Sex & Violence – News Syndication

posted by AndrewW on May 14

Dentsu Inc.,

Japan’s largest advertising agency, has a commanding 22.4% share of the world’s second-largest advertising market, yet it has failed to make a meaningful mark on the international ad scene.

At home, Dentsu’s sales are twice those of its closest rival, Hakuhodo Inc.,

and its roster of heavyweight domestic clients is enough to makes it one of the world’s top five ad agencies in terms of revenue. But while Dentsu has more than 4,500 employees in 101 offices in 28 countries, it commands less than 5% of the $452 billion global market.

With domestic economic consumption slowing and Japan’s population not only aging but also starting to shrink, that’s a big problem. To assure its future, the Tokyo-listed company needs to expand its global customer base.

Therein lies the challenge facing Tatsuyoshi Takashima, 65 years old, who joined Dentsu fresh out of Keio University in 1966 and assumed the role of chief executive officer this July. Dentsu is targeting 12% overseas revenue by 2013, up from less than 10% now, and plans to focus on boosting its digital technology capacity. In line with world-wide trends, Dentsu’s revenue from newspapers, magazines, radio and television for the fiscal year that ended in March declined 7.6% from a year earlier, while Internet advertising revenue grew 16.3%.

Tatsuyoshi Takashima

Overall, Dentsu posted a net loss of 20.45 billion yen ($226 million) for the fiscal year on sales of 1.9 trillion yen. It forecasts net income of 11.4 billion yen and sales of 1.6 trillion yen for the fiscal year ending March 2010. The positive net income forecast, despite lower sales, is possible, the company says, because it doesn’t expect a repeat of the extraordinary losses it posted last year.

Dentsu’s dominance in Japan originates from its role as a media representative in the early 1900s when it produced Japan’s first newspaper advertisements. Today, Dentsu operates as both a media owner as well as a creative agency: it buys ad space and sells it to clients while making a commission on the sale.

Tor Ching Li interviewed Mr. Takashima in his Tokyo office. The interview has been translated from Japanese and edited.

WSJ: What was your first job and the biggest lesson you learned from it?

Mr. Takashima: I was first assigned to the newspaper division and my job was to obtain advertising space from a certain newspaper company. At that time, advertisers’ demand for ad space always outstripped supply, but I almost never failed to deliver my clients’ requests. I learned how to calculate the right amount to buy in advance from the media company to avoid a shortage of ad space for our clients and became skillful at negotiating with the newspaper company’s ad department.

WSJ: Given the ad industry’s intense competition and pace, how do you keep ahead of the competition?

Mr. Takashima: The industry has changed a lot since the days of just buying newspaper space; it is definitely more challenging now, with a variety of communication channels. The key is to provide added value to our clients, and to export what we do in Japan for our clients — a unique integrated suite of services — globally.

Because of advances in digital technology, players from different business spheres interact, share information, and engage in free and direct communication, transactions and consumption. In such an environment, Dentsu Group must continue to bring our clients and the consumers together and provide them with unique added value.

WSJ: What advice would you give someone entering your field?

Mr. Takashima: One should continuously seek inspiration, take an interest in a variety of things and always be on one’s toes to gather accurate information.

WSJ: What principle of management do you wish you knew when you were starting out?

Mr. Takashima: Nothing in particular, because I believe that we learn on the job, and through our successes and sometimes failures are able to move on to the next stage. This is more important than having a management philosophy.

WSJ: What do you wish every new hire knew?

Mr. Takashima: It’s important for new hires to understand that business is built on mutual trust, so they should have basic manners and social skills. But business is also competition, so I expect them to have a winning mindset.

WSJ: What is your biggest challenge at a time of great change in the advertising industry?

Mr. Takashima: The greatest challenge is steering the company toward digitization and changing the mindset of our employees. It is absolutely necessary for our employees to learn how to deal with completely new ways of thinking and new ideas, to strengthen their digital literacy, and to work together as a group to take on new challenges.

WSJ: Was there an instance when you felt you let your company or colleagues down?

Mr. Takashima: There was one incident that I still regret to this day. I remained silent during a meeting at which I really should have expressed my opinion. Since then, I have encouraged myself to speak out so that I wouldn’t look back with regret. In that sense, my bosses might have thought I was a rather difficult subordinate.

WSJ: Have you ever had a bad boss?

Mr. Takashima: I once had a manager who would reprimand his subordinates in public. When I was told I would have to work for him, I told him I would only do it on the condition that he would not reprimand me in front of others. We were able to have a good working relationship, which surprised the people around us. It has always been my intent not to embarrass people or do unpleasant things to them. I always try to put myself in the other person’s shoes.

WSJ: What was the most satisfying decision you made as a manager?

Mr. Takashima: One example would be the appointment last year of Tim Andree [CEO of Dentsu's U.S. subsidiary] as the first non-Japanese executive officer of Dentsu Inc. He currently heads our business activities in the Americas and Europe. With his background and experience, he is already playing a big role in the globalization of Dentsu.

WSJ: What are the most important attributes of a good manager?

Mr. Takashima: To treat everyone equally and fairly, listen to the input of people on the front lines and be ready to face anything in your work.

WSJ: Would you recommend someone starting in your field attend business school?

Mr. Takashima: As our business fields expand, it is becoming increasingly important for us to provide our clients with solutions not only in the marketing communication field but also in fields ranging from business management to strategic development. In this sense, I believe there is always the option for people to attend business schools.

posted by AndrewW on May 14

Dubai: Motorists using Al Khail Road in Dubai will have a smooth run from the beginning of next year as all the major interchanges and bridges being built to replace the roundabouts will open by the end of 2012.

“Some 88 to 96 per cent of the work on various interchanges and bridges has been completed and they will be opened to traffic by the end of this year,” said Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).

The RTA is carrying out the Al Khail Road Widening and Improvement Project at the cost of Dh1.925 billion, replacing the roundabouts and increasing the number of lanes.

Al Khail Road runs parallel to Shaikh Zayed Road linking the Business Bay Bridge and the Emirates Road near Jabel Ali.

Article continues below

posted by AndrewW on May 14

When did it become received media wisdom that global warming skepticism was all the work of shadowy right-wing groups lavishly funded by oil companies? As best we can tell, it started with a 1995 Harper’s magazine article claiming to expose this “high-powered engine of disinformation.” Today anyone who raises a doubt about the causes of global warming is accused of fronting for, say, Exxon, whatever the facts.

Now comes a rare glimpse inside the allegedly antiscience behemoth, with the online publication last week of documents purloined from the conservative Heartland Institute. The files appear to contain detailed financial, donor and personnel information and outline the think-tank’s projects. Chicago-based Heartland says one of the documents is fake and warns that others may have been altered.

Given the coverage the story has generated, you’d think some vast conspiracy had been uncovered. Heartland is, according to the Associated Press, “one of the loudest voices denying human-caused global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change.” The Vancouver Sun reports that it is “heavily funded by right-wing industrialist Charles Koch,” while the Virginian-Pilot dubs it “the ideological center of the denial movement.”

Related Video

Heartland Institute President Joe Bast on why global warming activist Peter Gleick stole and forged documents from his organization.

So how flush is Heartland? The documents show the group is expecting revenues of $7.7 million this year, mostly from private donations and grants. Mr. Koch’s “heavy” funding came to $25,000 in 2011, though the Heartland “Fundraising Plan” has it hoping for an increase in 2012. To put those numbers in not-for-profit perspective, last year the Natural Resources Defense Council reported $95.4 million in operating revenues, while the World Wildlife Fund took in $238.5 million.

Press coverage has focused in particular on Heartland’s plans to produce and distribute “educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political.” Heartland is budgeting $200,000 this year for the effort, which in the past has “had only limited success,” per one of the documents. Little wonder if teachers aren’t returning Heartland’s calls: Last year the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million on “public education” alone.

As for “the largest international scientific conference of skeptics,” Heartland will, according to the documents, spend all of $388,000 this year on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. That’s against the $6.5 million that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change costs Western taxpayers annually, and the $2.6 billion the White House wants to spend next year on research into “the global changes that have resulted primarily from global over-dependence on fossil fuels.”

In the pages of Rolling Stone last summer, Al Gore warned of the “Polluters and Ideologues [sic] . . . . spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on misleading advertisements in the mass media.” He had the wrong spenders.

A version of this article appeared February 21, 2012, on page A18 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Not-So-Vast Conspiracy.

posted by AndrewW on May 13

In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, writer Sola Odunfa explores the rising popularity of prophecy-making.

The mother was badly shaken.

Where in the civilized world would anyone raise a storm with a prophecy that "one prominent politician will die of sickness this year"?

To me such a statement is like those astrology columns in newspapers – harmless fun.

That is my personal opinion.

Those Nigerians who believe in – and regulate their lives with miracles and prophecies – are free to do so.

It is their life – although now they have to leave our national TV stations and go on the internet to shop for their Aids-healing prophets.

One of Africa's more famous – and controversial – "prophet personalities" is Temitope Balogun Joshua, commonly known as as TB Joshua.

The 48-year-old Nigerian is the head of The Synagogue, Church of All Nations, one of the biggest in Lagos, which operates a TV station streamed on the internet.

A recent surge in his popularity, mainly in southern Africa, is said to be because of his February "prophecy" in which he said:

"We should pray for one African head of state – president – against sickness that will likely take life.

"It is a sickness for a long time – being kept in the body for a long time.

"God showed me the country and the place but I am not here to say anything like that.

"I am still praying to God to deliver the president concerned."

How clever. And deliberately vague. There is no name, no country – so it cannot be wrong.

There were at least six ageing leaders, not counting Nelson Mandela.

Surely at least one of them was likely to die naturally.

If he died, it was because the prophet said so – and if he did not, it was because the prophet's prayers saved him.

In Lagos, we call a person who would make such a prophecy, "Sharp Boy".

If you would like to comment on Sola Odunfa's latest column, please use the form below.

posted by AndrewW on May 13

Following the election of Francois Hollande as France's new president, analyst Paul Melly asks whether a new man in the Elysee Palace will mean a new policy in Africa, where France retains strong enconomic, political and military ties with many of its former colonies?

France's outgoing president could sometimes talk the language of reform – pointedly receiving the democratically elected presidents of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Benin, Thomas Boni Yayi, early in his presidency.

However, the new president will certainly be careful to maintain solid assistance for countries that are seen as key French allies and building blocks of regional stability in West and Central Africa.

There is no doubt that Mr Hollande will maintain the strong French support for Senegal following the democratic election of President Macky Sall; indeed, he sent former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin as his personal envoy to President Sall's inauguration.

Equally, the fact that Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara happens to be a personal friend of Mr Sarkozy – and met him a day after his election defeat in the Elysee – will not deter Mr Hollande from seeking to establish a good relationship with Ivory Coast, a key economic partner for France.

President Ouattara, as current chairman of the West African regional body Ecowas, is also playing a central role in efforts to resolve the crisis in Mali.

There are members of Mr Hollande's socialist party who were close to former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, but Mr Hollande himself was careful to keep his distance in recent years.

It is no surprise to see Mr Hollande's election so warmly welcomed by Gbagbo supporters – who called his election defeat "an end to democracy through bombing".

But it is unlikely that the new French president of France will allow himself to be drawn into simplistic partisan alliances or a left-wing rewrite of "francafrique".

For Francois Hollande, the key will be reinvigorating the role of basic democratic, human rights and development principles in France's dealings with Africa -and providing the sense of direction and strategy that has been absent during the haphazard Sarkozy years.

posted by AndrewW on May 12

Brooks detailed frequent contacts with Cameron in the run-up to the 2010 election and said she had received commiserations from the prime minister when she resigned from News International last summer.

She said the message, along the lines of “keep your head up,” was among a number of “indirect messages” of sympathy that top politicians sent to her.

Brooks resigned as chief executive of News International, the British arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., in July amid public outrage over claims of widespread hacking by staff at its News of the World newspaper.

The government-appointed Leveson Inquiry, set up in response to the accusations of phone hacking by the News of the World, is examining the links between Britain’s media and politics.

Brooks’ testimony about the contacts she had with Britain’s current and former prime ministers could prove embarrassing to them if it reveals too close a relationship.

And her evidence surrounding News Corp.’s bid to take over full ownership of British satellite broadcaster BSkyB may prompt further questions.

Brooks, who said she had an “informal role” in lobbying for the bid, told the inquiry she had discussed it with both Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

An e-mail from a News Corp. employee to Brooks also suggested Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt had asked him to advise privately on how News International was dealing with the phone hacking allegations, the inquiry heard.

The employee is known to have referred to contact with Hunt — the Cabinet minister who oversees British broadcasting and who was charged with making an impartial decision on the bid — when he in fact dealt with Hunt’s aide.

The aide was forced to resign last month over revelations of apparent back-channel communications between his office and News Corp. over the bid.

The controversial bid was eventually abandoned last summer amid the furor over the phone hacking scandal.

Brooks said her discussion of the takeover with Cameron was not in depth, and that he made it clear it was not his decision to make.

She also argued in favor of the bid to Osborne over dinner, but he was not explicitly supportive of it, Brooks said. It was an appropriate conversation to have, she told inquiry lawyer Robert Jay, as she was entitled to reflect the opposite view to what Osborne had heard from many other news outlets.

In the closing minutes of her five hours of testimony — during which she appeared largely composed but grew more testy as time wore on — Brooks defended her position as an editor and chief executive.

She said “much has been made of cozy relationships and informal contacts” between journalists and politicians, but that it came down to individuals to ensure their conduct was professional.

The system is not perfect, she told the judge overseeing the inquiry, Lord Justice Leveson, but the current government has taken steps to improve transparency about meetings between the press and politicians.

Brooks said the phone hacking scandal increasingly occupied her time in her final months at News International.

But she denied being a “go-between” in an increasingly fraught relationship between Rupert Murdoch and his son James, and she dismissed the suggestion the younger Murdoch had sought to shift the blame to subordinates.

Brooks also said she never witnessed any inappropriate dealings with the police.

Brooks has been arrested twice and released on bail in connection with police investigations into the scandal. She denies any knowledge of phone hacking on her watch.

The ongoing investigations mean questioning on the issue of phone hacking is limited, so as not to prejudice them or any future trial.

Questioned over her relationship with Cameron, a family friend of her husband’s, Brooks said she had met him “probably three or four times” in the five months leading up to the May 2010 election.

She said they would exchange text messages once or twice a week but denied reports that there were as many as 12 texts a day.

The messages were signed off “DC” in the main, she said. Occasionally he would sign them off ” ‘LOL,’ lots of love, until I told him it meant ‘laugh out loud,’ when he didn’t sign them off like that any more,” she said.

Asked if she and Cameron had discussed the phone hacking allegations against News of the World, she said they had done so in very general terms.

In late 2010, they had a more detailed discussion, she said, because civil cases were in court and the issue was in the news.

Brooks was editor of News of the World in 2002 when the newspaper hacked the voice mail of a missing schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, who was later found dead. The hacking scandal led to the paper’s closure in 2011. Brooks then edited The Sun, Britain’s biggest-selling daily tabloid, from 2003 to 2009.

Cameron has said the relationship between the media and politicians has become “too cozy.” He is expected to appear before the inquiry in the coming weeks.

Testifying Friday, Brooks told the inquiry she had received “indirect messages” of sympathy on her resignation in July, from 10 Downing Street, 11 Downing Street, the Home Office and the Foreign Office.

A “very few” Labour politicians sent messages of commiseration, Brooks said.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair sent her a message, but his successor, Gordon Brown, did not, she said.

Blair’s Labour Party benefited from the support of The Sun in three elections, but the paper switched allegiance to the Conservatives before the 2010 election in which Brown lost power.

In 2009, “we were running out of ways to support Mr. Brown’s government,” Brooks said, explaining what lay behind the paper’s shift to Cameron in September that year.

She also said Brown had been “incredibly aggressive and very angry” in a phone call to her after The Sun published stories critical of his handling of a condolence letter to the family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Brooks defended The Sun’s handling of an article it published in 2006 about Brown’s infant son, Fraser, having cystic fibrosis, which the former prime minister criticized in 2011.

Brooks denied the paper had illegally accessed Fraser’s medical records. She did not reveal The Sun’s source for the article but said the Browns had given permission for the paper to run it.

She said Brown had not raised concerns in the intervening years, when they continued to meet socially, and that “Mr. Brown’s recollections of that time were not the same as my own.”

Asked Friday if there was a danger that her newspaper got too close to those in power and their “spin doctors,” Brooks said the job of journalists was to question what they were told and serve their readers.

Brooks acknowledged becoming friendly with Blair by the end of his decade in power but said she was less friendly with Brown. She was more friends with Brown’s wife, Sarah, Brooks said.

She had known Blair for more than a decade, she said, with many social and political meetings in the time he was prime minister. They also spoke on the phone and had dinners together.

Brooks and her husband, Charlie Brooks, live near Cameron’s constituency home and have socialized together. She attended a private birthday party for Cameron in late 2010.

Questioned about her working relationship with Rupert Murdoch, Brooks said she was close to him and believed he trusted her implicitly.

But she rejected the suggestion that politicians thought they had to go through her to get close to Murdoch.

Brooks acknowledged she had made friendships during her years as a journalist, editor and chief executive but said she was always aware that she was a journalist and they were politicians, and assumed they also were.

Asked whether The Sun engendered fear in politicians, Brooks said she did not see them as people who were easily scared.

Jay, the inquiry lawyer, pressed Brooks over her newspaper’s role in putting pressure on the Cameron government, particularly Home Secretary Theresa May, to review the case of Madeleine McCann, a child abducted in Portugal.

Brooks said The Sun had tried to persuade the government to open a review but said “threat” was too strong a word to describe its efforts.

Brooks’ appearance at the Leveson Inquiry came a day after fellow ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who became director of communications for Cameron after he quit the paper, took to the stand.

Critics have questioned Cameron’s judgment in hiring Coulson in 2007 and asked why he was not subjected to more rigorous security vetting.

Coulson resigned as Cameron’s spokesman in January 2011 when police opened a new investigation into the scandal. He insisted he was innocent but said he had become a distraction for the government.

Questioned Thursday, Coulson said the jailing of two News of the World employees over phone hacking in 2007 did come up in discussions with senior party members before his job offer.

He told the inquiry he had told them and Cameron what he has said repeatedly — that he knew nothing about the practice of hacking under his leadership of the paper.

Coulson said he never witnessed a conversation that was “inappropriate” between members of the government and News International.

He dismissed as a conspiracy theory the suggestion that Conservatives had struck some kind of deal on News Corp.’s takeover of BSkyB in return for Murdoch’s support.

CNN’s Laura Perez Maestro contributed to this report.

posted by AndrewW on May 12

posted by AndrewW on May 11

An elderly woman has been rescued from the wreckage of a house in Cheltenham.

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posted by AndrewW on May 11

A nation with a proud cultural heritage, Poland can trace its roots back over 1,000 years. Positioned at the centre of Europe, it has known turbulent and violent times.

There have been periods of independence as well as periods of domination by other countries. Several million people, half of them Jews, died in World War II.

A new era began when Poland became an EU member in May 2004, five years after joining Nato and 15 years after the end of communist rule.

It was the birthplace of the former Soviet bloc's first officially recognised independent mass political movement when strikes at the Gdansk shipyard in August 1980 led to agreement with the authorities on the establishment of the Solidarity trade union.

The shoots of political freedom were trampled again 16 months later when communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law. But the movement for change was irreversible. Elections in summer 1989 ushered in eastern Europe's first post-communist government.

The presence in the Vatican of Polish Pope John-Paul II was an important influence on the Solidarity movement throughout the 1980s. The Roman Catholic church remains a very potent force in Polish life.

In the years between the end of communism and EU accession, power in Poland switched between the centre right and the centre left. Successive governments faced sleaze allegations.

The country has had some success in creating a market economy and attracting foreign investment. There was a massive movement of workers to western Europe in the years after Poland joined the EU, but the exodus slowed down after the global economic crisis took hold.

Poland still has a huge farming sector – agriculture accounts for about 60% of the country's total land area – which is unwieldy and very inefficient. Poverty is particularly widespread in rural areas.

Warsaw's profile on the international stage was raised by its support for the US-led military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Polish peacekeeping troops served in south-central Iraq from 2003 until 2008, and the country has also contributed a sizeable contingent to the Nato peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

posted by AndrewW on May 11

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended Thursday that the agency approve the drug, Truvada, for pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.

The committee voted 19-3 in favor of approval for the prevention indication — PrEP for HIV-uninfected men who have sex with men and 19-2 with one abstention for HIV-uninfected partners in couples where the other partner is infected. The committee recommended by 12-8 with two abstentions in favor of approving the drug for individuals who engage in risky sexual behavior that could result in their contracting the virus.

Truvada, manufactured by Gilead Sciences, Inc., is a once-a-day pill used in combination with other HIV drugs. The nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor does not rid the body of HIV. Instead, it prevents the virus from replicating in the body.

The FDA doesn’t have to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees, but it often does.

Most of the more than 40 health care professionals, AIDS advocates and patients who addressed the committee implored its members not to recommend the drug for the new indication.

“There is no question that, if efforts on using PrEP is widespread, condom use and other means of preventing HIV infection will decrease,” said Robert Elliott, a registered nurse. “At this point we simply don’t know enough about how to increase adherence rates to work with the PrEP or how to counteract the risk compensation and the use of PrEP. Until then, PrEP is not and cannot be considered safe and effective for preventing HIV infections.”

AIDS Activist Miki Jackson agreed. “A recommendation for the use of Truvada as PrEP is akin to issuing an engraved invitation for lawsuits,” she said. “To knowingly recommend a drug as powerful as Truvada with such serious serious side effects and given to people who are perfectly healthy is frightening.”

Michael Weinstein, president and founder of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said he was concerned that approval could lead a decrease in condom use. “Approving PrEP would be a reckless act,” he said.

The FDA panel looked at safety and efficacy data from three clinical trials:

– iPrEx, a study of men who have sex with men, found 43.8% fewer infections in men who got the drug versus those who got placebo;

– in a Truvada study carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Botswana, infection rates were reduced by 63% overall in healthy men and women considered to be at high risk of infection;

– the University of Washington’s Partners in PrEP study of serodiscordant couples in Kenya saw 62% fewer infections in those taking Truvada and a 73% reduction in those who took a combination of Truvada and the HIV drug tenofovir.

Committee members also heard concerns about the drug’s side effects, which can include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, loss of appetite and diarrhea, liver and kidney toxicity and loss of bone density.

But, after assessing the data, they concluded that Truvada is safe for men and women and effective in preventing infection.

And they had supporters. “What we need currently is additional tools for our powerful tool box,” said Dr. Richard Elion, director of clinical research at the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington. “We are not winning the battle. Please, were asking today to allow a modality that’s still being developed to be added to our toolbox.”

Kirk Myers, founder and CEO of Abounding Prosperity Inc., made a plea on behalf of African-Americans. “People need to be given the option to choose,” said Myers, who is HIV-positive. “This drug is wanted. Another tool we can use. The right thing to do. Without this option, desperation will continue to drive up statistics of new incidents.”

Chris Collins, vice president and director of public policy for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, said the data on the drug’s prophylactic use were compelling and urged the committee not to limit access to it. “We need new tools to fight this epidemic that include treatment, condoms and education,” Collins said. “PrEP is certainly not for everyone, but it may have a role in bringing HIV-infection rates down. It’s time to learn how PrEP may be useful in the real world.”

According to Dr. Peter S. Miele, a medical officer in the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Truvada’s safety and efficacy for the prevention of HIV-1 infection in high-risk individuals is supported by two large clinical trials. “Regular HIV testing, adherence and behavioral counseling on safer sex practices, including condom use, are essential components of healthcare delivery around PrEP,” he said.

Truvada is not cheap. A month’s supply costs about $1,200.