The New York Times
Copyright 1998: The New York Times
June 2, 1998, page A22
HYPOCRISY ON H.I.V.
To the Editor:
“New Jersey’s H.I.V. List: Valuable and
Still Secret” (front page, May 29) missed a crucial point.
The New Jersey Department of Health knows
that over half of all H.I.V. cases in New Jersey are caused by
the use of infected needles but does nothing to enact policies
that would make clean needles more accessible to persons who use
drugs. The
department keeps a list of H.I.V.-positive women who have had
babies but ignores an important prevention mode - needle
exchange - that could save many other mothers or mothers-to-be
from getting H.I.V.
The important issue is preventing
infections, not counting infected people; there, New Jersey is
an abysmal failure.
Reuben
Cohen
Princeton,
N.J., May 31, 1998
 |
 |