HIV affected Floridians are living on the brink of a medical nightmare if Obama’s 2012 FY budget is not approved. The AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a federally subsidized, state-run program, covers the cost of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for 165,000 low-income Americans living with HIV. There are currently about 6,500 ADAP clients in Florida alone who were temporarily cut off from their medications due to a budget shortfall. If not for some urgent measures, these patients could have been without their live saving medications for roughly two months, since the Ryan White CARE Act funding for budget year 2011 won’t come into effect until April 1.
The Fair Pricing Coalition (FPC), a group of HIV patient advocates and activists who strive for appropriate pricing of HIV medicines, worked hard to cut a deal with several organizations that will allow those 6,500 Florida-based ADAP clients to continue to receive their much needed ARVs. The FPC worked in conjunction with Welvista (a national, nonprofit mail-order pharmacy), Florida’s ADAP and several major pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Merck, and ViiV Healthcare, which agreed to provide their HIV medications free to Welvista for these additional clients in Florida on a one-time, emergency basis. This deal will ideally leave Florida with enough funds to cover the 3,500 remaining ADAP clients who need medication.
Now the fear is that other states in similar situations as Florida, lacking state funds and with impending budget cuts, will look to the efforts made by these pharmaceutical companies and demand the same aid. Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Washington state are on the same path as Florida and have rising numbers of people on ADAP waiting lists, if still in the program at all. Ohio has 1,000 people on their ADAP waiting list. Being on a waiting list versus being removed from the program altogether is of little importance when one considers the fact that regardless of placement, this is a large group of individuals left without the medicines that can save their lives.
Florida, along with the aforementioned states, owing to their individual budget crises, chose to legislate a much smaller percentage of the overall ADAP budget than many other states, leading to their present shortages. The “Florida-Welvista deal” is just a temporary fix for Florida’s funding debacle. The care of thousands of HIV affected individuals is now shifting from state and federal governments to pharmaceutical companies. This will undoubtedly put a strain on each drug company’s patient assistance program (PAP), which provide medicines free to people who cannot afford them. This may eventually come to hurt other patients from other states with other diseases who rely on these PAPs for their meds.
At the time that the “Florida-Welvista deal” was being struck, Florida State Senator Joe Negron (R-Stuart), chairman of Florida’s Senate Budget Committee’s subcommittee on Health and Human Services Appropriation, pointed to other funding priorities. “There needs to be a transfer in priority in revenue from health and human services to education,” he said. “I’d like to see several billion less in HHS.”
His point, though misguided, has a kernel of truth to it. An increase in education is needed in Florida and elsewhere, specifically, sexual health education. Thirty-four percent of new HIV/AIDS cases in America occur in people under the age of 30. Florida needs to teach sex education in a more comprehensive manner than just “abstinence-only until heterosexual marriage.” This narrow-minded approach only increases the overall risk to sexual health. Since Florida does not have a statewide minimum standard for sex education, programs fall very short, and it leaves the state open to a possible increase in HIV/AIDS cases.
But one must assume, that when Negron claimed he wants a shift from HHS to education, sexual health education in schools was not his intention.
Budget cuts proposed by his GOP brothers have many HIV-affected individuals feeling distraught. The United States, once the safest place in the world to have HIV/AIDS, may not be safe for much longer. If HIV affected individuals are unable to get the medicine they need to keep their disease in-check, it will develop from HIV to full-blown AIDS and become deadly. HIV/AIDS is completely preventable and can be treated effectively, but only if the proper steps are taken. Florida is on a dangerous path and if its funding issues are not addressed soon, it could end up with thousands of people dead. And this would be a price too high to pay.
Interested in the debate on sex education in public schools? Tune into the PBS show Basic Black for a LIVE discussion on Friday, February 25th at 7:30 pm EST on channel 2 in Boston and at http://www.basicblack.org, where you can also join a live chat.
This sounds very interesting. I missed the live discussion tonight… is there a way I can hear more about it in the future? I’m going to check out the basicblack.org website right now.
Great article on HIV/AIDS Patients At Risk in Florida Do To Budget Shortfall. It was a good read and very true. A very forgotten subject in 2011 but still real life to states like Florida, among other areas!
I agree. The new budget deals with many political issues and in many states, like FL, those in need are being neglected. Florida should have alotted more money from ADAP for HIV/AIDs medicine from the very beginning.