This talk explores the pharmaceutical drug, Truvada, as an oral pre-exposure prophylaxis and as a recent HIV prevention strategy to combat the virus. Commonly referred to as PrEP, I examine this drug’s proliferation in central Ohio. This talk traces the social and cultural effects of PrEP on individuals and communities whose risks of HIV transmission are particularly elevated and well cited in public health and medical literatures. I draw on ethnographic, discursive, and historical analysis to address the nature of minority communities’ responses to PrEP by examining three independent yet interrelated moving parts: local community-based medical clinics, individual-level knowledge, and the historical context of HIV/AIDS in the United States. My aim is to show how the invention and distribution of PrEP in central Ohio elucidates meaning-making practices among key actors, stakeholders, structures, and institutional forces that claim efficacy of the drug through ethnic, racial, sexual, and class informed logics regarding the science and technology of PrEP. I argue for expanded conceptualizations of structural racism and justice within the medical field in the United States, one oriented toward health equity, structural competency, and social and racial justice. This talk offers new insights into PrEP’s shifting meanings as it moves from pharmaceutical laboratories, clinical sites, community-based organizations, and, finally, into the broader discourses and practices surrounding HIV/AIDS that we found in the public sphere.
