The AIDS Healthcare Foundation continues its campaign against PrEP and Truvada today with the above open letter to the CDC which is being published in major newspapers. Writing for the
New York Times,
Josh Barro notes that the AHF is fighting this battle alone:
“There’s no large controversy; there is one loud voice,” said Charles King, the president of the H.I.V. nonprofit Housing Works and a co-chairman of an anti-H.I.V. task force appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. Mr. King called the A.H.F. ad “a direct attack on New York State’s efforts to end AIDS as an epidemic.” The growing pro-PrEP chorus includes government bodies like the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; various state and local health departments, including in New York and San Francisco; and most H.I.V.-related nonprofits that have taken a stance. Mr. Cuomo has made PrEP one of three planks in his anti-AIDS plan.
Mr. Weinstein’s vociferous opposition to PrEP has made him perhaps the most hated man in the AIDS business. “I consider him a menace to H.I.V. prevention,” said Peter Staley, a veteran activist who also serves on the Cuomo task force. James Loduca, the vice president for public affairs at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, compared him to a “climate-change denialist.” For his part, Mr. Weinstein insists he’s not really alone. He says “a majority” of H.I.V. experts he speaks with privately agree with his view that PrEP is an ineffective public health intervention, but they do not want to talk publicly.
Embiggen the image to read the text.
Labels: AHF, HIV/AIDS, PrEP, safer sex, Truvada
