NEEDLE EXCHANGE IS MORALLY BANKRUPT

I am compelled to write to counteract the obvious campaign being waged
on behalf of the needle exchange program.

Even to consider providing paraphernalia for the abuse of drugs is
legally and morally reprehensible.

To my knowledge, drug abuse is illegal in our city, state and country.
To provide drugs or the tools to administer drugs is also illegal. We
cannot condone this kind of activity. If the city were to start such a
program, city officials should be arrested.

Supporters of this illegal activity, euphemistically called the needle
exchange program, point to a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee survey,
which they commissioned, supposedly suggesting that a majority of
Milwaukeeans support the program.

Please don't insult our intelligence. No survey report ever
contradicts the wishes of the commissioning group. If it does, it
never sees the light of day.

We are besieged with numerous health problems, all of which require
our attention, especially those we acquire through no fault of our
own.

There are millions of diabetics who need multiple injections of
insulin daily to sustain their lives. Not one syringe should be
provided free to a drug abuser unless we have first provided for the
diabetics.

In order to save our society from its morally bankrupt condition, I
encourage those who share my sentiments to make their views known.
Conrad C. Kaminski Milwaukee
PROGRAMS DON'T WORK

In an April 29 letter to the editor, Daniel Kurt said of the needle
exchange program, Lifepoint, "The result is less risk of infection by
this segment of the population."

The problem with this statement is that there is no reliable
information to back it up. The most widely reported studies rely on
self-reporting of HIV status by addicts.

The July 1997 issue of the journal AIDS reported on an 18-month study
of IV drug users in Vancouver, the city with the largest needle
exchange program in the Western Hemisphere, in which 257 addicts were
tested and found negative for HIV. Within six months, 24 had been
exposed to the virus. Of these, 23 reported regularly obtaining
sterile equipment from the program.

Another study published in the December 1997 American Journal of
Epidemiology was even more negative. Roughly 1,600 IV drug users were
tracked for an average of nearly two years. The blood tests of needle
exchange program participants were compared with those of addicts who
did not take advantage of this. Program users were twice as likely as
non-users to become infected.

Remember this during future AIDS walks, as some of the money funds
these programs.

Troy A. Pflum Fond du Lac