AIDS drugmakers' charity programs fail patients, yet provide millions in tax breaks to industry, AHF accuses, but applauds Boehringer

The USA-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is, in its own words, “blowing the whistle” on a little known, ethically questionable, but apparently legally-permissible tax break employed by major AIDS drug companies. But the organization has also applauded the action of independent German drug major Boehringer Ingelheim for being one of the first AIDS drug producers to voluntarily increase its rebates for the network of hard-hit AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP).

Under the guise of “charity” dispensed via their drug donation “patient assistance programs” (PAPs), the pharmaceutical companies perpetrate what AHF officials are calling “PAP Scams” - running cumbersome, largely ineffectual drug giveaway programs that make it extremely difficult for patients in need to enroll and get medications, while at the same time, the companies take millions in tax breaks via enormous deductions for the drugs they do give away.

Nearly all of major AIDS drug companies have some form of PAP to provide medications to patients in need who for whatever reason - lack of insurance coverage, lack of money to directly pay for medications, or ineligibility for government or other care programs - cannot access them. For HIV/AIDS patients, AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) - a network of federal and state-funded, state-run assistance programs that help provide lifesaving AIDS drugs to low-income Americans - offers one lifeline to those in need.