This sounds promising and all, but there's one thing that they haven't mentioned with respect to the treatment, particularly with a drug like Truvada. The most common side effects include nausea, dizziness, dis-orientation or confusion, chronic diarrhea, lactose intolerance, and restless sleep. Of these, the three most common (in order of how common they are) are chronic diarrhea, dizziness, and nausea.
I don't mean to sound like a sour old bitty, but being on Truvada myself as part of my anti-retroviral treatment for HIV, I can tell you straight up that there are down sides to these medications that aren't often advertised in such publications. Personally, I find it a little misleading that the down side of such treatments is never mentioned, but the only thing that is mentioned is the links that they found suggesting that there's a plus side.
Don't get me wrong though, this does not mean that I'm apposed to the research in the field of preventing the spread of HIV, just that I find it a little insulting that the things that we as PHA's (Person with HIV/AIDS) go through as a result of the medications are never taught, even in the text books. In light of that, I can't help but wonder how much else is omitted from these articles, or if there's anything more behind the research that isn't made public. Although it seems on the surface that these treatments are proving to have some rather interesting results, one must really ask themselves, "Is this really the whole story?".
It also makes me wonder as to why they're limiting themselves primarily to the spread of HIV in heterosexuals. My reasoning for this is that these studies are being conducted in the United States, and it is a well known fact that within North America, the majority of PHA's as well as new HIV infections that occur are cases in gay men. Now that being said, in countries like South Africa, where their "days of the 80's" are right now, it is true that the majority of PHA's and new HIV infections are in cases of heterosexual females. This really makes me wonder, is this study being done in the United States really being done for the benefit of Americans, or is it just another way that the United States is spending millions, if not billions of dollars on funding projects for the benefit of countries half way around the world, before even thinking about addressing an epidemic within their own home land?
Again, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the research for the prevention of HIV, it's just that such things make you wonder whether taxpayer money is being spent primarily on the benefit of the taxpayers first, or if it's being spent on the benefit of other countries before their own? I can't help but get outraged by government bodies that invest more of their time and taxpayer money in handling issues of other countries, before taking a look at the epidemic in their own country.
