The Dogwood Center, Princeton, NJ, USA

The expanding AIDS epidemic among people who inject drugs – 4

HIV/AIDS is a difficult, painful disease. As the number of people living with HIV/AIDS expands, prevention becomes more and more important.

Treatment is very expensive; prevention is relatively inexpensive.⁽¹⁾

AIDS is not the only serious disease spread by infected needles; hepatitis B and C and herpes are also spread in this way.⁽²⁾

It is past time for federal, state and local governments in the United States to use extensively the effective prevention means that are available: clean-needle programs⁽³⁾ and drug treatment.

(1) For an extensive discussion of the cost effectiveness of clean needle programs, click here.

(2) Michael J. Cannon, Sheila C. Dollard, Dawn K. Smith and others. 2001. "Blood-borne and sexual transmission of human herpes virus 8 in women with or at risk for human immunodeficiency virus infection." New England Journal of Medicine. March 1. vol. 344. no. 9. page 637.

(3) The evidence that needle exchange programs slow the spread of HIV among persons who inject drugs, but do not increase drug use, is substantial and growing:

	Eight major, government-sponsored studies have come to this conclusion.
	In March 1998, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, relying on the advice of the country's most knowledgeable medical experts including Surgeon General David Satcher, confirmed this conclusion.
	The American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and other medical associations have all called for government support of needle exchange programs.