The Most Celebrated, Mistrusted Little Pill in the World Two Old Friends Debate The Daily Drug That Could Revolutionize HIV Prevention

Longtime friends Peter Staley, left, and Sean Strub pose for a portrait in Strub's home in Milford, Pennsylvania. Truvada, the HIV preventive drug, sits on the table before them. (Photo by Damon Dahlen) Downtown Milford, population 1,021, is a picturesque street surrounded by forested hills. In the fall, sheafs of dried autumn corn decorate the lampposts; pumpkins sit outside shops with wooden signs. Prominent AIDS activist Sean Strub first came to the Pennsylvania town in 1996, looking for a quiet place to recoup from his long and brutal illness. He'd begun a recently approved regimen of 16 pills a day -- the most effective treatment for HIV ever discovered to that point. He acclimated nicely to Milford, planning for a future he hadn’t always thought he’d live to see. He helped start a film festival, published a magazine, and eventually co-purchased the Hotel Fauchere, a dilapidated historic hotel and restaurant that he painstakingly revived over five years. Friends came to visit. Some stayed. Among them was his dear friend and fellow AIDS survivor Peter Staley, who arrived in 2004 and settled close by. One recent afternoon, Staley and Strub sat down for lunch at Strub’s hotel to talk about PrEP, a new drug regimen that has fueled debate from Provincetown to San Francisco, entering the conversation even in this bucolic outpost an hour and a half outside New York City. The daily pill is the first drug ever that can prevent men and women from contracting HIV, and h...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news