It’s important to remember that HIV is an ever mutating virus, it doesn’t stand still. The gay (ill)health organisations would have you believe PrEP is like the female contraceptive pill but for gay men against HIV. This is too simplistic and misleading. Consider it more like antibiotics against other STIs, they eventually fail as the virus mutuates and is resistant to the medication.
Remember although PrEP seems to work at the moment, percentages quoted range from 73% to 90 odd. Who really knows the truth?
Read between the lines on this video as you can see the concern from the doctor for people taking medications and missing doses. The biggest issue that is concerning the doctor is HIV positive gay men missing doses and being reinfected with a different strain of HIV (due to barebacking) causing resistance to medications and therefore making treatment harder. Thirteen times harder as NHS Wales have stated.
Again we are being misled by the gay (ill)health organisations who portray HIV as easy to treat and its only a pill a day, but that’s in some cases, and is a sweeping generalisation. Combination therapies with multiple drugs are sometimes required. The side effects of the drugs are never discussed.
Just think… You thought “prep works,” as spewed out by the gay (ill)health organisations. Started barebacking with gay men, strangers, you were confident that “prep works” yet you missed a few days taking your meds, easily done, and then were infected by a resistant strain of HIV, then your PrEP caused even more problems in resistance. Your HIV was effectively untreatable.
These are the real concerns with PrEP that are only just being “researched”. A mass roll out of PrEP is very different from a small number of patients in a clinical trial. As always our advice is to wear the tried and tested condom. It’s the only thing you need in your “toolbox”.