PartnersGF - 2005-03-11 

Ideology and AIDS (1)
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[Mods Note: The following was sent in response to a previous posting of a New York Times editorial discussing the murderous effects of the Bush administration’s opposition to needle exchange programs in the context of harm reduction for intravenous drug users (IDUs). The following is in regards to the Washington Post, another leading newspaper in the US.]
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We have to continue our efforts to enlighten the Washington Post. Some progress is being made. The lead editorial of Feb. 27, Deadly Ignorance described this administration's efforts to deny the efficacy of needle exchange programs.

"The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which is heavily reliant on US funding, has been made to expunge references to needle exchange from its literature, and the administration is expected to continue its pressure on the United Nations at a meeting that starts March 7. The State Department's new leadership needs to end this bullying flat-earthism."

I wrote a letter to the editor pointing out that this denial by the Republican administration is not new. The 1988 Presidential Report on the HIV/AIDS
Epidemic that I and several others wrote, discussed the merits of clean needle exchange programs as one effective way to limit the spread of the epidemic. The final version of that report was edited by the Reagan administration and every recommendation that we had made in support of clean needle programs was deleted. Even the language was changed and the word "needle" is not found anywhere in the report's 201 pages.

Seventeen years later and we still have not learned how to combat politically expedient denial and ignorance.

Adrienne A. Allison
Global Health & Development Programs
Chevy Chase, MD, USA 
              301-951-8007       
Adrienneaallison@aol.com