Senate Takes Action on ADAP Crisis
Illinois May Join ADAP Waiting List Crisis
D.C. to Begin Using Trojan Condoms in HIV Prevention Program
Congressmen Support Same-Sex Families in Immigration Reform
Website Offers Comprehensive Info on All STD/STIs
Senate Takes Action on ADAP Crisis
In a press release issued by the Community Access National Network (CANN) on May 26, CANN commended North Carolina senator Richard Burr and Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma “for their leadership in solving the ongoing AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) crisis. The ACCESS ADAP Act (Senate bill 3401) provides $126 million to ADAP for the remainder of fiscal year 2010 to address the immediate need of individuals on waiting lists, to prevent these lists from expanding to more states, and to recover every patient who has been taken off their comprehensive drug regimen.”
“More than 600 North Carolinians living with HIV/AIDS have been waiting to access their needed prescription drugs through ADAP. Patients waiting to enroll in ADAP in North Carolina and around our nation are in need of our leadership here in Washington,” stated Senator Burr, a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “This bill will ensure that Congress keeps its promise to these patients in need.”
According to the release, the money for ADAP is to be allocated from unobligated discretionary funds in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Department of Health and Human Services alone received a specific $22 billion in discretionary authority to be obligated through September of 2010. This discretionary funding is to be used for improving and preserving health care as well as promoting prevention and wellness.
“At a time when waiting lists are growing with no end in sight and these patients no longer have access to their life-saving drugs through ADAP, there couldn’t be a more appropriate funding stream to deal with the preservation of healthcare and the promotion of these individual’s wellness,” commented William Arnold, Executive Director of CANN. “Keeping folks alive is stimulus.”
Illinois May Join ADAP Waiting List Crisis
The AIDS Foundation of Chicago issued a press release on May 24 notifying community members that the Medical Issues Advisory Board, which is comprised of doctors, pharmacists, legal experts, advocates, and people with HIV and advises the Illinois Department of Public Health, voted on May 21 to urge Illinois to immediately close the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) to new applicants and begin a waiting list. The move would make Illinois the twelfth state in the nation to institute a waiting list and it would have disastrous effects on more than 4,000 low-income Illinoisans with HIV/AIDS. The recommendation is now under review by state officials.
“Because the program is deeply underfunded, Illinois must take immediate steps to preserve services for those who rely on ADAP for their life-saving care,” said David Ernesto Munar, vice president of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC), and a member of the ADAP Medical Issues Advisory Board. “The program faces total fiscal collapse unless immediate actions are taken.”
“Denying urgent HIV care will only heighten Illinois’ already acute HIV crisis and result in greater numbers of preventable HIV deaths and new infections,” said AFC President/CEO Mark Ishaug.
D.C. to Begin Using Trojan Condoms in HIV Prevention Program
The Washington Post reported on May 21 that young adults, mostly high school and college students, using the free condoms distributed through HIV and STD prevention programs have been complaining that the free condoms are too small and of poor quality, and that getting them from school nurses is "just like asking grandma or auntie."
In response, D.C. officials have decided to stock Trojan condoms, including the extra-large Magnum variety, and they have begun to authorize teachers or counselors to distribute condoms to students if the teachers complete a 30-minute online training course called "WrapMC" − for Master of Condoms.
Health officials and consumer advocates say that in terms of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, there's no difference between Trojans and the less-expensive Durex condoms that the city is offering.
Consumer Reports magazine said in a report last fall that Trojan and Durex, as well as the Lifestyles condoms repackaged by the New York City health department, all scored 100 percent in tests of "strength, reliability, leakage and package integrity."
But because Trojans are considered the better-known brand, city officials say, they are willing to spend an extra few thousand dollars a year to try to persuade sexually active teenagers to practice safer sex. The Durex condoms will still be offered also.
The addition of the more expensive Trojan condoms is the latest move in an effort by officials to “flood city streets with latex to battle HIV/AIDS,” according to The Washington Post report. The District, where studies show that 3% of residents have HIV, recently received a grant to offer free female condoms. In what is thought to be a first for a local government, the city is also mailing up to 10 free condoms at a time to residents who request them online. Free condoms are also available at more than 100 locations, including barbershops, liquor stores and youth centers.
The number of free condoms that the District dispenses has been steadily increasing. The health department distributed 3.2 million last year, including about 15,000 in schools. The city, which has 600,000 residents, is on pace to hand out more than 4 million condoms this year, having distributed about 2.5 million so far. The program cost about $165,000 last year. The Durex condoms cost the city 5.7 cents each, but the Trojans will cost six to nine cents each, depending on size.
“We want to support the regularization of condom use citywide," said Shannon L. Hader, director of the city's HIV/AIDS administration. "We are promoting this idea that using condoms is healthy… to try to destigmatize condom use, not only for kids, but for grown-ups.”
Congressmen Support Same-Sex Families in Immigration Reform
In an e-mail from Equality Illinois, it was reported that Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (IL-4), Congressman Mike Quigley (IL-5), and Congressman Jared Polis (CO-2) joined leaders from the LGBT community in announcing their commitment to the inclusion of same-sex couples and their families in comprehensive immigration reform efforts in Congress this year.
Congressman Gutierrez pointed out that the bedrock principle of America's immigration laws is family unification and same-sex partners in committed relationships and their families must be allowed to stay together. He committed to making a bi-national same-sex couple provision a “nonnegotiable component of any immigration reform bill that moves forward.”
Gutierrez' comprehensive bill, co-sponsored by 97 other members, does not currently include a specific provision extending legal immigration benefits to bi-national same-sex couples and their families. However, the attending members of Congress committed to inclusion of a specific provision that would allow an American citizen in a committed same-sex bi-national relationship to petition for an immigrant visa for her or his permanent partner in the same manner as an opposite-sex couple can.
“We applaud U.S. Representatives Gutierrez, Quigley, and Polis for stepping up to ensure that 40,000 binational same-sex couples would not to have live in fear of being torn apart by discriminatory laws,” Equality Illinois said in their e-mail.
Website Offers Comprehensive Info on All STD/STIs
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