AIDS Drug Assistance Plans: A Report From the Trenches
NAPWA's Positive Voice Newsletter - Issue # 10
August 27, 2010
NAPWA (the National Association of People With AIDS) has been saying for a long time now that not funding state ADAP programs is terrible public policy - even if you don't care about the cost in human suffering, the patient who doesn't get her meds this year may get sick and drain the public health care budget much, much more next year than funding her drugs would have this year. The states that aren't fully funding their ADAP programs need to step up to the plate -but they can't do what's needed without Federal help. They're strapped for cash, their budgets are in crisis. Additional Federal funding will have to be part of the solution to ADAP waiting lists.
That view may finally be getting some traction in Congress. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fl) called on his colleagues last week to vote emergency funds for the state ADAP programs. He's not the first in Congress to do this - members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Massachusetts' Barney Frank have been saying it for months - but Nelson is one of the first swing-state Democrats to speak up. Maybe the tide is turning?
So it was interesting to run into someone from Florida's Department of Health at this week's Ryan White All Titles Conference in DC and ask her, how are things going in your northern Florida program area? How easy is it for a poor person diagnosed with HIV even to find a doctor? (There aren't any, she said - if you're HIV+ and poor, you come to us.) And are people on Florida's waiting list getting their drugs? Mostly, she said. Out of a little over a hundred clients, she has five wait-listed, and so far her program has been able to get them assistance from the drug companies. Some of the assistance programs have brutally complex application procedures (Thank God, she says, the Atripla program is comparatively user-friendly), and we wonder whether it's practical for South Florida programs to do for nearly a hundred new wait-listed clients every week what her program is doing for five. Her biggest fear, she told us, is that the drug companies may not keep their assistance programs going forever. Getting her clients their drugs directly from the companies is good, this year, but it doesn't take away her anxiety about what happens next year or the year after. The ADAPs need to be fully funded.
In the mean time, the waiting lists keep growing. We don't have the latest numbers yet from our friends at NASTAD. Last issue, there were about 2,900 Americans on the lists. By now, we guess the total will be around 3,400
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International AIDS Conference: Webcasts and News Recaps
The XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010) took place July 18-23 in Vienna, Austria. View more than 50 online Webcasts of conference sessions present by the Kaiser Family Foundation as well as a daily video recap of conference developments with Science magazine’s Jon Cohen. Access the coverage
HIV / AIDS in the United States
HIV / AIDS in the United States HIV and AIDS in the United States CDC Fact Sheet:
This factsheet provides an overview of HIV and AIDS in the United States. CDC estimates that more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States. One in five of those people living with HIV is unaware of their infection. Despite increases in the total number of people living with HIV in the United States in recent years, the annual number of new HIV infections has remained relatively stable. However, new infections continue at far too high a level, with an estimated 56,300 Americans becoming infected with HIV each year.
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