if some gays want to – how did you put it Stephen, “want to try unprotected sex for a period of time” – let them do that, but why on earth should there be an expectation that the pharmaceuticals required for them to indulge that but stay HIV-negative be placed on the PBS? go for it, if you must, but fork out the $800 a month yourself.

pitiful, outrageous, embarrassing.

It’s not me who has a problem with condoms, but a number of friends and acquaintances I have spoken with who find it difficult to maintain 100% condom use – something I guess you are familiar with if you are HIV positive. These guys might be open to taking something like this for a period of time. Some of them are in relationships with positive guys, some of them have become turned on by the idea of unprotected sex and curious. Even if they don’t want to make a lifestyle of it, they want to try unprotected sex, so that it stops bugging them as something that has become so fetishised. So what is the problem with them using Truvada for a period of time to do this? Why the hysteria?

It’s true the drugs have some side effects but their side effect profile is not severe and some people don’t experience any side effects at all from Truvada.

As for your remark on “I think a medical degree distinguishes their advice from yours” I think you’ll find that there are many in the sexual health industry that are very cautious about this. Many, don’t support it at all. This is NOT a vaccine. It’s NOT a cure.
You want to practice safe sex? Use a condom, don’t want to use a condom? Don’t practice unsafe penetrative sex. It’s really as simple as that.

That is not a marginal figure.

As somebody who was involved in a trial of this drug, these pills did not make me “very very sick”- they produced no negative side effects whatsoever. As for the “marching brigade of morons in the health industry”- I think a medical degree distinguishes their advice from yours.

You’re truly delusional. As a positive man, I don’t want to go back onto these pills. I’d rather wait off for as long as humanly possible. They actually do make you very very sick. You’re not missing out on anything by not taking them. If you’re perfectly healthy, use common sense and try to keep yourself perfectly healthy. Don’t put yourself at risk, and don’t blindly listen to the marching brigade of morons in the health industry. In fact, I’d strongly suggest you read “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre before you go talking about “clinical trials” and their effectiveness.

And the band played on indeed. Use a condom, fuckwits! I could train a parrot to talk that back tome in under an hour.

Not only will you still have to practice safe sex with these pills by wearing a condom, you’ll also have to put up with some pretty horrendous side effects from the medications and take them every single day for the rest of your life.

I’m positive and I don’t even want to do it, who in their right mind who’s negative would want to put themselves through that? Not only that, but there is no telling at the long term effects that these pills actually do. They didn’t know the ‘d’ drugs caused peripheral neuropathy at first….now they do.

I’m truly honest disgusted that AFAO would even suggest such tripe!