NATIONAL ADAP WORKING GROUP

For Immediate Release  
6 June, 2003

Media Contact: Bill Arnold  (202) 588-1775/ Dan Schreiner (202) 599-1775

ADAPs Seek Emergency Funding From Congress for 2003

Washington, DC - Backed by the findings of the National ADAP Monitoring Report, released on April 30th, The National ADAP Working Group is calling for $145 million in Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to keep the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) functioning at current levels through the remainder of the fiscal year, ending March 31, 2004.

The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors has also reported that as of June 2003, only two months into the FY2003 ADAP Fiscal Year, 10 states and territories had closed enrollments to new clients leading to waiting lists of over 620 eligible people living with HIV.  

According to National ADAP Working Group Executive Director Bill Arnold, "We haven't seen waiting lists this large, this early, since the crisis years of 1996-97. That is when the drug combinations that have cut the national death rate from AIDS by over two-thirds were introduced.  It is vital that Congress appropriate the $145 million in emergency funds immediately so that ADAPs across the nation won't be forced to impose even more drastic limitations to access this year.  Without the $145 million Emergency Supplemental for FY '03, we will need an additional $283 million in the FY 2004 Budget just to eliminate the waiting lists and limitations in ADAP services that will result from inaction now."

The AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) is designed to provide underinsured and uninsured individuals living with HIV/AIDS access to life saving prescribed medications.  In any given month, more than 80,000 men, women and children access ADAP throughout the United States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Territories.

As detailed in the National ADAP Monitoring Report, despite a recent decrease in the growth in the numbers of new clients being served by the program, as well as increases in the ADAP budget over time, the program is not keeping pace with current need in many states.  In reality, ADAP expenditures continue to rise as a result of key factors, including:
    *    Individuals with HIV/AIDS living for longer periods of
time due to effective treatments and, therefore, remaining in ADAP for
much longer periods.
    *    Increasing demand for services as agencies provide
outreach and testing to at-risk populations.  This impact will increase
with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) recently
announced initiative calling for increased HIV testing and use of rapid
tests to identify more individuals living with HIV/AIDS.
    *    Cuts to Medicaid programs (45 states have pharmacy cost
cutting factors in place already).  The 236-person ADAP waiting list in
Oregon is largely attributable to people with HIV losing access to
Medicaid.  This is expected to happen in at least a dozen additional
states before year's end.
    *    Increasing numbers of uninsured and underinsured
individuals due to the slowing economy.
    *    Costs of prescribed AIDS medications and medicines used
to treat the side effects of these life-saving prescription drugs.

"It's very simple," said Lei Chou of the AIDS Treatment Data Network and Data Co-chair of the ADAP Working Group.  "We either pay this amount now or we pay enormous amounts later.  The data is clear and concrete.  HIV antiretroviral therapy is among the most highly cost-effective means of dealing with any chronic condition and if we don't supply that therapy, the downstream costs of treating expensive, life-threatening opportunistic infections will make $145 million seem insignificant."

"We actively support the President's Global HIV/AIDS Initiative and will work to see that it is fully funded," said Dr. Gene Copello, Executive Director of Florida AIDS Action.  "What we cannot afford, politically or ethically, is to provide care to the poor and vulnerable in the rest of the world while letting those same populations in the United States suffer without access to the medicines that can save their lives."

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