STICKING POINT ON NEEDLES

Even as it provides scientific evidence that needle exchanges work, the
administration, for political reasons, refuses to fund them

HERE'S an idea with dumb and deadly written all over it: The Clinton
administration knows that needle exchange programs save lives, but it won't
lift the nine-year-old ban against providing clean needles to drug users.

The answer, dear friends, is written in politics.

This is an election year, and the Democrats would like very much to win
majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Junkies don't
have enough votes to help, apparently.

But other Americans ought to have enough common sense to know cowardice
when they see it.

Obligingly, the administration brought along evidence to help its opponents
make their case. Federal officials say some 33 people each day are infected
with the AIDS virus because of intravenous drug use. Dr. Harold Varmus,
director of the National Institutes of Health, cited "increasingly strong
evidence" that needle exchange programs reduce sharing of dirty needles.
About half of some 3,000 addicts in a Baltimore needle exchange, he said,
entered treatment programs. That explodes the myth that exchange programs
encourage continued drug use.

Still, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the administration's drug czar, fought against
needle exchanges because he believes they "send the wrong message" to
teenagers. As usual, he's fighting the last war.

Had government financed needle exchange programs during Clinton's term in
office, 17,000 lives could have been saved, according to researchers for
Public Citizen, a government watchdog. Such efforts also would have helped
stem the deadly AIDS epidemic and saved millions of dollars in costs for
treating the disease.

Four of 10 AIDS cases are linked to dirty needles. So are the infections of
three of four babies born HIV positive, who are certainly innocent victims.

Exchanges, though technically illegal, are in existence in San Francisco
and 100 other jurisdictions in 28 states around the country.

This is a topic in which science and humanitarian considerations should
rule. But don't.

Donna Shalala, secretary of Health and Human Services, argued to lift the
federal ban on needle exchanges, as did Sandra Thurman, head of the White
House office on AIDS policy. Their voices were drowned out by political
considerations.

White House tacticians fear that Republicans in Congress would reimpose the
ban and could make matters even worse by eliminating funds for any
organization that provides needle exchanges. Realism dictates upholding the
ban, they argue.

But from here, the administration's action - or inaction - simply marks one
more instance in which the president has failed to stand up for what he
believes, what he knows is right and what he knows will save lives.

)1998 San Francisco Examiner