US approves promising preventive HIV treatment
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved Gilead Sciences lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injvirection, for preventing HIV infection in adults and adolescents at high risk of contracting the deadly virus. Lenacapavir proved nearly 100% effective at preventing HIV in large trials last year, raising new hope of interrupting transmission of the virus that infects 1.3 million people a year.
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France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
US approves promising preventive HIV treatment
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved Gilead Sciences lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injvirection, for preventing HIV infection in adults and adolescents at high risk of contracting the deadly virus. Lenacapavir proved nearly 100% effective at preventing HIV in large trials last year, raising new hope of interrupting transmission of the virus that infects 1.3 million people a year.
France 24
3 days ago
- France 24
US approves Gilead's twice-yearly injection to prevent HIV
Drugs to prevent HIV transmission, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, have existed for more than a decade. But because they typically require taking a daily pill, they have struggled to make a significant dent in global infections. "This is a historic day in the decades-long fight against HIV," said Daniel O'Day, Gilead's chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement. Lenacapavir, marketed under the brand name Yeztugo, has been shown in clinical trials to reduce the risk of HIV transmission by more than 99.9 percent in adults and adolescents -- making it functionally akin to a powerful vaccine. But optimism may be tempered by the drug's expected eye-watering price tag. While the company has not disclosed specifics, analysts estimate the US launch price could be as high as $25,000 per year. Activists are calling for the price to be slashed to $25 per person annually to help end the HIV pandemic. The approval also comes as President Donald Trump's administration has slashed funding for HIV treatment and prevention programs both overseas and within the United States.
France 24
04-06-2025
- France 24
Pioneering US novelist Edmund White put gay life on the page
Homosexuality was at the heart of his writing from his earliest books when being gay was considered a mental illness, to the sexual liberation after the Stonewall riots in 1969, which he witnessed firsthand. Then came AIDS that decimated an entire generation of gay men, and from which White was directly affected after being diagnosed HIV positive in 1985. An influential author, prolific journalist, literary critic and teacher, he penned more than 30 books that took in fiction, biography and memoir. Adored by Nabokov He was celebrated from the get-go with his first novel, "Forgetting Elena" (1973), praised as a marvelous book by the Russian master Vladimir Nabokov. White followed it up with the very explicit "The Joy of Gay Sex" (1977), a kind of illustrated Kama Sutra that became a gay reference across the US. "A Boy's Own Story" (1982) began what would become an acclaimed fictional series inspired by the different stages of his own life. He lived in Paris in the 1980s and wrote authoritative biographies of Jean Genet, Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud, three iconic French homosexual figures. He wrote several memoirs in the 2000s, always with his acerbic wit, including his last book published earlier this year, "The Loves of My Life". In it he recalled all the men he had loved -- White numbered his sexual partners at some 3,000. The New York Times described the book as "gaspingly graphic, jaunty and tender". New York freedom Born on January 13, 1940 in Cincinnati, Ohio, White grew up in Chicago. His father was a womanising entrepreneur and his mother a psychologist. When White told her aged 14 that he preferred boys she sent him to several psychiatrists to try to rid him of his "illness". But early on he decided to embrace his sexuality, not hide or repress it. After studying Chinese at the University of Michigan, he fled the Midwest to follow a lover to New York. He freelanced for Newsweek and worked for several years at the publishing house Time-Life Books, before hitting success with his own books. His literary renown opened the doors to teaching at prestigious US universities, including Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Yale and Princeton. Back in New York after his time in Paris, he settled with his partner, writer Michael Carroll, who was 25 years his junior, whom he married in 2013. He survived HIV and two strokes and a heart attack in the 2010s.
