He has returned to San Francisco with a case of cholera or dysentery almost every year. When he s not traveling overseas, Wildes often is inspecting donated pills to ensure they haven t expired or been stored improperly. Then he sorts the pills into bottles to fill each patient s prescription. When it s finally time to ship the treatments, Wildes must carefully address the packages with specific information that meets African customs requirements. Wildes not only gives volumes of time to run his organization, but he also takes legal risks by using donated drugs.
Federal law prohibits people from giving someone the leftover medications of another patient.
To protect the people who send him drugs, Wildes keeps his sources anonymous. Like Wildes, Debbie Slamowitz, RN, study coordinator for the Stanford AIDS Clinical Trials Group, regularly comes across surplus AIDS medications. She has no reservations about directing extra drugs to patients who need them. She believes the African AIDS Network is a good cause as long as the group can continue to supply the medication on a regular basis. Despite the risks, Wildes is charging ahead to expand his program.