SF Supervisor: I’m On Truvada

San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener has become the first elected official to publicly disclose that he is taking Truvada as a daily HIV preventive. Josh Barro reports at the New York Times:

“A much larger segment of gay men should be taking a close look at PrEP,” Mr. Wiener, who represents the same Castro-based district once held by Harvey Milk, said in an interview on Wednesday. “I hope that my being public about my use of PrEP can help people take a second look at it.” According to data from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, there were 359 new H.I.V. infections in the city in 2013, 86 percent of them among men who have sex with men. Authorities including the World Health Organization and San Francisco’s health department say they believe that PrEP is a good strategy to cut new infections among gay men. But PrEP has been slow to catch on. According to data from the city, there were fewer than 1,000 active prescriptions for Truvada as PrEP in San Francisco at the end of 2013.

The Board of Supervisors will hold a meeting today to discuss increasing the number of people taking Truvada.