“Preliminary evidence suggests that a small but significant proportion
of HIV-positive and HIV-negative individuals believe that unprotected sex may
have less serious consequences because of new HIV treatments,” says
Craig Demmer, Ed.D., C.H.E.S., an associate professor of health education
and promotion
at Lehman College of the City University of New York.
Such complacency may have serious consequences for public health, he warns
in the September issue of Health Promotion Practice, since “even modest
levels of reduced concern about HIV risk can result in significant increases
in HIV transmission.”
“Individuals may perceive that HIV is less fatal and not as easily transmissible
as a result of these new treatments … but the reality is that these latest
therapies for HIV do not work for everyone, and estimates of treatment failures
range from 15 percent to 60 percent in various studies,” he explains.
Most studies do not contain enough information to say definitively whether
the introduction of the new treatments, commonly known as protease inhibitor
combination therapies, have actually caused people to have riskier sex.
Recent studies of diverse population groups such as gay men, HIV-positive
individuals and college students suggest that about 25 percent of individuals
are less concerned about the threat of AIDS, according to Demmer.
“More people believe that being HIV-positive is not that big of a deal
and they are reporting that they are less likely to practice safer sex nowadays,” he
says.
He adds that health professions should begin to address the impact of these
treatment advances by revamping HIV prevention messages and programs.
To do this, he says, researchers will first have to collect more data on how
much people know about the treatments and how they may affect risky sexual
behaviors. Practitioners can then offer counseling that helps individuals deal
with the psychological implications of the new therapies.
