The Oregon Legislature has passed first-in-the-nation legislation to clear barriers to emergency HIV prevention drugs.  
 
House Bill 2574, which Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) helped write, tackles widespread problems with access to HIV post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), a combination of drugs taken after an HIV exposure to stop infection. PEP has to be taken within 72 hours to be effective. You can learn more about PEP here.
 
Sponsored by Rep. Dacia Grayber, HB 2574 requires Oregon Health Authority to send PEP medications to small, rural hospitals; mandates that emergency rooms give patients at least five days’ worth of the meds; and bans insurance companies from charging a co-pay for PEP.  
 
HIV prevention workers across the country report that people who need PEP, including sexual-assault survivors and law-enforcement officers exposed to HIV while working, commonly run into roadblocks getting, filling, and paying for PEP prescriptions. Oregon will be the first state to enact a policy solution to this issue. 
 
“Oregonians who have already experienced trauma, ranging from a needle stick to a sexual assault, are currently being forced to race through a medical maze to obtain this emergency medication, especially in rural areas,” said Jonathan Frochtzwajg, CAP’s Public Policy & Grants Manager. “We need to do better—and with this bill, we will.”  
 
“A zero HIV transmission rate isn’t a moonshot here in Oregon,” said Rep. Grayber. “It’s a worthy vision, it’s within reach, and policies like this are the path.” 
 
HB 2574 passed the Legislature by a large majority, with only eight lawmakers voting against the measure: Reps. Jami Cate, Tracy Cramer, Lucetta Elmer, Emily McIntire, and E. Werner Reschke and Sens. Daniel Bonham, Fred Girod, and Lynn Findley. All of these lawmakers represent rural areas, where PEP access is worst and local hospitals will receive resources as a result of the bill’s passage. 
 
For more information, contact CAP’s Public Policy & Grants Manager, Jonathan Frochtzwajg, at jfrochtzwajg@capnw.org. 

About Cascade AIDS Project

CAP is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1985 as a grassroots response to the AIDS crisis. As the oldest and largest community-based HIV services provider in Oregon and southwest Washington, we seek to support and empower all people with or affected by HIV, reduce stigma, and provide the LGBTQ+ community with compassionate healthcare. We do so by helping to ensure the health and well-being of our program participants each year through health, housing, and other social services. When the need for affordable, accessible, and culturally affirming primary care services was identified as a community need, we responded by opening Prism Health in 2017.  More information can be found at www.capnw.org.