Arkansas ADAP faces more cuts

After Arkansas's AIDS Drug Assistance Program capped enrollment in April, program administrators at the state health department started a waiting list. In late summer they began preparing to cut the number of medications offered through the ADAP. Jerry Jones, an infectious diseases service unit leader at the department, said Arkansas's ADAP is introducing a tiered system to prioritize which drugs can be cut first. While no effective date has been set for the cuts, they seem imminent because estimates of how much money the program needs are running as high as $2 million. The medications set to be cut first are important but are products that are available through drugmaker assistance programs or that patients can do without for a while, said Nate Smith, the department's medical director for infectious diseases. He said the department plans for the cuts to be temporary. ADAP was established nationally in 1996. The Arkansas program receives $3.1 million annually from the federal government, but its last state money was a two-year appropriation in 2001, said Eric Camp, chair of the Arkansas ADAP working group and an ADAP client. (AP)