For Immediate Release

Media Contact: Justin Burke - 213.201.1525EMAIL:jburke@apla.org

AIDS PROJECT LOS ANGELES CONCERNED OVER CDC’S NEW HIV PREVENTION INITIATIVE – URGES CAUTION MOVING FORWARD

Los Angeles, April 17, 2003 -- AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) today responded with caution and concern to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new HIV prevention initiative, which will shift focus from at-risk populations to those already infected with the AIDS virus.

According to the CDC, recently approved rapid HIV tests make it possible to expand HIV testing for pregnant mothers, people and their sex partners who are already HIV positive, and the 200,000 Americans the CDC says are HIV infected but are unaware of their status.

“Expanded testing makes absolute sense, given the rapid HIV tests and the number of at-risk people who have not been tested,” said Craig E. Thompson, APLA Executive Director. “However, we cannot just test everyone, tell them they are HIV positive, and send them home without counseling, care or drug treatments.

“Unfortunately, the CDC has not established how they will reach these people or where they are going to find the estimated $3 billion it will take to provide them with tests, treatment and the expensive HIV drug regimens they will need to stay healthy.”

Thompson said the cost of HIV treatment and drug therapies “averages about $14,000 per person per year in the United States.”

“The federal government has consistently under funded the nation’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) that provides uninsured or underinsured people with these therapies,” Thompson continued. “And California’s ADAP program is now threatened with unaffordable prescription co-payments because of the state’s burgeoning budget deficit.”

Thompson also said “it is not clear whether the initiative is also intended in part to take funding away from comprehensive community-based prevention programs, specifically those tailored to gay men and other at-risk populations.”

The CDC has already said that state and local programs will have to adhere to the new guidelines, or lose their federal funding.

“The AIDS epidemic in Los Angeles and California is predominantly an epidemic of men who have sex with men,” Thompson said. “Any reduction in prevention spending on this at-risk population will have disastrous consequences here at home and across the state.”

-APLA-