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PATIENT SERVICES
INDIVIDUAL HIV/AIDS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
AAB manages two major Patient Emergency Assistance Funds which provide direct, and immediate financial assistance to people with HIV/AIDS who need help. Money is provided for housing and utilities, medical care, medicine, or other non-reimbursable medical services.
Patients may apply to AAB personally or by referral. The application process is simple and flexible, designed to be tailored to individual needs and circumstances. Applications are normally acted on and the funds provided within days of submission!
HIV/AIDS SERVICES ORGANIZATIONS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
This is the oldest AAB financial assistance program. It provides funding for the emergency assistance to patients at hospitals and community based organizations serving the Baltimore HIV/AIDS community. AAB has given over $75,000 to Johns Hopkins Hospital HIV/AIDS Patient Emergency Fund (B. Frank Polk Fund). AAB has supported emergency assistance funds at the University of Maryland Hospital. We have provided over $22,000 to Pediatric and Adolescent HIV/AIDS patient service programs in the Baltimore Metropolitan area.
AAB has also provided seed money and emergency assistance to organizations such as Chase Brexton
Health Services, Inc., Moveable Feast, Sisters Together and Reaching,
and AIDS Interfaith Residential Services.
HELPLINE 410-837-AIDS
AAB provides its own Peer Counseling Program for people at all stages of HIV infection. This assistance is particularly useful for people who have recently tested positive for HIV or are newly diagnosed with AIDS and who need basic information on available services and direction on how to tackle the maze of government entitlement programs. Sometimes, the only support necessary is a friendly ear or some guidance. For those times, peer counseling is a phone call away. For a referral on virtually any HIV-related problem, referral or concern, the AAB Helpline is available - Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm.
DROP-IN CENTER AND AIDS LIBRARY
The AAB office on Eager Street in the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore City doubles as a convenient “Drop-In Center” for anyone interested in learning more about AAB’s programs and services, or about HIV research and treatment.
AAB maintains resource information on new treatment and research for those interested in taking a proactive role in their health care. The latest available nutritional information is also available.
AAB PUBLICATIONS
AAB has a unique publications program designed to provide essential information to People with HIV/AIDS, their families, care providers, social workers, and advocates.
The first and oldest of AAB’s publications is the AIDS Resource Guide, Baltimore - now in its ninth edition. This is the only complete and comprehensive guide to the services vital to every person affected by HIV/AIDS in Maryland. It lists virtually every HIV information resource, and service provider, as well as essential city and state HIV/AIDS metropolitan area contact information.
Our Guide includes a primer to help people to understand their laboratory results, and the opportunistic infections that accompany AIDS. A glossary of terms common to HIV-related disease is also provided.
AAB also publishes the AIDS Action Bulletin, our newsletter, which reports on the organization’s activities as well as the latest treatment and research information. The Bulletin focuses on treatment issues; and, is designed to help people with HIV/AIDS understand the latest developments in research and evolving treatment strategies. The Bulletin helps the affected community understand how research is conducted as well as the latest advancements in clinical care.
The Bulletin also reports on major scientific conferences. Coverage is broad and complete, delivered by AAB’s own community correspondents. Complex medical issues are covered by community experts in the field and discussed in laymen’s terms. The politics affecting AIDS-related research and treatment is also covered from a unique community perspective.
We have also recently redesigned our website in an effort to be more user friendly. We provide a compilation of articles from the best community treatment writers across the country on topics such as HIV antivirals, AIDS related cancers, medication and neurological complications, women and HIV, as well as recent issues of the AAB Bulletin.
HIV COMMUNITY FORUMS
AAB conducts free community forums for people with HIV/AIDS, their caregivers and advocates in an effort to disseminate much needed treatment information from scientific conferences and meetings. Beginning in 2006, these forums will be conducted throughout the community in a continuing effort to outreach to all communities affected by HIV.
CLINICAL RESEARCH ADVOCACY PROGRAM
Since its founding in 1986, AAB has been deeply involved in the conduct of clinical research in HIV. The ultimate answers to HIV disease will only be found through research. AAB works to make AIDS research more compassionate, safe, relevant to clinical practice, and more broadly inclusive of all people with HIV disease.
AAB’s program has two goals:
The first is to expedite ethical drug development and to make new drugs available to the people that need them the most as quickly and safely as possible. The second is to help educate the affected community in the latest medical information in an effort to empower people with HIV/AIDS to discuss their medical care with their health providers.
To achieve our goals, AAB works with a variety of institutions, governmental agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry. AAB works with the Maryland State AIDS Administration, the Baltimore City Health Department, the FDA, the NIH, and a variety of national research advocacy groups. AAB Chair, Lynda Dee, has been a member of the NIH’s Office of AIDS Research Clinical Trials Review Panel and the NIH’s AIDS Clinical Trial Group Executive Committee and Community Constituency Group.
Ms. Dee has also been a member of the Executive Committee of the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, which brings together experts in cutting edge areas of HIV research. Ms. Dee was a member of the Community Liaison Sub-Committee for the 5th through the 9th Conferences on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. She is a current Board member of New York’s Treatment Action Group, which is a prominent international AIDS treatment advocacy organization. She was one of the first Co-Chairs of the Drug Development Committee of the AIDS Treatment Activist Coalition, a new national activist organization. Ms. Dee continues to exert pressure on government and industry to study real life strategies for the use of potent HIV drugs and their long-term side effects. She continues to advocate with drug companies to ensure the safe, expedited and ethical development of new HIV drugs.
Ms. Dee also serves on the Maryland AIDS Drug Assistance Program Advisory Board. Dr. Merle McCann, another AAB Board member, serves on other Prevention and Legislative Maryland State AIDS Administration Advisory Panels.
TREATMENT SERVICES ADVOCACY PROGRAM
Our Chair, Lynda Dee, uses her HIV research knowledge and national network to assist AAB in advocating for vital treatment services for people with HIV/AIDS locally. For example, the federal government has recently changed the availability of Medicaid funds for the disabled. This means that many people with AIDS receiving their HIV drugs via Medicaid may have to pay thousands of dollars for their life-saving prescription medications. AAB is advocating for Maryland’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (MADAP) to cover the costs that the federal government will no longer reimburse.
These battles are long and tedious and require vigilance and organization. To that end, AAB has been instrumental in resurrecting the Maryland AIDS Legislative Committee (ALC) that includes most local AIDS service providers. Together we can do what we cannot do alone to move our local government to make the life-saving medications we have worked so hard to bring to market accessible to people with HIV/AIDS.
AAB also works with the National Fair Pricing Coalition and the National Association of State AIDS Directors Emergency AIDS Drug Assistance Task Force to pressure the pharmaceutical industry to price drugs more reasonably and not to continually raise the price of HIV drugs. This is one of our most difficult endeavors. But we have been able to force “Big Pharma” to price AIDS Drug Assistance Program drugs lower than usual market prices. As you can well imagine, this battle requires unrelenting community pressure.
INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT
To The Board of Directors, AIDS Action Baltimore, Inc.
We have audited the accompanying statement of financial position of
AIDS Action Baltimore, Inc. (a nonprofit organization) as of
December 31, 2006 and 2005, and the related statements of
activities, functional expenses and cash flows for the years then
ended. These financial statements are the responsibility of the
organization’s management. Our responsibility is to express an
opinion on these financial statements based on our audits.
We conducted our audit in accordance with auditing standards
generally accepted in the United States of America. Those standards
require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable
assurance about whether the financial statements are free of
material misstatement. An audit includes examining, on a test basis,
evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial
statements. An audit also includes assessing the accounting
principles used and significant estimates made by management, as
well as evaluating the overall financial statement presentation. We
believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.
In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present
fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of AIDS
Action Baltimore, Inc. as of December 31, 2004 and 2003, and the
changes in its net assets and its cash flows for the years then
ended in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in
the United States of America.
Friedman and Associates, P.A.
Certified Public Accountants
Baltimore, Maryland June 11, 2007
The following financial information is excerpted from the Auditor’s
Report. A complete copy of the Auditor’s Report and Accompanying
Notes, and/or current financial statement is available upon request
by contacting AIDS Action Baltimore, Inc. at 10 East Eager Street,
Baltimore, MD 21202 or 410-837-2437. Documents and information
submitted to the State of Maryland under the Maryland Charitable
Solicitations Act are available from the Office of the Secretary of
State, State House, Annapolis, MD 21401 for the cost of copying and
postage.
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