HIV/AIDS Healthcare within the United States

 Before the COVID-19 pandemic the last pandemic to devastate the United States was HIV/AIDs. Although the government found it easy to ignore the millions of lives lost early in the epidemic because it was mainly within the queer community it eventually become clear that HIV/AIDs was not going away and spread into the cis/het communities. In the early 2000s funding was granted to place America as a leader in the global health project to help work towards uniting many countries in their efforts to cure/treat/eradicate AIDs/HIV. With this funding recently expiring and efforts at the time focused on the COVID-19 pandemic this global effort was put on pause. I think that funding should be reinstated. 

Related to that funding and new developments in the area of treatment, prevent and cure of HIV/AIDs comes the question of access. Currently PREP prescriptions and doxy-PEP are restricted to prescriptions, but the potential for these drugs to be for OTC (or possible new drugs to be developed specifically for OTC) use is exciting especially considered BC is now available over the counter. This can help patients who may feel sheepish talking to their providers about their sexual identities/life. To get a PREP prescription also requires "high-risk homosexual behavior" to be added to your chart as the ICD/indication patients may not feel comfortable with being labeled in this way or having this information avaiable within their medical record/insurance file. Speaking of insurance, cost can be an issue. With HIV/AIDs preventive treatment like PREP or the vaccines that have recently begone trial I question whether the government should possibly move to fund these as HIV/AIDs is at its core a public health issue and prevention of spread would greatly benefit the country as a whole

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