(cross-posted on Amplify)
Michael Jones at Change.org is right to call this a "catastrophic public health situation." Today, in Florida, 2,700 HIV-positive residents remain on government waiting lists for life-saving medication.
State and federal officials have described this medical limbo as a kind of new normal, as politicians across the country struggle to deal with record budget shortfalls. But that explanation is ultimately a cold political cop-out — at least when we're talking about providing vital treatment to HIV/AIDS patients.
It's good to see that Senator Bill Nelson of Florida is paying attention. On January 21, 2011, he sent a letter [PDF download] to President Obama and Florida Governor Rick Scott explaining the dire situation with the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP):
"Recently, state officials announced that their ADAP program faces a significant budget shortfall, and may be unable to provide any medication from the beginning of February until a new round of Federal funding from the Ryan White Act becomes available on April 1...Such a lapse in treatment can lead to a number of life-threatening conditions for the thousands of HIV/AIDS patients in Florida who rely on ADAP medication to maintain their quality of life."
Senator Nelson's words are clear enough, but admittedly he's trying to maintain a sense of communicative decorum when he writes of "life-threatening conditions" and threats to HIV/AIDS patients' "quality of life." If you unpack these statements, you realize that no words can really describe the terribleness of this situation. And you realize that this shortfall is human-made and therefore morally indefensible: public officials across the U.S. have opted to put the lives of countless ADAP enrollees at grave risk.
In the cruel harsh calculus of state and federal budget-making and budgeting (where more often than not representatives find the political space to fund their own unnecessary pet projects), our public officials continue to send and carry out the message that the lives of HIV/AIDS patients simply aren't a top priority.
No one is denying the difficulties of this economic climate. And no one is saying that, outside of providing additional resources to ADAP programs, there isn't room to administer ADAP more efficiently. But neither of these considerations is an excuse for failing to provide adequate funding and allowing the national ADAP crisis to continue.
Do the math again, and I assure you that the money is there. The question, then, is squarely about political will — will President Obama, Governor Scott, and others do the right thing?