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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1997)
ju s t o u t ▼ m ay 2 . 1907 ▼ 9 M echanics ADAPs in need Panel warns of a major shortfall in funding the program that gets anti-HIV drugs to people who can 7 pay T PHOTO BY BOB ROEHR by Bob Roehr opportunity now, we have consciously and un ncreased funding for the AIDS Drug Assis consciously prolonged the legacy of shame.” tance Program was the cornerstone of much Chip Schooley, M.D., a researcher and physi testim ony, lobbying and meetings during cian at the University of Colorado, outlined the AIDS W atch ’97, held in W ashington, D.C., medicine of new therapies. Over the past two years in mid-April. the UC patient census has grown by 50 percent, but The A D A P W orking Group, a coalition o f the number of days spent in hospital has declined AIDS organizations and pharm aceutical com pa by 75 percent. He saw these therapies as being nies, has identified a “shortfall” o f $66.8 million highly cost-effective, both in terms of treating in funding for A D A P in the current year. It says that next year the federal governm ent should increase its share o f A D A P fund ing by $ 131 .7 million, while states need to kick in an additional $46.2 million. Bill Arnold, co-chair o f the working group, said that only five state ADAP programs cover all of the basic drugs necessary to treat HIV. Four states still do not pay for any o f the protease in hibitors, while 10 have capped the num ber of participants and have waiting lists. Others restrict access to the pro gram below accepted standards o f care. “We should be asham ed o f our selves,” Mary Fisher told congressional staff members at an April 17 briefing. She was as m oving and eloquent as when she addressed two Republican national conventions. “ Nearly two de cades into an epidem ic that has killed hundreds o f thousands of Am ericans, we have gathered to discuss how many Mary Fisher more should die.” patients and in limiting the further spread of HIV. She stated a very simple equation: “W hat “ By not making drugs available, and by giving stands between these Americans and death is people no incentive to find out if they are infected, drugs; what stands between these A m ericans and and by continuing to have people in an infectious drugs is money; and what stands between these state [with a high viral load], we are only shooting A m ericans and m oney is ...u s, the A m erican ourselves in the foot down the road.” M ichael Saag, M.D., o f the Univer sity o f Alabama-Birm ingham, said ex perience with HIV and earlier drugs has shown that misuse can quickly lead to resistance: “ We don’t want to repeat that [with triple com binations].” He urged increased funding which would ease Alabama’s “incredibly strin gent” M edicaid eligibility criteria and allow a sliding scale o f ADAP assis tance for working people with inad e q u a te o r no h e a lth in s u ra n c e . Alabama’s ADAP program has enrolled for 728 o f its 750 slots and will soon begin to put people on a waiting list. George Benjamin, M .D.,deputy sec retary of health for M aryland, outlined that state’s aggressive ADAP program. W hen it ran short o f money and began a waiting list, the governor authorized an immediate emergency appropriation Bill Arnold which allowed them to cover all pa people, the United States governm ent and the tients and all approved HIV drugs. AIDS Drug A ssistance Program .” O ver the past 12 months M aryland ADAP Fisher noted that the rate o f death has gone expenditures have increased 147 percent. Ben down for men, because o f their access to drugs, jam in called it “one of these rare investments that while it has continued to rise for women. “We does make a true difference in the lives o f indi have no cure, but we have within our power the viduals. It very clearly shifts the paradigm from ability to end the immoral discrepancy between treating critical illness to keeping people healthy those who live and those who die for lack o f and productive.” access to drugs.” M anhattan Congressman Jerrold Nadler said, And she called on those assem bled “to assure “W e are always told that the United States has the that life-prolonging and death-deferring drugs best medical system in the world, but if people do are available for every HIV-infected person in not get the benefits o f that technology simply this nation, not when we stand at death’s door, but because they don’t have the money, then we do while we stand in the public square. Politics and not have the best medical system in the world. science make it possible; econom ics and morality Life and death should not be a question o f your make it imperative. If we do not em brace the pocketbook.” A U T O M O T I V E Gerard Lillie • 5934 N.E. 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