Duke law professors and students will use a recently-received grant to address issues facing HIV and AIDS patients in North Carolina.
The AIDS Legal Project, organized through the School of Law, will use a $58,000 grant from AIDS United to create policy recommendations and educational resources as well as conduct research with the aim of increasing access to care for infected North Carolina residents.
“Our program and this new initiative fight a two-front battle,” said Carolyn McAllaster, founder and director of the AIDS Legal Project and a clinical professor of law. “We educate the future doctors and lawyers of America about the impetus behind this esoteric disease, and we help those who already face this battle survive it.”
To help those already affected, the project hopes to ensure better transportation to treatment centers, make sure treatment programs retain government funding and reduce the stigma about the disease throughout the community, McAllaster said.
Through the AIDS Legal Project, Duke law students have been offering free legal assistance to low-income, HIV-infected clients on and off campus since 1996.
Some HIV and AIDS patients travel across county lines to get treatment in order to keep their status private from neighbors, a habit some give up because of high expenses, McAllaster said. Medicaid does not currently fund transportation, she added, so the project will aim to find solutions for patients who need funds to travel for treatment.
To ensure continued funding for HIV and AIDS patients, the project hopes to work with legislatures to ensure equal rights for patients of the disease as well as continue state subsidized treatment for those who cannot afford it, McAllaster said. The AIDS Drug Assistance Program, for example, provides critical drugs to low-income HIV patients but faces a budget shortfall that has prompted political debate over the program.
“There are people such as [State Representative] Larry Brown who hope to cut state funding to this program,” she said. “We are for the first time in 100 years working with a Republican controlled legislature, but [Congressional] Senator [Richard] Burr, also a Republican, is a strong supporter of ADAP, so we have hope that we can work with them in making policy recommendation when the health care reform is carried out.”
North Carolina is one of 11 states with waiting lists for HIV and AIDS treatment, according to the North Carolina AIDS Action Network website. Last year, ADAP was closed to new enrollees due to a lack of funding, resulting in the longest waiting list in the country, McAllaster added.
“ADAP is one of the programs that is extremely important in the fight against AIDS in that it offers life-saving medication,” said Ian Palmquist, executive director of Equality North Carolina, an organization which aims to ensure legal and judicial equality for HIV and AIDS patients. “If we cut funding to it then people will go without treatment and die. It would also run the risk of creating vaccine immune virus strands, which is dangerous because the number of vaccines out there is already limited.”
Education about the disease and confidentiality laws is vital to reduce discrimination, McAllaster noted. One of AIDS Legal Project’s new policy’s steps will be to lead legal education seminars in North Carolina.
Negative connotations and prejudice has been widely regarded as the single greatest challenge facing HIV and AIDS patients, Palmquist said. He attributed a large part of this to “careless breaches” in confidentiality.
“There was a case when a woman, acting as a character witness for her son, revealed to their lawyer her HIV positive status,” McAllaster added. “When put on the stand, the lawyer announced it to the whole court with the intention of getting sympathy.”
McAllaster said these mistakes are not made maliciously, but the repercussions are potentially dangerous for the patient.
“Yes, it has gotten easier for people to be honest about their status, but it is still a risky leap of faith to take,” said Sherryl Broverman, associate professor of the practice of biology who has spent time studying the disease in North Carolina and Kenya. “People have gotten fired from jobs, rejected from their families, suffered depression and kicked out of their apartments when society finds out the truth.”
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