PREVENTION: NEW IDEAS ON BLEACH AND NEEDLES

Encouraging intravenous drug users to clean their needles with bleach fell
out of favor when it was learned that the practice was ineffective in
reducing the spread of AIDS. A new report, however, suggests that bleach
may help curb the spread of hepatitis C.

Writing in Epidemiology this month, researchers reported that among more
than 450 drug users studied, those who said they cleaned their needles all
the time were 65 percent as likely to be infected with hepatitis C as those
who did not use bleach at all. Those who said they used bleach "less than
all the time" had a 24 percent lower risk.

The lead authors were Drs. Farzana Kapadia and David Vlahov, both of the
New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Vlahov noted that the surest ways to
avoid infection were abstaining and using clean syringes.

For others, using bleach to clean their syringes offers an easy,
inexpensive way to reduce the risk of hepatitis C. Experts advise that the
syringes be filled with the disinfectant and emptied three times.

Despite its flaws, bleaching may even offer some protection against H.I.V.,
Dr. Vlahov said.

In the early 90's, drug users were advised to clean their needles with
bleach to protect against the virus. But it soon appeared that although
bleach killed H.I.V. in the laboratory, it did not do much good on the street.

"Bleach was better than doing nothing," Dr. Vlahov said. "But it was not a
substitute for new clean needles each and every time."