Misleading Ads on Social Media Could Undermine HIV Prevention, Says Brown University Professor
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Brown University Assistant Professor of Medicine Philip Chan said that misleading ads on social media could be preventing people from accessing what he says are “game-changing” HIV prevention drugs.
Chan, in an appearance on GoLocal LIVE, spoke to the ads that promise “cash settlements” to patients for possible side effects that could occur taking HIV “PrEP” drugs — claims he says are “blown out of proportion.”
See Ad Example BELOW
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“So the PrEP program — prep stands for pre exposure phophylaxis — it’s a daily pill which prevents HIV infection It’s a game-changer in addressing the HIV epidemic and in fact it’s one of the pillars on how we’re going to end the HIV epidemic,” said Chan.
Chan said he saw patients who started coming in asking questions about what they had seen on social media.
“[They] were saying hey doc, I’ve seen some advertising, I’ve heard some things about kidney toxicities, bone defects. These are people already on PrEP, these are well-educated people with good access and you know it’s been concerning for them, and I just worry certainly for people who are not on PrEP,” said Chan.
“What I like to tell my patients is any medication has side effects, and we don’t always know what they are,” said Chan, speaking to the specific PrEP drugs. “We know from studies that about 1% or less, [they] can have some effect on their kidneys and we can see some effect on the bone mineral density level. We don’t often see a lot of clinical complications, and we monitor it.”
“The ads we’ve seen are totally blown out of proportion, and we’re worried about this really steering people away from this important public health intervention,” said Chan.
Chan co-authored the commentary "False information on PrEP in direct-to-consumer advertising" in the Lancet HIV journal with Brown’s Dr. Amy Nunn.
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