The Legislature further finds and declares all of the following:

(a)  The average cost per patient in the treatment of AIDS until death is now one hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000). It is estimated that total costs including health care of the first 10,000 AIDS cases in the United States totaled more than six billion three hundred million dollars ($6,300,000,000). By 1990, according to the department, Californians will spend almost five billion dollars ($5,000,000,000) in medical costs alone in care and treatment of 30,000 AIDS patients, with no realistic hope for their remission or cure. This cost does not include money spent on education, research, and lost income.

(b)  To date, the costs of caring for people with AIDS related complex (ARC) has not been officially calculated. However, it is safe to assume the costs are substantial over time. Experts fear that the illnesses of ARC patients, although they may not be fatal, are severe. For example, the virus invades the brain rendering the patients incapable of caring for themselves. It is, therefore, plausible that a percentage of ARC patients will need to be institutionalized.

(c)  The Legislature intends by this chapter to take uncommon action to remove the impediments to the expeditious development of an AIDS vaccine.

(d)  It is further the intent of the Legislature to provide to any person, whose injury is proximately caused by the use of the vaccine, except to the extent the injuries are attributable to the comparative negligence of the claimant in the use of the vaccine, all of the following:

(1)  Compensation for related medical costs associated with the care and treatment of the injury.

(2)  Compensation for the loss of any and all earnings caused by the injury.

(3)  Compensation for pain and suffering caused by the injury, except that in no action shall the amount of damages for noneconomic losses exceed five hundred fifty thousand dollars ($550,000).

(e)  It is further the intent of the Legislature to establish the AIDS Clinical Trials Testing Fund that will be available to not more than three California manufacturers of an AIDS vaccine approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the department pursuant to Part 5 (commencing with Section 109875) of Division 104 for clinical trials with humans.

(f)  The AIDS Vaccine Research and Development Advisory Committee shall review requests from California manufacturers for funds from the AIDS Clinical Trials Testing Fund and shall make recommendations to the department regarding the award of funds, including the appropriate amount of funding. The department, taking into consideration the committee’s recommendations, may allocate the funds to the manufacturers specified in the protocol approved by the FDA or the department pursuant to Part 5 (commencing with Section 109875) of Division 104 for administering the clinical trials.

(g)  A California manufacturer seeking the approval of the FDA, rather than the department, for administering clinical trials of an AIDS vaccine may apply while FDA approval is pending to the AIDS Vaccine Research and Development Advisory Committee for the committee’s recommendation that the manufacturer receive funds from the AIDS Clinical Trials Testing Fund upon FDA approval.

(Amended by Stats. 1997, Ch. 294, Sec. 22. Effective August 18, 1997.)