OPINION
WORLD HEALTH
ORGANISATION
move to medicate all
homosexual men
by Joshua Vaughan
F
or the first time in history,
the World Health
Organisation (WHO) has
suggested that all men
who have sex with men
should take antiretroviral
medication. Warning that if no action
is taken, there would be a serious risk
of HIV infection rates exploding
around the world.
The WHO is the directing and
coordinating authority for health
within the United Nations. As such,
they are responsible for leading global
health matters, shaping the research
agenda and setting the standards in
health trends.
Gottfriend Hirnschall, the head of
WHO’s HIV department, says that
infection rates of HIV among
homosexual men are on the rise again,
33 years after the epidemic hit.
Further than this he believes that the
infection doesn’t hold as much fear to
a younger generation with access to
drugs that enable users to live with
AIDS.
The guidelines have been published
after a period of significant drop in
HIV transmission rates between 2001
and 2012.
Antiretroviral medication is the most
common used method of managing
HIV/AIDS, treatment being a
combination of two drugs, in one pill,
taken daily for the rest of the
individual’s life. There are several
issues with the use of such
medication, the main one being
intolerance to the drug, which can
have serious side effects such as
gastrointestinal tract intolerance,
hypersensitivity and central nervous
system adverse effects. With such
severe side effects, it must be
questioned why the WHO would
subject them on healthy individuals
unnecessarily.
The sug gested approach is known as
pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP),
meaning that even those who are not
infected would be required to take the
medication. With the hope that it
could cut the number of new
diagnoses by up to 20%.
32 AUG / SEPT 2014 | THEGAYUK
The WHO believes that medicating
ALL homosexual men will provide an
additional method of preventing
infection. Along with condom use and
regular testing. But activists have
suggested that introducing
government mandated antiretroviral
would discourage the use of condoms,
currently the best method to prevent
the transmission of sexually
transmitted infections. Resulting in an
increase of other sexually transmitted
infections such as gonorrhoea,
chlamydia and hepatitis in the gay
community.
PrEP treatment averages at roughly
£10,000 a year, per individual. This is
an extremely expensive medication,
especially considering that the
majority of those who would be forced
to take the medication will not be
infected. Unfortunately, by increasing
the number of people taking the
drugs, with the same supply, the cost
of the drug would rise. This is one of
the main complaints with the
proposal, as it encourages the use of a
costly medicine for a preventable
disease.
The second danger of introducing this
medication would be running the risk
of the HIV virus evolving immunity to
current drugs. Recently there has
been much concern about the over use
of antibiotics and how they have
become less effective as viruses evolve
immunity. HIV is already a deadly
disease that has been a cause of death
across the globe. If it were to further
evolve, current treatment would
become ineffective and we could face
the same crisis that was present in the
70s and 80s.
community. The WHO has made it
clear that it does not class
homosexuality as a disease, but the
recent guidelines would result in
homosexuals being medicated, as if it
were one.
The sad truth is, that almost every
other high risk group are seeing a
decrease in HIV infection rate but the
homosexual community is seeing an
increase since 2012. New HIV cases
are being seen, mostly, in young
people. This can easily be explained
by the fact that gay sexual education is
far more unique and complex than
what is being taught or more
importantly what is not being taught
in schools.
Let’s not forget that UK law does not
require compulsory sex education and
back in January an amendment to
introduce compulsory sex education,
including information about same sex
relationships, sexual violence, consent
and safe sex, was rejected by the
House of Lords.
A far cheaper alternative would be
mandating by law that all young
people should be taught about every
form of contraception, safe sex
methods and importance of regular
testing. With a comprehensive sexual
education, the dangers of HIV/AIDs
and other STIs will be made known to
the next generation. Equally as
importantly, taught in such a manner,
the stigma attached to HIV as the
“gay” disease would hopefully be
removed. Education is clearly
preferable over medication.
Those that are most at risk to
infection are gay and bisexual men,
who are up to 19 times more likely to
be infected by the virus than the
general population, according to
WHO studies. But for transgender
women, injecting drug users and
female sex workers, the risk of
infection can be up to 50 times higher
than the general public.
So why is the homosexual community
the only ones being targeted by the
WHO? By targeting the homosexual
community specifically, the WHO are
contributing to the stigma that HIV is
a “gay disease”. That in turn creates
the impression that gay sex is wrong,
using HIV as a way to discriminate
against homosexuals.
In a world where homosexuality is a
capital crime in five countries and
punishable with imprisonment in over
70 more, the issue of stigma,
discrimination and violence are still a
real threat to the homosexual
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