CLINIC COULD CLOSE : EFFECTIVE BUT COSTLY AIDS DRUGS STRAIN VALLEY HEALTH CENTER.

Byline: Keith Stone Daily News Staff Writer

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation's only San Fernando Valley clinic will close within two months unless Los Angeles County grants it $1 million more for new, life-prolonging drugs, the agency's president said Thursday.

``This is a very, very sad day,'' said AHF president Michael Weinstein during a news conference outside the clinic.

If the Sherman Oaks center closes, then 500 of the foundation's 3,000 patients will be forced to find care at other community and county-run clinics, including only a few in the Valley.

For patients like Jeff Otero, there would be both the pain of commuting farther to a different clinic while sick and the loss of treatment he has trusted for the past two years.

``And I've been healthy and active since then,'' the 36-year-old North Hollywood man said.

The high cost of drugs, which is squeezing the Sherman Oaks clinic, already has forced the nonprofit foundation to close its Inglewood clinic, which treated 100 patients, Weinstein said.

Later Thursday, the county's top AIDS treatment official said he realizes that new, promising drugs are expensive, but Los Angeles has no more money for Weinstein's clinic or any other.

``Clearly he is trying to put pressure on us for more money. We don't have it,'' said John Schunhoff, director of county AIDS programs. ``He needs to try to operate within his resources.''

The financial tug of war highlighted some of the new obstacles thrown up by recent advances in treating AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

While new treatments have given people with AIDS reason to rejoice, the cost of the drugs is straining health care systems nationwide and leaving some patients without care.

AIDS activists accuse pharmaceutical companies of reaping unfair profits. Manufacturers say they alone are spending billions of dollars to find new treatments and deserve a return on their investment.

Just a year ago, the best treatment a doctor could offer involved just one or two anti-AIDS drugs. Now, researchers say that cocktails of a new drug and two older ones can nearly eliminate the virus and keep people healthy longer. The cost is more than $12,000 a year per patient - two to five times the price of what was previously state-of-the-art treatment.

If the AHF clinic at 4940 Van Nuys Blvd. closes, the Valley would be left with HIV and AIDS care at Los Angeles County Olive View/UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar and other community clinics.

The clinics include one operated by Northeast Valley Health Corp. in Panorama City, where people with advanced AIDS or a new HIV infection can find treatment.

But Weinstein contended: ``There is no clinic like us in the Valley, the bottom line.''

Some patients at the news conference Thursday said they moved to the Valley just so they could be treated at AHF's clinic in Sherman Oaks.

The foundation, which claims to care for more patients than any other single organization in Los Angeles, receives most of its $30 million annual budget from government sources. It runs four clinics, three residential centers and a managed-care plan for people infected with HIV, which causes AIDS.

The foundation is seeking $1 million more to pay for new medications and associated costs that the government doesn't cover at all of the foundation's clinics, he said.

The Sherman Oaks clinic was chosen for closing, he said, because ``we have to figure out where to cut, and this is the smallest clinic, so this is where we will cut.''

Weinstein accused Los Angeles County officials of not giving AIDS and HIV patients their share of more than $354 million that Los Angeles got from the federal government this year for its ailing health care system.

The bailout is intended to let the county shift patient care from relatively expensive hospitals to less costly outpatient clinics.

``Not one dollar has been designated for AIDS,'' Weinstein said.

Schunhoff said Weinstein is wrong. Some of the federal bailout was used this year to fill a $4.9 million gap that resulted from a decrease in the county's annual Ryan White Care Act grant, Schunhoff said.

Weinstein said he doesn't believe the county is devoting enough money to treating people with HIV and AIDS. The county budget for AIDS and HIV health care is about $130 million.

``No one can ever believe the county when they say they don't have more money,'' he said.