Funding Cut to North Carolina ADAP Should Not Affect Patients, Officials Say

"A $3 million cut to the [North Carolina AIDS Drug Assistance Program] in the 2009-2010 budget of the state Department of Public Health means that the usual six-month supply of AIDS drugs will be cut," and a "month's worth of drugs will remain stockpiled instead," the Greensboro News & Record reports. "The cut shouldn't affect patients who need the drugs, said Addison Ore, director of the Triad Health Project, which advocates for the roughly 1,600 people with HIV/AIDS in the county. 'The HIV/AIDS drug assistance program is really solid,' Ore said." Jeffrey Engle, the state health director, said the stockpiling six months of drugs was adopted when there were fewer available AIDS drugs on the market. "But more manufacturers now make drugs for AIDS patients, Engle said, than when state health workers first strived for a six-month supply," according to the article (Witt, 9/2).

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