RISKS REDUCE AN IRONMAN TO TEARS

As a lifesaver, Jonathan Crowe is trained to protect others whenever
he is on the beach. Now an incident on a beach means the surf ironman
faces a dramatically changed lifestyle and an agonising wait over the
next three months.

Crowe broke down yesterday as he spoke of his fears that he may have
contracted HIV or hepatitis B when a used syringe pricked his foot on
Elwood Beach on Saturday.

"I had a pretty sleepless night, I tossed and turned a lot," said the
31-year-old from Wollongong.

For him and his wife, Joanne, the next three months will be the
longest in their lives, he said. "I just have to wait and see what
happens ... (But in) the next three months, my whole lifestyle with my
wife and everything, I have to really be careful. If I have contracted
anything, I don't want to pass it on to her," he said.

Medical experts say Crowe's risk of contracting HIV ranges from one in
10,000, if the syringe had just been discarded by its user, to
"essentially zero". But the chance of contracting hepatitis B or C is
greater.

Crowe, who competed in yesterday's ironman event after receiving
support from family and friends, ruled out taking any legal action.
"What's the point?... There's no reason why. It's no one's fault. I
can't blame anyone for it.

"My friends and family have rung me up and that is why I decided to
race today.

"They have supported me so much over the last 10 years."

The incident has sparked fresh debate about the need for supervised
injecting rooms and needle exchange bins near Melbourne's beaches.

The mayor of Port Phillip, Cr Dick Gross, said the needles found might
have been a result of a party that the council understood took place
on the beach on Friday night but could equally have washed up on the
beach via a stormwater drain.

The incident supported the arguments for supervised injecting rooms
that would help to keep drug use away from the rest of the community,
Cr Gross said.

"It's a wake-up call to all levels of government, I guess," he
said.

Yesterday Crowe backed the call for introducing safe injection rooms
and needle exchange bins.

"Maybe there is some sort of campaign we need to kick off, start
making the public a little bit more aware of ... providing safe
injecting places, providing bins where they can at least dispose of
needles, providing areas where there are needle exchanges."

"Certainly the fact that people are shooting up in the streets and
down on the beach and leaving their needles around is got to be
something in the backs of minds of people wanting to have shooting
rooms ... This is the way things are going."

Cr Gross noted that most intravenous drug users were already
responsible in their syringe disposal and used sharps containers or
needle exchange programs.

The beach was mechanically sifted, graded and raked once a week, he
said. A manual garbage collection took place twice a day during the
summer high season.

"It's really unfortunate our beach cleaning is in the gun for this
when we (the council) do some things badly, but not beach cleaning,''
he said.

The council was still examining what, if any, changes, it would make
because of the needlestick incident.

Crowe, an experienced ironman who has competing for 10 years, said it
was the first time he was aware that such an incident had occurred. He
said he would consider whether he could take medical action this week
to further reduce his risk of contracting disease.

The head of the microbiology unit at the Alfred Hospital, Associate
Professor Denis Spelman, said factors influencing the risk of
transmission included the age of any blood in the syringe.

The rates of HIV infection among intravenous drug users was about
three-in-100 and the odds of passing on an infection with a
needlestick involving fresh, infected blood was about one-in-300.

That meant the risk of infection from an environmental needlestick, if
you assume the syringe was discarded by a drug user just beforehand,
was a maximum of about one in 10,000.

EOM

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