AEGiS-BAYW: Feds cut Boston AIDS funding

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

Feds cut Boston AIDS funding

Bay Windows - March 16, 2006
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com

For the second year in a row, the federal government cut the funding for HIV/AIDS programs that Boston receives under Title I of the Ryan White Care Act. This year's cut of $312,000 will mean reduced resources for medications, case management and substance abuse and treatment services, among other areas. Those programs were already hurting after last year's cut of $1.2 million.

John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), which oversees the Title I funding, said it is unlikely that there will be any way to replace the lost federal funding for this year, particularly given the cuts to HIV/AIDS funding at the state level as well. Boston's Title I funding, which is distributed to more than 126 programs throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire, is determined both based on a federal funding formula and on the city's proposal outlining its need. The formula is based on the number of AIDS cases in each city, and in some ways Boston has been a victim of its own success, with the city and the state identify many cases early enough to reduce the number of full-blown AIDS cases, Auerbach explained. He also said the Bush administration has worked to redistribute HIV/AIDS funding to other parts of the country, particularly in the South.

"I view it as more related to a policy of the Bush administration to shift AIDS funding out of the urban areas where the largest number of AIDS cases were concentrated in the early years of the epidemic and frankly are still concentrated and to redistribute the funding to some areas where there has been a lack of state funding to address the epidemic," said Auerbach, who said that unlike Massachusetts some other states have provided little funding for HIV/AIDS programs.

This latest cut comes as Congress considers reauthorizing Ryan White, and Congress is expected to change the funding formula to include incidence of HIV, which could cost Massachusetts as much as $10 million in HIV/AIDS funding because the CDC does not currently accept Massachusetts' HIV data (see 'Will Bay State Switch To Names Reporting Of HIV Cases?' Feb. 9).

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