Georgia's AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which has received roughly $11.3 million in state funds annually since 2003, is scheduled to receive no funding increase for fiscal 2006. Previous flat funding led the state Department of Human Resources to "juggle" departmental revenues just to keep its more than 3,700 ADAP patients off a waiting list, said John Rogers, HIV care manager for DHR.

There are currently 33 people on the state ADAP's waiting list for Fuzeon. The new HIV drug, which costs $15,000 per patient per year, was added to ADAP's formulary in August; however, DHR policy allows it to be purchased for only six patients at a time. A Fuzeon waiting list for Georgia's ADAP was almost immediately created.

The advocacy group AIDS Survival Project lobbied the General Assembly to include $500,000 in the 2005 supplemental budget to allow all patients waiting for Fuzeon to receive the treatment. However, neither the Senate nor the House supplemental budgets included additional Fuzeon funding.

On Feb. 8, the House supplemental budget included a $5 million cut to DHR; on Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a supplemental budget that reduced the proposed cut to $1.25 million. Discrepancies between the proposed supplemental budgets will be worked out in a Senate-House conference, said Sylvia Caley, an ASP lobbyist. Supplemental funds for 2005 would be available from the date Gov. Sonny Perdue signs the budget until June 30.

The federal government funds two-thirds of the states ADAP, and flat state funding is reflective of flat federal funding, said Rogers. If there are no additional state funds for ADAP patients waiting for Fuzeon treatment in the final supplemental budget, ASP plans to make the issue its "chief objective" for fiscal 2006, said Jeff Graham, the group's executive director. Georgia should pay at least $13 million into ADAP, which saw a 9 percent enrollment increase last year, Graham said.

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