FINDING DIRTY NEEDLES

If appreciative citizens have not yet presented HIV Alliance
volunteer Joe Ferguson - the best used-syringe retriever money didn't
have to buy - with a couple of pairs of needle-proof gloves, it must
be because they missed reporter Jack Moran's story in last Sunday's
Register-Guard.

Moran introduced readers to local hero Ferguson, a 38-year-old former
Marine reconnaissance swimmer who spends hours of his free time each
week searching for and disposing of used needles that have been
discarded by drug users. He works barehanded with a "garbage grabber"
tool to snag dirty needles.

With an estimated 10,000 injection drug users in Lane County shooting
heroin and methamphetamine - often several times a day - Ferguson has
his work cut out for him. He and his helpers on the Sana Neighborhood
Needle Awareness Program cleanup crews have picked up and safely
disposed of about 600 dirty needles since January. Each used needle
is a potential carrier of deadly blood-borne diseases such as
hepatitis C and HIV.

That might seem like a lot of hazardous waste being scattered
throughout the parks, alleys and homeless camps in the
Eugene-Springfield area. In reality, Ferguson retrieves just a
fraction of what could be out there if it weren't for the enormously
successful needle exchange programs offered by HIV Alliance and the
Lane County Public Health Department.

HIV Alliance distributed 540,000 needles to injection drug users last
year. About 98 percent were returned and exchanged for clean
syringes. Such exchange programs play a major role in preventing the
spread of HIV and hepatitis C that would result from drug users
sharing dirty needles.

Not only do the programs reduce the spread of infection without
increasing illegal drug use, they also provide an increasingly
important avenue for addicts to learn about treatment options.
Research confirms that outreach to drug users through needle exchange
programs helps users reduce risky behaviors, inject drugs less often
and enter substance abuse treatment.

Hepatitis C leads to chronic liver disease in 70 percent of those
infected. An estimated 50 percent to 80 percent of injection drug
users in the United States are infected with hepatitis C within five
years of first injecting drugs. Treating a single case of HIV - the
virus that causes AIDS - can cost upward of $200,000.

That makes the HIV Alliance's $145,000 a year needle exchange program
a bargain that Lane County can't afford to pass up. But the
Alliance's bare-bones funding doesn't leave a cent left over to pay
for its needle cleanup program.

Ferguson and his fellow volunteers are making Lane County's parks and
public areas safer for everyone, especially children.

Citizens could make the work safer for these volunteers by donating
needle-proof gloves, biohazard containers or the money to purchase them.

To learn more, to volunteer or to report discarded needles, call the
HIV Alliance's Neighborhood Needle Awareness Program at 510-1058. Few
programs offer so much to so many for so little.