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Pharma Should Pay Tab for All Patients on S.C. AIDS Drug Wait List - Says AHF

Posted on: Friday, 29 December 2006, 21:00 CST

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the US' largest provider of HIV/AIDS healthcare, education and prevention and operator of free AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia, today called on the pharmaceutical industry to immediately mobilize and work together to donate lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs and/or money to eliminate waiting lists on several of the federally-funded, state-run AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP) nationwide. State ADAPs are funded by the federal Ryan White CARE Act and are the primary source of HIV/AIDS medications for uninsured and underinsured Americans. The call to the drug industry from AHF was renewed after the 'New York Times' reported that four people in South Carolina had died -- and 350 people with HIV/AIDS remain -- on a waiting list to receive lifesaving AIDS medications through the state's ADAP.

"It is simply unacceptable for someone in this country to die from AIDS because of lack of access to lifesaving medications that may be sitting -- unused -- in a drug company warehouse nearby," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Why weren't these South Carolina patients -- or all of the patients on ADAP waiting lists around the country -- being offered medications through drug companies' Patient Assistance Programs? Given the enormous profit that pharmaceutical companies reap by selling medications to government programs -- by far the largest purchasers of drugs in this country -- it is incumbent upon these companies to cover such needy low-income AIDS patients who are not able to access these medications due to state and federal funding gaps. AHF is calling on the pharmaceutical industry to do more to ensure that such AIDS patients in need have access to treatments. We are also demanding that the pharmaceutical industry pick up the tab for all of these wait-listed ADAP patients, and that as a requirement for participating in, and placing its drugs on ADAP formularies in the future, that the industry itself institute a streamlined, collaborative and common-sense program of drug and/or monetary donations that ensures that waiting lists become a thing of the past."

According to the 'New York Times' article ("Waiting List for AIDS Drugs Causes Dismay in South Carolina," Dewan, 12/29/06), "State officials say it would cost South Carolina $3 million to clear the waiting list. The only other state with such a list right now, Alaska, has 13 people waiting. The number of states with waiting lists fluctuates."

"Even if HIV positive individuals in South Carolina have access to medical care and CD4 monitoring, without access to antiretroviral treatment, many will progress to an AIDS-defining illness over time," said Charles Farthing, MD, Chief of Medicine for AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "This is unfortunate, as the AIDS drug therapies we have today can truly enable people to live normal, healthy lives. We must find some way to make sure that those in need of these lifesaving treatments have access to them."

State funding cuts in South Carolina originally led to the creation of the waiting list, which started in June.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation

CONTACT: Ged Kenslea, Communications Director, +1-323-860-5225, ormobile, +1-323-791-5526, or Lori Yeghiayan, Associate Director ofCommunications, +1-323-860-5227, or mobile, +1-323-377-4312, both of AIDSHealthcare Foundation

Source: PRNewswire

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