In a joint statement, Public Health England (PHE) and the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) have said they won’t endorse the use of Doxycycline PEP for STIs.
This, they say, is because any potential benefits will be outweighed by the considerable potential for antibiotic resistance to develop in STIs and other bacteria.
PEP (not to be confused with PrEP) is where you take a drug as soon as possible after you may have been exposed to something, most typically HIV.
In a study in Seattle,Washington in February of this year, 232 Men Who Have Sex With Men who were on PrEP for HIV, were given the antibiotic doxycycline as PEP within 24 hours following sex.
“Results showed an overall reduction in STI incidence of 47%. There was a significant decrease in chlamydia and syphilis incidence with reductions of 70 and 73%… but no clear benefit was shown for gonorrhoea, likely due to the high rate of doxycycline resistance already developed.”
What can we take away from this?
Despite having a healthy sex life for decades (using condoms) many of us have never had syphillis, chlamydia or gonorrhoea. Yet for PrEP users it is apparently such a regular occurance that medics have looked into using antibiotics as PEP for these STIs. We have said all along that PrEP would lead to high levels of other STIs.
In our previous article we reported how a survey found that 50% of gay men in Europe who are taking PrEP sourced it “informally” and of those 34% did not tell their doctor. Use of PrEP needs to be monitored to ensure the drugs aren’t taken by men who are already infected with HIV without knowing, because that can create a drug resistant strain of HIV.
Yet we can see how, thanks to irresponsible promotion, PrEP has become like just another “party drug” for certain gay men. Imagine if those same pill-popping individuals had access to tetracycline antibiotics in the same way.
If a person is at such high risk for chlamydia and syphilis that they need to take antibiotics after sex “just in case” then something is seriously wrong with the behaviour of that individual. One must ask whether they would be better off being offered something to reduce their sex drive until such time as they can stop harming themselves and others.
But the gay (ill)health organisations insist there is nothing wrong with being being a disease-spreading “slut.” The behaviour mustn’t be “shamed.” If you do so, then you’re a “shit” according to the author of one article on the GMFA (Gay Men Fighting AIDS [badly]) website.
It doesn’t take much imagination to look forward and to see where we’re heading. But the gay (ill)health professionals refuse even to glance at the carnage which lies ahead if we continue on the current insane path.