Bob Leahy talks to Patrick Sullivan
What is driving high infection rates in the gay and bi men’s community? And what techniques might work best to address this epidemic within an epidemic? Editor Bob Leahy talks to Patrick Sullivan at the 2012 OHTN Research Conference
One of the most interesting sessions at last month’s Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN) 2012 Research Conference in Toronto was a plenary called “Is Treatment Enough Prevention?” This session focussed on the recent discourse concerning the potential for antiretroviral therapy to reduce infectiousness and thus, the theory goes, reduce infection rates. But to what extent does treatment as prevention work with gay men? If it hasn’t worked so far, why not? And does a discourse about reduced infectiousness result in changed behaviours, like an increase in unprotected sex?
A panel of international experts looked critically at treatment as prevention from various perspectives. I reviewed some of their thoughts here. Patrick Sullivan, whom I talk to in the video, below focussed on the gay and bi men’s ( MSM) community in particular.
You can see Sullivan’s presentation itself, and indeed that of others on the panel, here.
Patrick Sullivan, DVM, Ph. D. is Co-Director of the Prevention Sciences Core at Emory’s Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). His research focuses on HIV among men who have sex with men, including behavioural research, interventions and surveillance.
- Tags: 2012, AIDS, condoms, gay, gay men's sexual health, HIV, HIV prevention, HIV+ HIV-positive, lgbt, MSM, OHTN, Ontario HIV Treatment Network, Patrick Sullivan, PositiveLite_com, PrEP, Research Conference, Toronto, treatment as prevention
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About the Author
Bob Leahy - Editor
Award-winning blogger Bob Leahy first made his social media mark a decade ago on LiveJournal.com where there are still to this day almost 3,000 entries of his available to be read. He was a featured blogger on Ontario’s HIVStigma.com campaign, along with PositiveLite.com publisher Brian Finch. He joined PositiveLite.Com at its inception in 2009 and became it's Contributing Editor a year later.
Born in the UK, Bob’s background is in corporate banking, which he gladly left in 1994, after being diagnosed with HIV the previous year. He has chaired the board of PARN (Peterborough AIDS Resource Network) and has been an executive board member of both the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN) and the Canadian AIDS Society (CAS). He was inducted in to the Ontario AIDS Network’s Honour Roll in 2005. Bob is currently a member of Ontario’s GMSH (Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance). He also writes for TheBody.com.
In 2012, Bob was honoured with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal for his work and commitment to HIV/AIDS in Canada.
Bob continues to write for this site while in the Positivelite.Com editor’s seat, with a particular interest in HIV prevention, theatre and the arts in general. He is accredited media for a number of Toronto theatres. He lives in Warkworth, Ontario with his partner of thirty years and three dogs.
