By Courtney Bonner, PhD, Research Public Health Analyst, RTI Global Gender Center
Originally posted on LinkedIn.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, as it is often called, is the closest thing we have to an HIV vaccine. It has changed the world of HIV forever. This is revolutionary, right? So why haven’t you ever heard of it? Probably because it has been marketed as a drug for gay and bisexual men — even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for providers prescribing PrEP are targeted towards gay and bisexual men. Simply put, women have been left out of this ground-breaking discovery.
PrEP is a daily pill—like birth control—that, if taken by an HIV-negative person, can prevent him or her from becoming infected with HIV. Although PrEP is the only medication that can prevent HIV, most women — who account for 25% of people living with HIV — in the United States, have no clue that it exists. Think about it…did you? Most people, not just women, have no idea that PrEP can be prescribed to any adult who walks into a doctor’s office, requests it, and is willing to undergo the appropriate testing and monitoring. In fact, in scientific studies, women have expressed anger when they found out that PrEP has been available since 2012 and apparently someone forgot to tell them.
When I talk to women about PrEP, none of them have ever heard of it. Every time I mention it, I get the “deer in headlights look” and an awkward silence. This is often followed by disbelief, which quickly turns into outrage that they didn’t know about PrEP before.
How do we expect to eradicate HIV in this country if 51% percent of the population does know about tools that can prevent infection? To prevent women from contracting HIV, we must give them the right tools. PrEP is an especially effective HIV prevention strategy for women because it is women-controlled. Historically, women have had to seek the cooperation of their partners to use a condom, or use a female condom if they could find one. What about women in abusive relationships? Until PrEP, there was no way for her to discreetly protect herself from HIV. Now, she can take PrEP once a day and be protected from HIV, without having to ask her partner to use a condom. How amazing.
We have waited for more than 35 years, prayed a million prayers, researched for countless hours, and spent billions of dollars to develop a revolutionary drug like PrEP to prevent HIV. Unfortunately, that drug will save less lives that it was meant to save. It will only live up to a portion of its potential unless we do something.
It is up to us as a community to spread the word to women that there is a woman-controlled HIV prevention medication for them. There have already been many efforts to promote PrEP awareness among men and women in different communities. For example, the AIDS Project New Haven and AIDS Connecticut have hosted a series of PrEP rallies to provide PrEP-related information to people across Connecticut. We need more efforts like these. We must also encourage our physicians to educate themselves and others about PrEP. Researchers at Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research for AIDS and George Washington University are partnering with Planned Parenthood of Southern New England to do just that by developing materials that make it easy for health care providers to educate themselves about PrEP and disseminate PrEP.
We must also advocate for affordable access to PrEP and other reproductive health services. This is an important issue. Given our current political climate, access to reproductive health care, including PrEP, is at risk of being severely limited, especially among those who are most vulnerable to HIV. We must write to our senators and representatives and let them know that a reduction in resources that provide affordable reproductive health services means an increase in HIV – as we saw in Indiana. This is especially important because PrEP can be costly. For those without insurance, a one- month prescription for PrEP can cost up to about $1,300 per month.
Therefore, we must advocate for the expansion of affordable health care so that those who are most in need have access to PrEP. We must support reproductive health care centers and providers. If we refuse to raise awareness about and support the dissemination of PrEP among all people, we are simply preparing to leave many women behind in the quest for an AIDS-free world.
Originally posted on LinkedIn.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, as it is often called, is the closest thing we have to an HIV vaccine. It has changed the world of HIV forever. This is revolutionary, right? So why haven’t you ever heard of it? Probably because it has been marketed as a drug for gay and bisexual men — even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for providers prescribing PrEP are targeted towards gay and bisexual men. Simply put, women have been left out of this ground-breaking discovery.
PrEP is a daily pill—like birth control—that, if taken by an HIV-negative person, can prevent him or her from becoming infected with HIV. Although PrEP is the only medication that can prevent HIV, most women — who account for 25% of people living with HIV — in the United States, have no clue that it exists. Think about it…did you? Most people, not just women, have no idea that PrEP can be prescribed to any adult who walks into a doctor’s office, requests it, and is willing to undergo the appropriate testing and monitoring. In fact, in scientific studies, women have expressed anger when they found out that PrEP has been available since 2012 and apparently someone forgot to tell them.
When I talk to women about PrEP, none of them have ever heard of it. Every time I mention it, I get the “deer in headlights look” and an awkward silence. This is often followed by disbelief, which quickly turns into outrage that they didn’t know about PrEP before.
How do we expect to eradicate HIV in this country if 51% percent of the population does know about tools that can prevent infection? To prevent women from contracting HIV, we must give them the right tools. PrEP is an especially effective HIV prevention strategy for women because it is women-controlled. Historically, women have had to seek the cooperation of their partners to use a condom, or use a female condom if they could find one. What about women in abusive relationships? Until PrEP, there was no way for her to discreetly protect herself from HIV. Now, she can take PrEP once a day and be protected from HIV, without having to ask her partner to use a condom. How amazing.
We have waited for more than 35 years, prayed a million prayers, researched for countless hours, and spent billions of dollars to develop a revolutionary drug like PrEP to prevent HIV. Unfortunately, that drug will save less lives that it was meant to save. It will only live up to a portion of its potential unless we do something.
It is up to us as a community to spread the word to women that there is a woman-controlled HIV prevention medication for them. There have already been many efforts to promote PrEP awareness among men and women in different communities. For example, the AIDS Project New Haven and AIDS Connecticut have hosted a series of PrEP rallies to provide PrEP-related information to people across Connecticut. We need more efforts like these. We must also encourage our physicians to educate themselves and others about PrEP. Researchers at Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research for AIDS and George Washington University are partnering with Planned Parenthood of Southern New England to do just that by developing materials that make it easy for health care providers to educate themselves about PrEP and disseminate PrEP.
We must also advocate for affordable access to PrEP and other reproductive health services. This is an important issue. Given our current political climate, access to reproductive health care, including PrEP, is at risk of being severely limited, especially among those who are most vulnerable to HIV. We must write to our senators and representatives and let them know that a reduction in resources that provide affordable reproductive health services means an increase in HIV – as we saw in Indiana. This is especially important because PrEP can be costly. For those without insurance, a one- month prescription for PrEP can cost up to about $1,300 per month.
Therefore, we must advocate for the expansion of affordable health care so that those who are most in need have access to PrEP. We must support reproductive health care centers and providers. If we refuse to raise awareness about and support the dissemination of PrEP among all people, we are simply preparing to leave many women behind in the quest for an AIDS-free world.