For the time being, smoking will simply send you to another slow, painful, and premature death (cancer)

In the future, women may be able to protect their vaginal linings from the HIV virus by smoking a special cigarette containing the anti-HIV drug griffithsin. Or maybe you’ll just rub it all over your vagina, but either way, this is good news.

Griffithsin has been known for years to be effective in preventing HIV from “colonizing the vaginal lining,” but science has yet to figure out how to reproduce the drug effectively, as “the only known naturally occurring source of griffithsin is a red algae found off the coast of New Zealand”—-essentially, nowhere. Now, scientists have found a plant that has that grows under the necessary elements to cultivate griffithsin growths—-tobacco.

Already, scientists have sprayed an entire tobacco field with a synthetic version of the algae and extracted the drug. Now, a vaginal gel is being tested on animals, with hopes of “phase one FDA clinical trials” within a year.

For those still hoping to smoke their HIV away, take heart: “A cigarette containing griffithsin hasn’t been discounted either.”

Photo by lissalou66