Needle Exchange Needs Beyond D.C.
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Regarding the June 29 Metro article "House Repeals Needle Ban":
The repeal of the ban on funding for the District's needle exchange program brings up a bigger issue: access to clean needles for the rest of the world. A federal ban prohibits the United States from supplying clean needles, even to countries with huge HIV-AIDS epidemics caused by needle-sharing among drug users.
There is no time to waste. In an epidemic fueled by intravenous drug use, transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus is so rapid that weeks and months make a difference.
In Vietnam, the virus is racing through the most vulnerable groups and threatens to break out into the general population.
The United States spent $34 million on HIV-AIDS in Vietnam last year, but not on the strategy that might help the most.
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief must embrace a science-based approach to preventing HIV infection -- including clean needles, methadone therapy, outreach and education -- if it is to help Asian and Eastern European countries stop this crippling epidemic.
ROBERT HEIMER
Adviser, Health Action AIDS Campaign
Physicians for Human Rights
New Haven, Conn.
