For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Justin Burke - 213.201.1525
EMAIL:jburke@apla.org
PRESIDENT’S HIV/AIDS PLAN LONG ON IDEAS, SHORT ON DOLLARS
Advisory Committee Sets Ambitious Goals
for Ending HIV/AIDS in United States
Los Angeles, Calif., December 13, 2005 – In response to a new report from the Bush administration called “Achieving an HIV-Free Generation,” AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) today questioned whether the administration is willing to put up the money necessary to achieve this laudable goal.
The report, (“Achieving an HIV-Free Generation: Recommendations for a New American HIV Strategy”), was released on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, by the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). The report assesses the current HIV epidemic in the United States and abroad, offering “recommendations to guide our domestic and international HIV efforts with a clear strategy to achieve an HIV-free generation.”
“We all want to end AIDS in this country and we applaud this ambitious goal,” said APLA Executive Director Craig E. Thompson. “But current federal funding isn’t keeping up with the growing number of people living with HIV who need services, much less moving us toward an HIV-free generation.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 42,000 people are infected with HIV every year in the United States, while some 18,000 Americans die of AIDS each year. A decreasing mortality rate, largely the result of successful drug therapies, means there are now more people living with HIV/AIDS than ever before, with over 1.2 million in America and 100,000 in California alone.
“The report states that there is no ‘shortage of federal resources devoted to fighting HIV’ here at home,” Thompson said. “The administration would like us to believe that we are spending enough, rather than admitting that domestic programs are now held hostage to out-of-control budget deficits and the cost of the war in Iraq. The truth is that domestic spending on AIDS has been flat funded for the past four years.
“Meanwhile we’re seeing a 40 percent growth in the number of people living with AIDS and double digit yearly increases in the price of drugs. Pharmaceutical expenditures now account for almost 40 percent of annual funding under the Ryan White CARE Act.
“The president had to come up with $20 million last year in emergency supplemental funding, just to eliminate wait lists for life-saving HIV drugs,” Thompson said. “Now there are another 1,500 people on the wait lists, and no new emergency funding in sight.”
The federal government currently spends an estimated $12 billion on HIV/AIDS, primarily through the $2 billion Ryan White CARE Act, Medicare and Medicaid. The states spend another $6 billion.
“Given the lack of adequate funding for an ever-increasing HIV-positive
population, we have been doing a pretty good job merely keeping the infection
rate stable,” Thompson said. “Even the PACHA report notes that
we currently spend just five percent of federal funding on prevention.
“This report calls for routine HIV testing for all Americans, a national
HIV prevention and communications campaign, a new initiative in the nation’s
prisons and equitable care and treatment for everyone in need,” Thompson
said. “Reaching those admirable goals will cost billions more than what
the federal government now spends on HIV/AIDS. We know the United States has
the resources, but we question whether the current administration has the political
will.”
APLA noted a number of other troubling recommendations included in PACHA’s report:
Surveillance: In the report, PACHA calls for confidential names-based HIV reporting systems in every state in order to provide reliable data by 2007, a deadline established in the Ryan White CARE Act. The report recommends that states unable to meet the 2007 deadline must be held accountable, advising that states that refuse to adopt names-based reporting “should be required to surrender dollars to states that use sound policies in fighting this disease.”
“California is now moving from a code-based reporting system to names-based surveillance,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately, the data may not be entirely reliable and states changing over to a names-based system will need a grace period to perfect their reporting systems.”
Prevention and Testing: The PACHA report emphasizes HIV testing as a key prevention strategy and recommends that testing be a part of routine medical care so that all Americans know their HIV status.
“HIV testing is clearly an important part of combating HIV/AIDS,” Thompson said. “However, routine testing of all Americans will cost more and produce fewer positive results than screening and testing targeted, at-risk populations, such as men who have sex with men – especially in communities of color.”
The report also recommends the elimination of anonymous HIV testing, which it says, “makes appropriate follow-up needlessly difficult, and frequently impossible.”
APLA disagrees.
“Anonymous HIV testing programs were set up in states like California to encourage testing, and the knowledge it provides, without fear of the information being disclosed,” Thompson said. “Public health is better served by programs that encourage greater numbers of individuals to seek testing since their privacy is absolutely protected, even if health officials are unable to track the health or behavior of infected individuals.”
Prisons: The report calls for a major HIV prevention initiative in America’s prisons, including testing upon entry and release; care, treatment and prevention education for infected inmates; and mandatory partner notification to help protect outside communities.
“A nationwide HIV prevention initiative in America’s prisons is long overdue,” said Thompson, “but the report does not even mention giving condoms to prisoners to help protect them from infection while they are incarcerated.”
A condoms-in-prisons bill sponsored by APLA was killed in the California Legislature last year.
“We are clearly in denial about sex in prisons,” Thompson said. “Sex happens in prisons, and prisoners need condoms to protect themselves and those they encounter after incarceration.”
AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP): The report says that funding for ADAP must be distributed more effectively, to prevent shortfalls that have led in some states to waiting lists for essential medicines.
“The administration is proposing an inadequate $10 million increase for ADAP this year,” Thompson said. “The report fails to address persistent shortfalls in federal funding, and fails to hold states accountable when they contribute little or nothing to their ADAP programs.”
Thompson points out that California’s contribution to ADAP has increased by over $20 million per year for the past several years. The state’s ADAP program provides life-saving HIV drug therapy to low-income uninsured or underinsured Californians, most of whom report incomes below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines (or about $18,000 per year).
Invigorated Communication Campaign on Domestic HIV/AIDS: The report calls for a “comprehensive, invigorated communications campaign of our domestic AIDS policies . . . to promote HIV prevention, increase HIV testing and reduce the stigma associated with this disease.”
“We would happily participate in this kind of ambitious social marketing campaign,” said Thompson. “But a national communications campaign of this scale, along with the other goals outlined in the report, will require a commitment from our political leaders and a commitment to adequate funding for HIV/AIDS in the United States unlike any we have seen before in the history of the epidemic.”
International: The report includes 15 recommendations regarding the role of the U.S. government in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, including extending the five-year President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) initiative.
“We were pleased to hear the report call for a U.S. response beyond PEPFAR,” said Thompson. “But again, an effective global response to HIV/AIDS will require more leadership and more money than we have seen to date. The 2006 U. S. pledge to the multilateral Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is the lowest it has been since 2001/2002, both in terms of dollar amount and overall percentage of total contributions to the fund.”
AIDS Project Los Angeles, one of the largest non-profit AIDS service organizations in the United States, provides bilingual direct services, prevention education and leadership on HIV/AIDS-related policy and legislation. Founded by four friends in 1982, APLA is a community-based, volunteer-supported organization with local, national and global reach. For more information, visit www.apla.org.
###
