| From: |
Lindsay Menard-Freeman [ profile ] |
| Subject: |
Fwd: ISRRC - ATHENA and AIDS Legal Network International Women's DayStatement - Microbicide imperative
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| Sent: |
Mar 8th, 2011 - 11:10:36 |
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Happy International Women's Day!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: E. Tyler Crone
Date: Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 12:00 AM
Subject: ISRRC - ATHENA and AIDS Legal Network International Women's Day
Statement - Microbicide imperative
To: isrrc-l (at) list.web.net
*Transparency, accountability and feminist science what next for
microbicide trials?*
* *
http://www.athenanetwork.org/assets/files/microbicide_0215.pdf
In honor of International Womens Day and to advance this years theme of
equal access to science and technology for women and girls, ATHENA and the
AIDS Legal Network are launching an issue paper on new HIV prevention
technologies, which proposes a move forward without delay to provide the
microbicide, Tenofovir 1% gel, to women in high-risk populations,
specifically southern Africa. The issue paper is a series of commentaries
from a diverse range of researchers speaking to the opportunities and
challenges at hand.
Since the announcement of this microbicide success in Vienna at the
International AIDS Conference in July 2010, Drs. Zena Stein and Ida Susser
have been meeting with investigators at Columbia University HIV Center, and
elsewhere, to question the ethics of future placebo-based control trials and
to explore instead the potential for demonstration projects and immediate
monitored distribution of the gel to women in high-risk situations.
The microbicide success has been followed by the announcement of the success
of the Truvada pill trial in trials which included men who have sex with
men, but did not include women or other men. Drs. Stein and Susser argue
that the next steps for women in high-risk situations should be
demonstration projects and monitored distribution of both the
microbicidegel and the Truvada pill, which has proved successful in
MSM populations.
Plans are already afoot in the US for demonstration projects and monitored
open trials of Truvada among men who have sex with men. It is important to
urge, at this point, that similar activities for both Truvada and Tenofivir
gel be available for women too, as well as for other men, wherever
appropriate.
Ida Susser and Zena Stein
*Four key points for advocates seeking to get new HIV prevention tools
available for, and in the hands of, women who want and need them:*
1) Make microbicides available to women in high-risk situations, as soon as
possible, with community engagement, monitoring, and evaluation.
2) Ways to achieve this do not need to await further placebo trials.
Beginning now, communities and health care workers should be preparing to
weigh the benefits and risks of the options available to them.
3) The next research strategies should be trials of acceptability,
preference, and effects of these new preventive methods with health
professionals, community workers, and women at risk working together to
further our understanding of how to ensure that safe and effective
preventive methods reach women as soon as possible. *These strategies can
and should be developed through comparisons between groups receiving less or
more microbicides, or using pills in comparison to microbicides, without
using a placebo arm.*
*
*
4) Prioritize research around, access to, and availability of microbicides
for positive women thereby enhancing health, dignity, sexual and
reproductive health and rights, and prevention for women living with HIV.**
To read our issue paper:
http://www.athenanetwork.org/assets/files/microbicide_0215.pdf
For more questions and commentary, please contact lead author and ATHENA
Steering Committee member Dr. Ida Susser, susseris (at) gmail.com.
ATHENA: Advancing Gender Equity and Human Rights in the Global Response to
HIV and AIDS
--
E. Tyler Crone, MPH, JD
Coordinating Director, The ATHENA Network
http://www.athenanetwork.org
Phone: +1-206-697-4789
Fax: +1-206-282-2282
Skype: tyler.crone
This message has been sent through the International Sexual and Reproductive
Rights Coalition (ISRRC) list-serve. If you wish to unsubscribe from this
list please visit http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/isrrc-l
--
Lindsay Menard-Freeman
Program Officer
Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, a program of TakingITGlobal
www.gyca.org
www.tigweb.org
(T): +212.661.6111
(E): lindsay (at) gyca.org
540 President St.
3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Donate now! http://tigurl.org/gycadonate/
GYCA is a youth-led global network of over 5,500 young leaders and adult
allies working on youth and HIV/AIDS in 173 countries world-wide. GYCA's
mission is to empower young leaders with the skills, knowledge, resources
and opportunities they need to scale up HIV/AIDS interventions amongst their
peers.
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