Massachusetts: Making the Case; AIDS Activists Lobby Legislature for Increased Funding

On March 28, about 350 AIDS activists lobbied legislators at the Massachusetts State House to restore at least some $20 million in HIV/AIDS program funding that has been cut since 2002. The annual event was sponsored by Project ABLE, a statewide coalition of AIDS service organizations.

In a year in which the state's Ryan White CARE Act funds were cut again, Project ABLE specifically requested $5 million for the state's HIV Drug Assistance Program (HDAP), which helps provide AIDS drugs to low-income people who cannot afford them. The coalition also lobbied for $8.7 million in order to keep MassHealth eligibility at 200 percent of the federal poverty level. So far, the governor has proposed only $6.9 million for the program.

HIV/AIDS prevention education was one of the first items hit by the cuts, leading to an increase in STD and HIV infections among college-age persons, said Lisa Siciliano, the project's co-chairperson.

HIV/AIDS funding cuts can disrupt patients' ability to adhere to their medication, which can fuel the creation of drug-resistant virus, said project Co-chairperson Dr. Stephen Boswell, who is also the executive director of Fenway Community Health. "We certainly started seeing this early on, but it's really picked up over the last few years, exactly in association with the cutbacks that have occurred in state funding," said Boswell.

Funding cuts can be penny-wise and pound-foolish, said Paul Cote, interim commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Health. If HDAP funding is cut, people without AIDS medication can get sick and place a greater financial burden on the state, he noted.

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