CLINTON'S AIDS TEAM RIPS NEEDLES POLICY

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's AIDS advisers unanimously expressed no
confidence in the administration's commitment to reducing the spread of
AIDS, accusing officials of playing politics with people's lives.

"The administration's current policy on needle-exchange programs threatens
the public health, and directly contradicts current scientific evidence,"
said the resolution approved yesterday by the Presidential Council on
HIV/AIDS.

It was the harshest criticism yet from the panel, whose members are furious
that the administration has not allowed federal funding for programs giving
drug addicts clean needles in exchange for dirty ones that may be
contaminated with the deadly HIV virus.

"Our patience is exhausted," said the panel's chairman, Dr. Scott Hitt, who
treats patients with HIV and AIDS in Los Angeles.

Hitt estimated that tens of thousands of new HIV infections could be
prevented through needle-exchange programs. More than half of all people who
become infected with HIV catch the deadly virus through contaminated needles
or sex with injecting drug users -- or are children born to infected
addicts.

"Tragically, we must conclude that it is a lack of political will, not
scientific evidence, that is creating this failure to act," the council said
yesterday in a letter to Clinton.

Using taxpayer money to buy needles for addicts has become a politically
touchy issue, with conservatives arguing that these programs send the wrong
message.

Federal law allows funding of needle-exchange programs, but only if the
Department of Health and Human Services concludes that they are effective in
reducing the spread of HIV without increasing drug use.

HHS Secretary Donna Shalala already has agreed with leading scientists that
the programs are effective in fighting HIV. But she says she is still
reviewing drug-use data.

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.