AEGiS-PRn: Pharma Responsible for AIDS Patient Death in South Carolina, Says AHF: As Fourth Patient on South Carolina ADAP Waiting List Dies, AIDS Healthcare Foundation Calls on Drug Industry to Take Action to Prevent Future Deaths

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Pharma Responsible for AIDS Patient Death in South Carolina, Says AHF: As Fourth Patient on South Carolina ADAP Waiting List Dies, AIDS Healthcare Foundation Calls on Drug Industry to Take Action to Prevent Future Deaths

PRNewswire - December 11, 2006

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 11 /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 for the pharmaceutical industry to take some responsibility for the death of a fourth patient in South Carolina who was on the waiting list to receive lifesaving AIDS medications through the state's AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). State ADAPs, funded by the federal Ryan White CARE Act, are the primary source of HIV/AIDS medications for uninsured and underinsured Americans. In November of this year it was reported that three patients on South Carolina's ADAP waiting list had died. On the heels of this fourth death, AHF called for the pharmaceutical industry to do more to ensure that AIDS patients in need have access to treatment.

"We are saddened to learn of another death of a patient on South Carolina's ADAP waiting list. It is simply unacceptable for someone in this country to die because of lack of access to medications," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Why wasn't this patient -- 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 make by selling medications to government programs -- by far the largest purchasers of drugs in this country -- it is incumbent upon these companies to cover low-income AIDS patients that are not able to access these medications due to state and federal funding gaps."

As reported by WIS, Channel 10 in South Carolina in "Another rally planned after AIDS patient dies waiting for meds" (December 10, 2006): "AIDS activists are trying to get the governor's attention now that a fourth person on a waiting list to get AIDS medication in our state has died. Sunday, a group gathered outside the governor's mansion chanting 'end the waiting list.' Funding cuts led to the list, which started in June. Since then, four people on the waiting list have died. Now activists want the governor to step in ... The activists say they need emergency funding to end the waiting list ... There are currently 324 South Carolinians on the waiting list for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program."

SOURCE AIDS Healthcare Foundation

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