The Lansing Area Aids Network serves 225 clients with HIV or the AIDS virus - and that number has grown from the 160 clients it had two years ago.
However, funding for AIDS and HIV prevention and care has not risen at the same rate.
“We are serving more clients than we have money,” said Tim Monahan, co-chair for the Greater Lansing Consortium.
Monahan said the network receives two funding streams - The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CARE provides money from the federal government for HIV-related health and supportive services and CDC is for prevention.
Brenda Stoneburner, executive director for the Lansing Area Aids Network, 4660 S. Hagadorn Road, said the network has received a slight increase in both of its funding sources.
“Additional funding would always be nice, especially because we are serving more clients,” she said. “More people are living with HIV than ever before.”
The network uses the funds for clients to help pay their rent, keep the network’s food pantry full and for expensive prescription drugs.
Monahan, who takes the drugs himself, said they can be quite costly and the virus often develops a resistance to them.
“We are grateful for the drugs but they are very toxic,” he said.
Deb Szwejda, manager of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Intervention at the Michigan Department of Community Health, 320 S. Walnut St. in Lansing, said the prices of medications can’t be helped.
“The pharmaceuticals have significant resource and development costs,” she said. “Many pharmaceutical companies, however, have agreed to cut costs for third-world countries.”
Szwejda said there is a concern for resistance for the medicines because different medications affect different clients in different ways.
“Even though these drugs are lifesavers, they have devastating side effects - they are not easy drugs to take,” she said.
The side effects include nausea, anemia and heart disease, Szwejda said.
She added that some patients are unable to take the proper doses because they can’t stomach the medications, making it easier for the virus to become immune faster.
Other services the network offers also may be in danger.
While Stoneburner said the CDC increased their funding slightly, Monahan said the money for prevention has gone down.
He said the state didn’t receive enough proposals for funding so only $2 million was allocated for the entire state.
“Obviously HIV prevention should be expanded, but it costs money,” he said.
Monahan said the network still does an awful lot of work, but it has only two people and one of them is part time.
“I think they are doing as good a job as they can with what limited resources they have,” he said.
Kaye McDuffie, prevention worker for the Lansing Area Aids Network, said the organization offers several things for the public.
“We provide HIV testing, counseling here and in other cities,” she said.
The network also provides presentations at schools and substance abuse centers, as well as training for those who may be high-risk for contracting the virus.
Stoneburner said if they could get more funding for prevention she would like to use it with high-risk groups.
“Ideally, I’d like to train a peer to work with that group to look at the risk behaviors as well as attitudes,” she said.
She also said she liked another idea for prevention used by similar organizations.
“For every person that they have test positive, they receive an incentive for everyone who brings in their friends and gets tested,” Stoneburner said.
Shaun Byron can be reached at byronsha@msu.edu.
