new HIV infections in this country each year, we need to increase the available options for people,” said Ronald Johnson, vice president of AIDS United. He added that more studies are needed to determine the drug’s effectiveness in women and other patient subgroups.

“The current state of the data warrants going forward, but we believe additional clinical trials should also go forward to broaden the use of Truvada.”

Last month, AIDS United and more than a dozen other advocacy groups sent a letter to the FDA, urging approval of Truvada.

Foster City, Calif.-based Gilead Sciences Inc. has marketed Truvada since 2004. The drug is a combination of two older HIV drugs, Emtriva and Viread. Doctors usually prescribe the medications as part of a drug cocktail that makes it harder for the virus to reproduce. Patients with low viral levels are far less likely to develop AIDS.

Side effects with Truvada include diarrhea, dizziness, nausea and vomiting. More serious problems can include liver toxicity, kidney problems and bone thinning.

Company shares fell 56 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $49.34
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel this week will decide whether to recommend for the first time that certain healthy but at-risk people take a drug to help prevent them from contracting the virus that causes AIDS.

Approval by the agency would mark another milestone in the three-decade effort to combat HIV and AIDS. Huge advances in drugs to treat infection and its symptoms have allowed patients to live significantly longer and healthier lives for a disease that in the 1980s was a death sentence.

On Thursday, an FDA panel will weigh whether Gilead Sciences Inc., GILD -0.74% which makes the HIV treatment drug Truvada, should be allowed to market the drug to help prevent high-risk patients from contracting HIV in the first place. It is the first time a company has asked the FDA for approval of an HIV drug as a prevention tool.

The FDA doesn’t comment on pending drug applications, and there is too much disagreement over the drug studies to predict whether the agency will sign off on the new use. The FDA doesn’t have to follow the recommendations of its expert panels, but usually does.

Some research has shown that taking the drug can materially lower a person’s risk of HIV infection and most doctors support using it this way in limited circumstances. Truvada—a combination of two medicines that makes it harder for HIV to multiply in the body—is one of the most widely used HIV drugs. It costs about $14,000 a year.

But medical experts and AIDS activists are divided over whether the agency should approve Gilead’s application.

Some doctors argue the clinical data aren’t strong enough and that approval could undermine other HIV prevention efforts like condom use. Others fear an FDA rejection might stall additional research into new HIV-prevention efforts.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is leading efforts against FDA approval of Truvada. The organization filed a petition with FDA in March urging the FDA to reject the application, saying the data weren’t strong enough to show the drug prevents HIV in healthy people.

The group also cited concerns about drug side-effects, the estimated annual cost of the drug, and the difficulty of sticking with a daily pill regimen.

But another organization, called AVAC, a group that advocates for HIV prevention methods, is leading efforts in support of Truvada, and was among 14 organizations that last week submitted a letter the FDA urging approval.
“This is the first of what we’d hope would be many interventions,” said Mitchell Warren, AVAC’s executive director. “The ultimate is a vaccine.”

Data from two large clinical trials were submitted by Gilead in support of using Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis, or “PrEP.” A study funded by the National Institutes of Health, which involved about 2,500 gay or bisexual men at high risk of contracting HIV, showed the drug cut the risk of contracting the virus by 44% in addition to other prevention methods like condom use compared with those taking a placebo pill.

The other study, conducted by the University of Washington and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, involves about 4,800 heterosexual couples in Uganda and Kenya in which one person was infected with HIV and the other was not. Interim data released last year showed HIV-negative partners who were taking Truvada had a 73% reduced risk of becoming infected with HIV compared with those in the placebo group.

Truvada “is the first new modality that has a chance of moving the needle” for preventing new HIV infections, said Howard Jaffe, president of the Gilead Foundation, a philanthropic arm of the company to which Gilead referred questions on the drug.

But other studies on women haven’t shown the same benefit. A study involving about 2,000 women in Africa was stopped last year after an independent monitoring committee decided it was unlikely to show Truvada helped prevent HIV infection in women.

Dr. Rodney Wright, the chairman of the board of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the director of HIV programs at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., says he is concerned about Truvada getting “a blanket approval” as a prevention tool. He is worried about the lack of data on women and thinks other types of medicines could be more promising in preventing infection with HIV.

Physicians on both sides of the issue, including Dr. Wright, already use Truvada as a prevention tool in limited circumstances, such as when heterosexual couples with one HIV-positive partner want to try to conceive a child.
Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued interim guidelines for using Truvada as a prevention tool for some gay and bisexual men. The CDC is working on similar guidelines for heterosexuals.

“PrEP will be the most beneficial for people at very high risk of HIV infection,” says Jonathan Mermin, the director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS prevention. But research shows it’s essential that people adhere to the drug’s daily dose regimen in order for it to work, he said.

In the U.S., about 1.2 million people are infected with HIV and about 50,000 new infections are diagnosed each year.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) marked the opening of its newest ‘Out of the Closet Vintage’ location—and its first outside the United States—with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house on Saturday, April 28 in Amsterdam at 158 Jodenbreestraat.

The store is now open for business and accepting donations of clothing, accessories, furniture and household goods—the sale of which will provide fund for lifesaving HIV/AIDS services.

With twenty-two locations in the United States—including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami—AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s award winning “Out of the Closet” thrift store chain is the United States’ largest retail fundraising vehicle for HIV/AIDS medical care and research. Boasting more than 1 million shoppers per year, the chain has raised millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS medical services since it first opened in Los Angeles in 1995.

In addition to providing funding for lifesaving services, many “Out of the Closet” stores offer free HIV testing services, part of AHF’s innovative community-based, alternative-site testing program. In Amsterdam, ‘Out of the Closet Vintage’ will be offering free HIV testing and counseling services later in the year.

“AHF is proud to open our first Out of the Closet store in Amsterdam—which has been the home-base for the organization’s global operations for more than 10 years.  Amsterdam is just the right place for this newest venture as it is a community that thrives on doing good both locally and globally.”
—Michael Weinstein, AHF President

A view of the racks and racks of clothing inside Out of the Closet Vintage in Amsterdam

The Milton Hershey School – a boarding school about 90 miles west of Philadelphia – has been criticized for refusing to admit a student who’s HIV-positive. This month, DISH Network refused to run a TV spot by AIDS Healthcare Foundation that takes aim at the school’s parent company over the controversial decision.

“We have contracts with the agency that represents Hershey, as well as other networks that Hershey advertises on, and it would be a conflict of interest to run a [sic] Anti–Hershey campaign,” the network said in an email statement.

Click here to watch the ad.

But AHF – which has blasted Hershey from the beginning over its policy about HIV-positive students – is now criticizing DISH for its refusal to broadcast the 30-second paid television advertisement in its L.A. market. The ad, produced entirely by AHF and which features an image of Ryan White, the young man who came to prominence in the 1980s after being banned from his school for being positive, was to begin running on stations on the network this month (May 1).

“We are extremely disappointed that DISH Television censored a paid television advocacy ad in which AHF speaks out against the Hershey Company over HIV/AIDS discrimination at the Hershey School,” says Michael Weinstein, president of AHF. “Technically, as a satellite broadcaster, DISH may have a bit more cover than a traditional broadcaster regarding infringing on our free speech rights under the first amendment; however, it is ironic that we specifically sought to place this spot through DISH on stations like MSNBC, which are filled with policy programs and serious talk shows whose bread and butter is lively debate and discussion about many controversial issues and topics. We think it is cowardly of DISH to block our message as they have.”

DISH said in a statement this week: “Due to the fact that this spot/campaign is a controversial issue, we would apply a Controversial Issues filter (to your spot) which blocks almost every network we insert on based on the restriction documents we receive from the programmers. Even on the networks that technically allow this type of content, we would risk subscriber complaints.”

While broadcasters and service providers alike have always been able to review content before it goes on the air, we can’t help but wonder if DISH would be quite so choosy if the promo starred, say, someone like Tim Tebow and dealt with a pro-life message (remember the Super Bowl?). We’re also wondering how and why they run campaign ads this election season if the goal is not to incite opinion – or even criticism. And what about ads for liquor? They’re readily available on DISH, too, despite the adult message.

Even for those who miss out on the TV spot, AHF has launched a website where the public can learn more about the case and the facts about HIV/AIDS. The group also provides links to send e-letters to three Hershey Company board members who also sit on the board of the Milton Hershey School Trust.