AHF criticizes President Obama's budget proposal for HIV/AIDS programs

Following the release of his proposed Fiscal Year 2012 budget, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, today criticized President Barack Obama and his administration for requests for budget funding levels for HIV/AIDS programs that are grossly inadequate to the need. Despite modest increases in some areas—the President is asking for what appears to be an $80 million increase for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) for his 2012 budget—there is a crisis roiling ADAP today with thousands of Americans going without lifesaving AIDS drugs and this problem is only getting worse, a situation that Obama has done little to address today or, judging from his budget proposal, in the future.

"President Obama's budget calls for continued rationing of AIDS drugs in the United States," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "We call on the President to act immediately to end the waiting lists for AIDS drugs by redirecting monies from the billions of unspent dollars within the Department of Health and Human Services and to increase his budget request to $200 million. Never in the history of the AIDS epidemic have we denied so many people life saving medication. It is squarely the President's responsibility to end the ADAP crisis now and to ensure that waiting lists and benefit reductions do not reappear."

Since December alone, patient waiting lists for our nation's hard-hit AIDS Drug Assistance have grown 32%. As of February 11th, there are now 6,235 individuals on ADAP waiting lists in 10 states, up from 4,732 individuals waiting to access to antiretroviral treatment through ADAP just two months ago. Enrollments—and waiting lists—for these lifesaving federal/state funded programs are growing, particularly throughout the South.

In a statement by Jeffrey S. Crowley, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, posted Tuesday on the official White House website, Crowley wrote, "People living with HIV should not have to live in fear that their access to lifesaving medications could be taken away from them."

"Mr. Crowley is right to say that 'people living with HIV should not have to live in fear that their access to lifesaving medications could be taken away from them'," added Whitney Engeran-Cordova, Senior Director of AHF's Public Health Division. "However, actions speak louder than words, and the administration's actions—proposing such grossly inadequate AIDS funding—may result in just that outcome. Because of the continued lack of funding for ADAP, people are presently living in fear and some already have had their medications taken away from them. It is not a hypothetical. People are hurt and will continue to be hurt in growing numbers under this budget proposal. Touting how much is added will not cover the fact that over 6,000 people have been subtracted from the numbers of those receiving the medications they need to live."

"This budget proposal is not the first time the administration has shortchanged AIDS," said Tom Myers, Chief of Public Affairs and General Counsel for AHF. "The crisis facing ADAP should have been apparent to the White House at least as far back as July 2010, when the Obama administration released its National HIV/AIDS Strategy. At the time, advocates were asking for $126 million for the ADAP crisis, yet the Obama administration inexplicably offered only $25 million. Now the administration wants us to believe that $80 million in the year 2012 will fix everything."

At the time the White House unveiled its National HIV/AIDS Strategy last July, there were 2,200 patients on ADAP waiting lists nationwide. Most AIDS and policy experts agreed that $126 million was the amount needed to solve the ADAP crisis then. That was a number provided by state AIDS directors as the amount of additional federal funding required to meet current program needs, given the number of people then on waiting lists; the expected number of new patients and budget cuts per state. However, during the White House press conference, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the administration was redirecting just $25 million to address the ADAP crisis, an amount that clearly hasn't adequately addressed the problem: there are three times as many people on ADAP waiting lists today as there were in July 2010.

"The reason why this funding is so crucial, and why so many AIDS organizations and advocates—including AHF—are disappointed in Obama's understanding and approach to the AIDS crisis is simple: without access to lifesaving antiretroviral medications, people with HIV/AIDS cost even more, they get sicker without treatment, and as a result are far more infectious to others," added AHF's Weinstein. "And given the current economic environment, only the federal government can produce the funds needed to address this crisis today and for the future."

Source: AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)