PrEP Use Increasing, But Too Low Due to Extreme Cost

The United States' health care system remains one of the most inefficient of any developed nation and medications that cost little in Europe and Canada are exorbitantly expensive and out of financial reach of many.  A prime example is so-called PrEP which prevents HIV/AIDS infections.  At a cost of $2,000 -$3,000 per month, even good insurance coverage leaves one with thousands of dollars in out of pocket costs. A generic version sells for $200.00 a year and, as this blog has noted before, the actual production costs is about 6 cents per pill.  Making matters even more outrageous, government programs and charities funded the development research, not Gilead which markets the drug making obscene profits.   As long as insurance companies and pharmaceutical company greed control America's health care, quality health care remain out of the reach of millions. Meanwhile, the rest of us pay the price through astronomical hospital and drug costs.  A piece at NBC News looks at the under usage of PrEP.  Here are excerpts:

Thirty-five percent of gay and bisexual men at high risk of HIV infection were using PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, the daily pill that prevents HIV infection, in 2017, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, just 6 percent of these men used PrEP.

However, despite the nearly 500 percent jump in PrEP use among men who have sex with men, the CDC notes “PrEP use remains too low, especially among gay and bisexual men of color.”

The study was presented Thursday in Seattle at the 2019 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, a major annual HIV/AIDS conference, and was based on more than 8,000 interviews in 20 American cities.

More than 40 percent of white gay and bisexual men at high risk of HIV used PrEP in 2017, while only 30 percent of their Latino counterparts and 26 percent of their African-American counterparts did so. The updated data highlights the fact that minorities access PrEP at lower rates than whites, despite being at higher risk of HIV infection.

The data also found high awareness of PrEP, which is also known by its brand name, Truvada, among all gay and bi men: Eighty-six percent of African-Americans know about it, as do 87 percent of Latinos and 95 percent of whites.

“The study’s findings suggest that efforts to increase PrEP awareness and use among populations at risk is working, but it remains underutilized,” according to a press memo distributed by the CDC.

Many people struggle to access PrEP because of its high cost — a roughly $2,000 per month list price — and complex insurance procedures.

“Of the estimated one million Americans at substantial risk for HIV and who could benefit from PrEP, fewer than 10 percent are actually using this medication,” the CDC noted, referring to low uptake overall among heterosexual and injection-drug-using populations that are also at high risk of HIV infection.

The CDC said it is funding government and private health organizations’ efforts to spread awareness of PrEP, and “developing new ways to connect gay and bisexual men of color and transgender people to PrEP."

Break Gilead's strangle hold on PrEP and allow generic forms and I suspect you would see usage surge.  But that would mean members of Congress would have to vote against their financial overlords.