HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and Sex Work in Canada 2016

oad to talking about these things. And really what we produce out of these two days is
all up to you. It’s what you want out of it. We will do our very best to produce that, to
take what you give us and synthesize it into something that you will then see and you will
approve—even if that means we just want to meet again. So that’s the introduction from
my side.
Dan Allman, Dalla Lana School of Public Health
Hi everyone. Thank you for coming first of all. I can’t believe how many hours collectively
of journey we have here. It’s been a long road. I’m really happy to see you all here. I’m a
professor here in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. In a bit of a way I’m a teacher. I
teach. I teach some of the students walking by here. I come from a family of teachers. And
even though there are some elements of what we will do here that might seem “researchy”
I just want to make it clear that this is actually not research. It is education and capacitybuilding.
We will ask about your thoughts on our ability to record what is discussed
here today. That recording will be used to inform the reporting—not to contribute to
research. We all, I think, have experience of research in our community, that’s not what we
are doing here. Elton John AIDS Foundation doesn’t fund research. We got top-up money
from Gilead—the maker of Truvada® PrEP—and they would not fund research either.
They just wanted to fund our education.
The other thing I want to say is this. This is what we’re here talking about. These pills.
Now I went to Gilead, and I said, you know, “can we have some pills?” It’s just, otherwise
it’s so abstract. Here we can pass them around. So, I asked Gilead if we could have some
of these for a demonstration and they said, “No, no you can’t.” I had to go on the black
market. But I did that. No, I cannot divulge how much they were. So, on a certain level
that is what we are here to talk about today. This is meant to be the new condom—in
some people’s eyes. I mean it won’t prevent you from getting pregnant. And, it won’t
prevent you from becoming infected with syphilis for example—transmitting syphilis or
gonorrhea or anything else. But HIV? You know, by and large… I think a lot of us were
pretty suspicious originally at the beginning, but the evidence does seem to suggest that
despite its side-effects—and there are some, for instance we’re going to hear about that.
We have people who are going to come here and talk about that—give us a little more
education, a little more knowledge about how these things work. What they’re good for,
and what they’re not good for. It is something that arguably can be added to the sex
worker’s toolkit. Doesn’t mean that anybody has to use them. I don’t know if I would use
them, but anyway that’s neither here nor there.
The other thing I want to talk about is the consent process around recording what you
say today so I’ll just get the form back here so I’ll know what it is that I am saying.
Keeping in mind that this is not research, it’s an education and capacity-building
consultation, we have a form here that asks for your consent. The form is two parts.
One, it asks for your consent. It informs you about what is going down here, and in fact
we could hand this out so that people could read it as we go along. If we could hand out
two copies to every person so that people—whether they want to sign or not have a
copy or two to take with. It tells you what the consultation is. Let me read it because
it’s important.
12 #SWPrEP