WASHINGTON (AP) Hundreds of AIDS activists descended on the
Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday carrying
symbolic tombstones as they protested the ban on federal funding for
needle exchange programs.

Thirteen people were arrested after trying to carry a 12foot ``moral
backbone'' into the building for Secretary Donna Shalala, who has said the
needle exchange programs can be effective in fighting AIDS but has stopped
short of lifting the ban.

``I have known people who have died of contaminated needles. It's not
necessary,'' said Kate Sorensen of San Francisco, one of the protesters
arrested in a show of civil disobedience.

``It all started with a dirty needle,'' said Sheila Catherine Hair Fuoco, a
Birmingham, Ala., woman with HIV. She said she was infected by her late
husband, who was infected by a dirty needle. She passed the virus to her son
when she was pregnant.

Shalala was in the building during the rally, which organizers said attracted
2,000 protesters.

About onethird of adults with AIDS got the killer virus through contaminated
needles or sex with injecting drug users. Needle exchange programs give drug
addicts clean needles for their used ones in hopes of keeping contaminated
needles from spreading the virus.

There were at least 87 needle exchange programs around the country in
199596, operating with local or private funding.

To lift the ban on federal funding, HHS must certify that the programs reduce
AIDS without increasing drug use.

A panel of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health said early
this year that these programs are a powerful weapon against AIDS that have
been blocked by politics.

In a report to Congress in February, Shalala cited research that drug use did
not increase when communities began needle exchanges, and that the programs
allow health officials to offer drug treatment to addicts they might
otherwise never see.

But the department is still studying whether needle exchanges increase drug
use, HHS spokesman Victor Zonana said Wednesday.

``We will make a decision based on science and public health, not politics,''
he said.

He added that the Clinton administration is funding other AIDS efforts
including expensive research and medications.

``Local communities can take that lead in providing funding (for needle
exchanges) if they believe it's appropriate,'' he said.