Activists demand funding for clean needles

March 21 protest in Philadelphia. WW photo: Joseph Piette

Community activists marched from Love Park to U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey’s office in Philadelphia on March 21, chanting “Clean needles save lives! Lift the ban now!”

ACT-UP Philadelphia (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) organized the demonstration as part of a National Day of Syringe Exchange Action to demand once again that the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange programs be lifted. The ban was originally adopted in 1989 and was finally lifted in 2009. Congress reinstated the ban as part of a spending bill in December to fund the federal government through fiscal year 2012.

A 2010 HIV/AIDS report by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health stated “a 70 percent decrease in the reported number of new HIV infections among intravenous drug users [is] attributed to the impact of syringe exchanges.” Clean needles also prevent the spread of hepatitis C infections.

According to an ACT-UP press statement: “Safely exchanging dirty needles for clean ones doesn’t encourage people to do more drugs. It does encourage them to take care of themselves, stay uninfected and stop using someday. A 1999 Johns Hopkins study found that IV drug users that access needle exchange services are three times more likely to seek detox and treatment services than users that do not have access to such programs.”

Nadine Bloch, national organizer of the We Can End AIDS Mobilization, said, “Much like the recent fight over contraception and health care plans, we cannot continue to let politics get in the way of saving lives.” (c2ea.org/news)

Three representatives delivered 5-feet-high paper “invoices” to the extremely conservative senator’s office. One bill was for $618,900, the cost for a lifetime of HIV treatment.

The other invoice totaled 8 cents, the cost of a clean syringe.