TRUVADA: Why are we ALL not taking this???!!!!

[broncofan]

^ Because people are going to die unless they know their options. This might be acceptable to you, but it is unimaginable to me.

Plus, new news comes out every day about this wonder drug. So, I won't stop shouting this from the rooftops.

The drug very well may be helpful to people. I hope that if people decide to use it they don't use it as a substitute for other safe practices but instead as an addition to their current regime to make themselves safer. Your interest in this topic doesn't seem to stem from an interest in safety but an interest in having unprotected sex and not feeling guilty about it.

If you had been interested in safety, you would have been talking about the other available safety options before you began advertising Truvada. Instead you were talking about unprotected sex and advertising the benefits and minimizing the risks associated with it. That's why you come across as so disingenuous.

Further, I have to agree with everyone else. A thread pops to the top of the list when it is interesting enough to justify new posts. But your posts are not updates.

[Westheangelino]

^ Actually, my posts are either new news articles revealing new benefits or refuting utter bunk being put out there by others.

Also, sex on truvada IS NOT UNPROTECTED SEX

[Westheangelino]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hiv-pill...ent-infection/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2...dy_proves.html

^ Two good blurbs on the follow up study to the groundbreaking study that proved Truvada's effectiveness.

[trish]

Suppose you’re having sex once a day, everyday for a year with an partner who has AIDS. What are your chances of making it to the end of the year without contracting AIDS?

The answer depends on the method you use to avoid transmission of the disease. Suppose the method (or combination of methods) you have chosen is 90% effective. What does that mean? If I understand correctly it means that if you expose yourself once you have a 90% chance of not getting infected through that one exposure. Suppose you plan to use that method for a week. Then there’s more than a 52% chance of being infected before the week’s out. (This is because the probability of not getting infected by week’s end is 0.9 to the 7th power, which is approximately 0.4.

Suppose instead your daily method of avoiding transmission is 99% efficient (i.e. the probability of avoiding transmission on one exposure is 0.99). Then the probability of getting infected by year’s end is greater than 0.974. (This is because 0.99 to the 365th power is less than 0.026).

What sort of efficiency do you require to lower that probability from 0.974 to 0.01? You need a method that is 99.997% efficient. (This is because 0.99997 to the 365th power is approximately 0.99).

So suppose everyday you use a method that is 99.997% efficient. So the probability of making it through the year without getting infected is 0.99. The probability of making through a decade approximately 0.9 (a little more precisely 0.896).

The good news is that each time you test negative, you can reset the clock; i.e. if you make it through a year without getting infected, then you have a 99% chance of making it through the next year.

Moral: I haven’t a clue. You provide the moral.

[Westheangelino]

^ Not really how this works, but nice try LOL

[trish]

Then enlighten me. Is not each exposure an independent event?

I realize that the definition of efficiency used in the above post, is probably not the same as the reported efficiencies which are averages of samples of people taken over the period a time they used the method in question. Nevertheless, there is a probability of transmission given a single exposure and the complement of this probability could well be regarded as a measure of efficiency for a given method of transmission prevention. It is that measure that needs to be as high as 99.997% to give a 99% chance of making it through the year.

[broncofan]

I agree with your reasoning Trish. I think you're right though that the transmission rates given are probably averages over a period of time rather than per sex act. But given the efficiency rate per sex act, you will get a much lower rate per annum (or per anum.

[trish]

Yes. I'm pretty sure when a company advertises 90% efficiency, they couldn't possibly mean per exposure. But it's very difficult to tell from ads, news articles and lay-reports of studies just what those numbers mean. The public should be aware, whatever they mean, they diminish with number of exposures until such time as one is tested and resets the Bayesian clock.

[broncofan]

The public should be aware, whatever they mean, they diminish with number of exposures until such time as one is tested and resets the Bayesian clock.

The fact that this is rarely if ever made completely clear is proof enough that the information tends not to be disseminated responsibly.

[Lovecox]

Anybody know about cost? Anybody?