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A Man Stopped Thousands of People Becoming HIV-Positive
- andrewtbham 10y agotoo bad these companies don't have an affiliate program. https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-now https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-now
- beaconstudios 10y agoI often use the same legal mechanism to buy modafinil, and have reached out to my supplier about affiliating. They don't do it either. I have to wonder if there's some kind of risk or law working against them.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- chris11 10y agoIsn't the sale and import of modafinil restricted? I would think that becoming an affiliate would introduce legal risk
- beaconstudios 10y agoIt's legal for personal use. You can import prescription only medication from abroad, you just can't buy it domestically.
- argigg 10y agoModafinil is Schedule IV in the US. The law may or may not be enforced with respect with to Modafinil, but possessing that drug without a prescription is illegal.
- beaconstudios 10y agoThe article was about someone from the UK, and I'm also from the UK. That's the circumstance I was speaking from.
- scottmf 10y agoIt was sad to see he's still struggling financially. Of course he isn't in this for the money but he's selling potentially 12,000 * £50 of medicine per month and sleeping on friends couches... Edit: Actually, having clicked the link it certainly looks like he's making money now. Well done to him.
- Symbiote 10y agoPresumably because the UK only allows imports for personal use. It's a shame he didn't (or couldn't) get financial support from an HIV or LGBT charity.
- scottmf 10y agoI wasn't suggesting importing for resale, but rather earning referral fees. It looks like he's being paid for the top spot now.
- dankohn1 10y agoIt's an inspiring story. I can't wait to see the movie adaptation.
- devine_sparkles 10y agoGreat article. Go gays!! A few things I'm curious about, though. Did anyone think it was weird that BuzzFeed was the only media organization granted entry to the meetings HIV organizations had to fight the NHS decision not to provide prep? And I wonder if Greg put ads on his site if it would help him cover his costs. The guy deserves some help. I see there's a donate button (HINT HINT EVERYONE), so that's nice. :)
- buro9 10y agoWhat a great guy and group of people. I've emailed offering to help out if I can. Their costs of running the site should be zero to them, if I can help make that so then great.
- nothrabannosir 10y agoI'll second the call to donating: https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/about-us-donate https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/about-us-donate > “I’m thinking, ‘You don’t know I have to walk sometimes because I can’t afford my Oyster [the London bus and tube pass]. You don’t know that I’m literally eating once a day because I’m so broke, and I’m sleeping on someone’s sofa because no one is going to pay me to do this,’” he says. “I am no different to how I was when I was a sex worker.”
- Macacity 10y ago> Donations will never be paid to an individual, only ever put back into the running costs and expansion of the website. Just fyi. This does not mean that you should not donate.
- nothrabannosir 10y agoThanks, I hadn't seen that. Although, honestly, that only sounds like more reason to donate..
- gaythrowaway 10y agoI'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up. PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore continuing to spread it. There is a big push from the local public health department to get gay guys at risk of contracting HIV on PREP and it is starting to pay off. PREP also is helping reduce the stigma of having HIV. Many people who are HIV+ live with a huge mental health burden of dealing with feeling like they are going to be rejected as a romantic partner because of their HIV status. With PREP as an option this helps reduce that burden. I'm not necessarily proud of this but I'm not sure if I would be dating my current boyfriend if PREP were not available because of the risk it could present to my health. He's an amazing guy and having this issue out of the way for us has been very helpful for us. That's not to say that it doesn't have side effects and that it should be carefully considered but it really needs to be publicized more as a preventative treatment option in high risk populations.
- throw_this_away 10y agoI really wish more people knew about PEP as well. It seems equally important (in both the gay and straight communities), but it seems to get even less publicity than PrEP
- gaythrowaway 10y agoDefinitely. PEP, which for people who aren't familiar with it is a course of drugs which can be taken within 72 hours of a potential exposure to HIV to prevent becoming infected with HIV. It's not 100% effective, but it is an important tool to prevent the spread of HIV.
- exolymph 10y ago> I'm not necessarily proud of this but I'm not sure if I would be dating my current boyfriend if PREP were not available because of the risk it could present to my health. Personally, I don't think that's a sentiment to be proud of or ashamed of. It's a practical reaction to the lay of the land. I hope you don't beat yourself up about it.
- Animats 10y agoThe real issue is simply that the cost for Truvada oral tablet (100 mg-150 mg) is around $1,564 for a supply of 30 tablets. In the US, the patents expire in 2021.
- dankohn1 10y agoNo, $1,564 is the price when bought through US pharma. They're available via the site recommended by https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-now https://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/buy-prep-now for $80. So, presumably the cost is more like $20 or so.
- sbierwagen 10y agoWhat makes you think this spammy affiliate marketing site is sending you to online pharmacies that will actually send you the drug, rather than take your money and send you nothing?
- minsight 10y agoThis "spammy affiliate marketing site" is neither spammy, nor does affiliate marketing. It saves hundreds, if not thousands of lives. Read the linked article.
- DanBC 10y agoThe NHS has recently announced an expansion of the trial: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/hiv-prevention-pregramme/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/12/hiv-prevention-pregramme/ There was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative treatment. Both sexual health and prevention is normally part of Public Health and not the NHS, but public health weren't paying. This is because funding to local authorities has been slashed. Remember this when conservative supporters tell you that funding for health care has increased: they're not including the cuts to public health. This is explained a bit here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/11/update-on-prep/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/11/update-on-prep/ A statement from public health: http://www.adph.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ADPH-PrEP-Press-Release.pdf http://www.adph.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ADPH-PrEP-... A statement from earlier NHS: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/08/august-update-on-the-commissioning-and-provision-of-pre-exposure-prophylaxis-prep-for-hiv-prevention/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/08/august-update-on-the-comm...
- PhantomGremlin 10y agoThere was some confusion about who should be paying for this preventative treatment. This is the part I really don't understand. I suppose its a consequence of big bureaucracies. This is a clear case of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". It is so much cheaper to pay for the PrEP than to pay for treatment of HIV. And in the UK the HIV treatment is "free", i.e. part of their national healthcare, right? So wouldn't it make so much sense for them to flood the country with PrEP, giving it at very low cost to anyone who expresses an interest?
- DanBC 10y agoIt's incredibly frustrating to me too. Firstly, this is only for England. Health is devolved in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Preventative stuff and a lot of sexual health stuff (STD screening, free contraception) is paid for by "Public Health", which is part of local government. Treatment is paid for by the NHS, which is sort of nationally funded by NHS England to local Clinical Commissioning Groups. Sometimes you'll have "joint commissioning" -- for example in Gloucestershire there's joint commissioning across public health and the NHS for Mental Health. But yes, it's stupid bureaucracy and budget holding and it's caused harm.
- anonymous58020 10y agoFrom the way the article exalts Owen--an HIV+ former dug addict and male prostitute--you'd think he's worthy of the Victoria Cross. Since the discovery of its aetiology three decades ago, HIV/AIDS has been an almost entirely preventable disease. Gay men and intravenous drug users (who account for almost all new infections in the US and UK) simply acting responsibly for once would have long marked it for eradication--at least in the developed world. That these people continue to infect themselves, even to the present day, is shameful, especially in light of the obscene amounts of money HIV research diverts from worthier causes, such as pediatric cancer or Alzheimer's. These people are not heroes and deserve to be shamed at least as much as oxygen tank-toting chain smokers who gave themselves Emphysema.
- rebuilder 10y agoYou can take that view on any number of issues: "It'll get better when these people get their act together". The problem is, you'll never see the day when that happens, so proper allocation of blame is completely beside the point. If, on the other hand, you stop trying to figure out who deserves to be helped, you can actually make a difference.
- anonymous58020 10y ago> you'll never see the day when that happens Only because political correctness prevents us from shaming those newly infected with HIV. Instead they're victims who deserve our unconditional sympathy.
- argigg 10y agoThere has been plenty of shame since the 80's, it didn't stop HIV then and it's not suddenly going to start working now.
- BillinghamJ 10y agoYou were marked as [dead] btw. Have vouched.
- joshstrange 10y agoLast time I checked on my insurance it was going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1K/mo for PrEP. Now minimums would be met soon enough but still way too expensive. The website mentioned in the article appears to sell it for ~$54/mo which is crazy.
- masonic 10y agoThis is sloppy reporting: "In the space of 12 months, the number of gay men in London being diagnosed with HIV had dropped by 40%. Across England it was down by a third." The New Scientist article they link to has it correct -- this is a drop in reported new infections, not a drop in infected persons. It still hasn't been corrected.
- skuhn 10y agobeing diagnosed, as in new diagnoses.
- h4nkoslo 10y agoOne consequence of gay organizations deciding to focus all of their energies on punishing rubes in flyover country via gay marriage campaigns has been a significant de-emphasis on HIV education / treatment / prevention. The latter has actually done us significant amounts of good and it's a shame to see it wasted in favor of spite.