![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/560445a6908da927dee18ae901260ef9.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nThe Florida Department of Health limited access to life-saving drugs for people with HIV without consulting its hand-picked advisory committee charged with maintaining and updating the list of available drugs for the state\u2019s AIDS Drug Assistance Program.<\/p>\n
Some members of the HIV Section Medication Formulary Workgroup aren\u2019t sure whether the panel still even exists.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr. Jonathan Appelbaum (Photo: Capital Medical Society)<\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding is, it\u2019s been disbanded,\u201d Dr. Jonathan Appelbaum, a member of the panel, told Leon County Circuit Judge Jonathan Sjostrom during a recent hearing.<\/p>\n
Appelbaum made those comments while testifying in the AIDS Healthcare Foundation\u2019s unsuccessful efforts<\/a> last month to block the DeSantis administration from unilaterally changing the drug program without public input or adopting formal rules.<\/p>\n Appelbaum isn\u2019t the only panel member to think that. When asked whether the drug workgroup still exists, member Dan Wall said, \u201cProbably not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I answer it that way because there\u2019s been no formal communication from the state with anybody about anything,\u201d said Wall, assistant director of Miami-Dade County\u2019s Ryan White Program.<\/p>\n Dr. Andrea Sciberras, statewide medical director for the DOH Division of Disease Control and Health Protection, chaired the workgroup. But her position was, she said, abruptly eliminated in January due to budget constraints.<\/p>\n She declined further comment for the record.<\/p>\n DOH Communications Director Brian Wright said the panel remains intact. He told the Phoenix in an email that the workgroup wasn\u2019t consulted about the formulary changes because of tight time constraints.<\/p>\n \u201cDue to quick turnaround after identifying a projected $120 million shortfall that threatened the program\u2019s long-term sustainability, the Florida Department of Health quickly implemented program changes to responsibly manage program resources while maintaining access to critical medications,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The fate of the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (often called ADAP) \u2014 and the way the DeSantis administration has handled it \u2014 has created a flurry of activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n To help shore up the purported deficit, the DeSantis administration announced in January it was making several changes effective March 1. One of the biggest was to reduce the amount someone could earn and qualify for the program from $62,600 annually to $20,748.<\/p>\n The state stopped providing insurance premium assistance to program clients who held Affordable Care Act (or \u201cObamacare\u201d) policies. And the DeSantis administration removed Biktarvy from the ADAP formulary insured patients can access and limited access to Descovy. Both drugs are antiretrovirus medications.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amid outcry from HIV patients, legal challenges<\/a>, and concern from a bipartisan group of lawmakers, the Legislature agreed to appropriate $31 million to ADAP<\/a> and directed the DOH through June 30 to to return income eligibility to the higher level.<\/p>\n The funding was in HB 697<\/a>, which DeSantis has signed into law<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, HB 697 did not require the DOH to put Biktarvy back on the formulary or to increase access to Descovy.\u00a0 And it places in law the ban on insurance premium assistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Although the DOH\u2019s Wright said the drug workgroup wasn\u2019t consulted due to time constraints, others, including Applebaum and Wall, say it was because members of the panel might not have approved removing and restricting the drugs.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX<\/a><\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the only time there have been questions about how the DOH has handled decisions related to ADAP.<\/p>\n The Tampa Bay Times previously reported that the department<\/a> stopped participating in Florida Comprehensive Planning Network<\/a> on HIV meetings and that the DOH forced out three key employees and a contractor in the HIV\/AIDS section.<\/p>\n Other choices<\/p>\n Proposed changes to the formulary are supposed to be run through the HIV formulary work group.<\/p>\n The work group is a multi-disciplinary panel whose members have personal or professional knowledge of HIV, familiarity with clinical treatment, direct experience with clients, and a functional knowledge of Ryan White HIV programs.<\/p>\n Work group members must apply for the position and are vetted.<\/p>\n To take people who are already on medication, take them off that, in my mind, that’s almost like a death sentence. And, as a physician, I ethically oppose that.<\/p>\n \u2013 Dr. Jonathan Applebaum<\/p>\n The DOH revised the work group\u2019s charter in 2025. According to that document, the workgroup\u2019s decisions are \u201cpurely recommendatory\u201d and subject to final approval by the HIV\/AIDS Section administrator.<\/p>\n The new charter makes clear that drugs may be added or removed from the formularies even without review or recommendations by the work group and that the \u201cultimate decision to modify the formularies will be at the discretion of the Department of Health.\u201d<\/p>\n The panel\u2019s last meeting was on Nov. 14.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Sherman via Nova Southeastern University<\/p>\n The proposed changes to the formulary were never broached with the work group.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a committee of experts and it\u2019s surprising that clinical decisions were made without consulting the panel of experts,\u201d work group member Elizabeth Sherman said.<\/p>\n Sherman, an HIV clinical pharmacy specialist for Memorial Healthcare System, told the Phoenix there was a \u201cgeneral sense\u201d among members in late 2025 that \u201ctimes were tough, drug prices were up, and we may have to revisit the formulary.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn a quick discussion in one of our meetings, we had floated the idea that maybe we could look at the more expensive primary care medicines, like, for example, the GLP1s, the Wegovy\u2019s, and the Ozempics \u2014 you know, some of the more expensive medications \u2014 if we needed to shrink down our ADAP formulary. The idea of shrinking the anti-retrovirals on the formulary was never floated within our group.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Sherman didn\u2019t go so far as to say she wouldn\u2019t have supported removing Biktarvy or Descovy from the formulary, Appelbaum did.<\/p>\n As witness for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Appelbaum explained in court how the HIV virus can mutate when a patient stops taking antiretroviral medications, such as Biktarvy.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the virus mutates, it can \u201covercome the medication,\u201d meaning become resistant to the drug, Appelbaum said.<\/p>\n When that occurs, the patient can no longer use the antiretroviral to control HIV.<\/p>\n Biktarvy is a single-tablet medication taken once a day. Appelbaum testified that the pill contains three HIV drugs, and said it\u2019s the most commonly prescribed oral antiretroviral across the country, including in Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cTo take people who are already on medication, take them off that, in my mind, that\u2019s almost like a death sentence,\u201d Appelbaum said. \u201cAnd, as a physician, I ethically oppose that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Department of Health limited access to life-saving drugs for people with HIV without consulting its hand-picked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[62402,65240,62403,100917,100916,100915,87624,2683,13116,28,1369,30,29,88413,100918],"class_list":{"0":"post-222983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-adap","9":"tag-aids-drug-assistance-program","10":"tag-aids-healthcare-foundation","11":"tag-appelbaum","12":"tag-big-bend-cares","13":"tag-brian-wright","14":"tag-dan-wall","15":"tag-desantis","16":"tag-doh","17":"tag-florida","18":"tag-florida-department-of-health","19":"tag-florida-headlines","20":"tag-florida-news","21":"tag-jonathan-sjostrom","22":"tag-limited-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4c922dfcb8a3ed470490fcc3a746a6ed.jpeg\"\/)
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