Florida: Lawmakers budget no money next year for Tamiflu stockpiles

[hawkeye]

Lawmakers budget no money next year for Tamiflu stockpiles

By Stacey Singer

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, April 27, 2007

Lawmakers finalizing next year's state budget have included no money to buy stockpiles of the drug Tamiflu, an antiviral being used globally to treat bird flu, a coalition of drugmakers, emergency workers and physicians warned Friday.

The Florida Department of Health and Gov. Charlie Crist have recommended that $37 million be spent to stockpile 1.78 million doses of the drug. The U.S. government would match 25 percent of that expense.

But legislative leaders from both the House and Senate have so-far balked at the expense, noting that the drug expires after five years and that current bird flu strains are lethal but not highly contagious.

A group calling itself the Coalition to Prepare Florida Now said Florida will be the only state opting not to participate in the federal Pandemic Influenza Antiviral Drug Subsidy Program if it fails to pay for the stockpile.


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[Thornton]

Re: Florida: Lawmakers budget no money next year for Tamiflu stockpiles

Doctors plead with Fla. lawmakers to fund flu drug stockpiling
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070427/APN/704271240

Article published Apr 27, 2007
Apr 27, 2007

The Associated Press
Infectious disease doctors on Friday made a last-minute plea for Florida lawmakers to change their mind and put some money into a program for stockpiling antiviral drugs to be used in case of a flu pandemic.

The federal government is offering a discount on the antivirals for states that participate in a stockpiling program, and Florida may be the only state that doesn't.

"The catch phrase that it's not a question of whether there'll be a pandemic but when is really the truth," said Larry Bush, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Miami, adding that to not stockpile antivirals is "ridiculous."

Gov. Charlie Crist had asked lawmakers to spend more than $35 million on it, but House and Senate health care budget writers didn't include any money in the budget for the drugs. Money could be shifted into the program as House and Senate leaders work out the few remaining details of the budget, but it's very unlikely it would be anywhere close to what Crist sought.

Rep. Aaron Bean, the House's top health care budget writer, said his chamber had initially wanted to spend about $8 million, but after negotiations with the Senate the money was moved to other projects. Bean said he was concerned about buying a large stockpile that might expire before a pandemic. The drug has a shelf life of five years.

Bean, R-Fernandina, said it would be better to buy a little bit each year so the stockpile would have a rolling expiration date.

Bean also noted that outside of the federal matching program, the federal government will give the state 2 million courses of the drug anyway.

The Senate's top health budget writer, Sen. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, said it was simply a tight budget year.

"Maybe we can pray for a better economy next year," he said.
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