A bill to make HIV medications more widely available is on the docket for the 2020 legislative session.
House Bill 4116 would allow Oregon pharmacists to prescribe both pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis, better known as PrEP and PEP, respectively, to HIV-negative individuals.
Furthermore, it prevents insurers from requiring step therapy for antiretrovirals like PrEP and PEP or restricting coverage to in-network pharmacies.
In particular, the bill is aimed at improving access to HIV medications in rural areas.
Tyler TerMeer of the Cascade AIDS Project told the Portland Mercury “Access continues to be one of the number one areas that we anecdotally hear from our patients about why they aren’t using PrEP, or why certain patients who come to our LGBTQ+ health center here, Prism Health, drive for multiple hours across Oregon to come and get their culturally safe services from our primary care providers.”
TerMeer believes HB 4116 would enable “more timely and more accessible” services for preventing HIV. Likewise, Rep. Margaret Doherty of Tigard, who helped sponsor the bill, says that authorizing pharmacists to prescribe PrEP could also help circumvent the stigma around HIV that is prevalent in rural Oregon.
“If you’re more in a rural area,” she said, “it makes it a little more accessible, because you don’t have to go to your doctor who might have known you since you were five.”
According to the Oregon Health Authority’s End HIV initiative, the state averages 210-230 new HIV infections every year. When taken daily, PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99 percent and from drug injection by 74 percent.
By Brandon Urey
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