Sexual Health Buzz

I am the red-dot girl, and I am ready to start throwing around ideas. I was thinking, wouldn’t Glaxo smith and other big pharms stand to make tons of $ if a slew of people found out they’re infected?

Insurance co.’s dont want to pay for it, but pharm co.’s will gladly shell out more med’s at full cost for the uninsured. What if we could partner PUP and Big Pharm or Glaxo (get $ from them as a grant basically) to fund an awareness campaign and free HSV & HPV testing?

Or perhaps to fund inclusion of testing for these 2 in standard STD screens? Perhaps they are affiliated with clinics and physicians that could perform the testing (because these folks need to be paid as well); there’s got to be a way that these Companies can all benefit from spreading the knowledge and testing; more $ from prescription meds?

(Since 90% of those that have genital herpes dont know they have it, even if we could reach 50%, thats a lot of scared folks buying Valtrex, Acyclovir, etc. because the stigma is still in full effect; hopefully we can get to the point that we realize how prevalent it already is and that will neutralize it eventually while slowing down new transmissions.)

Sometimes I think that the difficulty and $ that goes into testing is a result of pharms and ins. co’s wanting to wait until the population of those infected becomes so large that we can’t do anything about it since so many people have it, very much like HSV 1 (oral herpes-80% of population has it by adulthood).

I believe someone told me that when he was diagnosed (17 years ago) the HSV 2 stat. was 1 in 10 people. If thats true, than the current number had doubled since then (1 in 5), probably as a direct result of the 90% that dont know they have it, and the overall general lack of knowledge about it.

My question is:

If nothing changes to create awareness and inclusion of HSV & HPV in standard screens, will the number become 1 in 3 by 2020? Can we help stop that? Or let it ride out, since the basis of HSV 1 having less of a stigma is the fact that 4 out of 5 will have it?

I would love to know your thoughts on this. If you have something to say about this please leave a comment and then write to me (rebeccafroe@yahoo.com) so we can collaborate and come up with different ways that we might be able to make a difference!

If you have something to say, have an idea, or just need a place to network the information please send me your write up and I will be more than happy to post it and help you spread the word. – Angela :)

Let’s talk about awareness and advocacy!