Preparing for PrEP, A Conservative Governor Walks the Talk, and more

Earlier this year at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention convened a day-long meeting to discuss pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. The Black AIDS Institute also convened a forum in which we examined PrEP as it relates to Black gay and bisexual men. In this issue Rod McCullom pens the first of a two-part series about the promise and problems of PrEP.

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels steps out as the first conservative to put his money where his mouth is. Although they savage the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have yet to set forth a plan of their own. Read about Daniels' recently introduced Healthy Indiana Plan, that state's Medicaid alternative. Republican governor Haley Barbour  of Mississippi is no stranger to controversy. In now he's threatening to reshape that impoverished state's Medicaid budget. Read what's at stake and what his critics have to say.

Finally with a shortage of primary-care physicians, many pharmacists are beginning to transform themselves from being drug dispensers to drug educators and health coaches for those with chronic disease. And don't forget to look at What We're Reading.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill

Follow Phill Wilson on Twitter @iamphillwilson.