The pill was developed to treat people

The ray ban wayfarer pill was developed to treat people already infected with HIV. But studies published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrate that it can also prevent heterosexual transmission of HIV, the most common mode of contagion in Africa. A growing number of doctors in the U.S. are already prescribing the drug to uninfected high-risk patients as an off-label use, and some insurers are covering the considerable expense. "It's not officially monitored, but its use is on the rise," said Dr. Robert M. Grant of UC San Francisco's Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology, who worked on one of the new studies. "We're already starting to see support groups for users." The blue tablets, which are sold under the oakley sunglasses popular for women brand name Truvada, contain a combination of two antiretroviral drugs called tenofovir and emtricitabine. Researchers began studying Truvada's ability to prevent the spread of HIV to uninfected gay men and heterosexual men and women several years ago; the FDA has said it will make a determination on the drug's use for HIV prevention by Sept. 14. Publication of the Africa drug trials comes less than two weeks before the International AIDS Conference convenes inWashington, D.C.The results, as well as the FDA's deliberations, are likely to be hot-button issues there, since both advocates and critics of using Truvada for prevention have found ammunition for their views in the oakley sunglasses classic 2012 on sale studies' findings.