Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Gay Men Don't Engage in Riskier Sex When Taking AIDS Pills, CDC Study Says

Via CDC, by Simeon Bennett
Gay and bisexual men didn’t have riskier sex or suffer serious side effects while using Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Viread in a study of whether taking pills to prevent HIV infection would loosen inhibitions or harm health.

Gay and bisexual men who took a daily pill -- either Viread or a placebo -- were no more likely to take greater sexual risks on the assumption they were protected than those who didn’t take one, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna today. The study also compared the rate of side effects between those who received Viread and those who got a placebo, and found no significant difference.

The study supports efforts to test whether drugs approved to treat AIDS patients can also be used to prevent infections in the first place. That theory, called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, was partially validated this week when a vaginal gel containing Viread was shown to reduce infections by 39 percent among women in South Africa.

Click the full study, click here.

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