Appropriations

FDA Approves Twice-Yearly HIV Prevention Drug

Today marks a monumental advance in HIV prevention. Congratulations to the many researchers who spent nineteen years to get to today’s approval, backed up by the long-term investment needed to get the drug to market. Long-acting PrEP is now not only effective for up to six months but also improves adherence and will reduce HIV infections—if people are aware of it and payers, including private insurers, cover it without cost-sharing as a preventive service.

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Sens. Cassidy & Van Hollen introduce historic bill to eliminate hepatitis C

We deeply thank Chairman Cassidy and Senator Van Hollen for their bipartisan leadership and dedication to eliminating hepatitis C. It has been unacceptable that people with hepatitis C have had to overcome so many discriminatory barriers instituted by state Medicaid programs and insurers to access hepatitis C curative drugs over the past twelve years since the first drug was approved. Additionally, our government has failed to invest in the public health infrastructure needed to increase awareness, testing, and linkage to care and the curative drugs. This bill, if enacted, will finally provide the necessary resources to ensure that more people are diagnosed and linked to no-cost treatment so that we can eventually eliminate hepatitis C.

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Massive Budget Cuts Proposed in “Skinny Budget”

In response to the release of the “skinny budget” released by the White House today, Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, issued the following statement: “While there are still many unknowns, what we do know is the budget the Trump administration proposed today contains massive cuts that will damage the future health of our country. On the positive side, it appears that most existing HIV care and treatment programs, including most components of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and its part of the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative, would remain intact. If true, this marks a reversal from the leaked draft budget which eliminated the EHE initiative. However, the budget completely ignores HIV prevention at CDC, which includes surveillance, testing, PrEP programs, and linkage to care. It is not known if it is zeroed out, cut, or moved to another part of HHS, as has previously been reported. The Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative is also not on the list of programs being eliminated, but since it is not a detailed budget this is not fully known. The cuts to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program would impact critical services such as dental reimbursements, training, and community-driven implementation research.”

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President Trump Must Restore “Ending the HIV Epidemic” funding & other domestic HIV programs

“We hope this is one of those instances of ‘mistakes will be made’ and urge President Trump to include funding in his budget to maintain our nation’s HIV response to keep Americans healthy. During his first term, President Trump realized that although we have the tools to end HIV through innovative treatment and prevention medications, the results remained relatively stagnant and by efficiently investing resources in the communities with the highest number of infections, over time we can end HIV. The initiative, which builds upon the existing CDC prevention and Ryan White HIV/AIDS treatment programs, has demonstrated success with a 21-percent reduction in HIV incidence in those jurisdictions that received enhanced funding compared to a 6-percent drop in those that did not. This resulted in 9,500 fewer infections, which saved $5.1 billion in lifetime medical costs.

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