Thursday, September 1, 2016

Why hesitate with needle exchange?

If Beckley’s new mayor and common council want to take forward-thinking preventative action to keep a mole hill from erupting into a mountain, they could initiate a needle exchange program for intravenous drug users in the city Or they can sit back and watch how two civic minded citizens are taking on the problem.

According to recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, a handful of counties in southern West Virginia were idendified as being ripe for the spread of Hepatitis C and HIV through the use of infected needles by people addicted to opioid drugs.

On top of that, West Virginia leads the nation in the rate of drug overdose deaths and our state’s prescribing rate is among the highest in the country.

When people who are addicted can’t afford their prescriptions, they often turn to heroin – which is cheaper and readily available. And the quickest route to a high is via a needle stuck in a vein.

What’s critical in preventing the outbreak of an epidemic is nipping the potential problem in the bud – rather than playing a game of wait-and-see.

There are very real consequences for the transmission and treatment of both Hep C and HIV.

The cost of caring for someone diagnosed with HIV over the course of a lifetime is $450,000. To cure Hepatitis C? That costs $100,000. And if your liver fails? And you live to talk about it? A transplant comes in around $1 million.

A needle costs about 34 cents.

Dr. Ayne Amjad of Beckley and Ali Sherwani, owner of Beckley Pharmacy, are prescribing a proactive approach.

As reported in The Register-Herald recently by reporter Wendy Holdren, the two are at the front end of an effort to start a needle exchange program at Sherwani’s two Beckley Pharmacy locations and one at Main Street Pharmacy in Oak Hill.

Once red tape is clerared, the pharmacies will provide locations for intravenous drug users to drop off used needles and pick up unused ones.

On top of that, Dr. Amjad is hoping intravenous drug users will take the opportunity, when exchanging needles, to talk about their addiction and seek help.

If Mayor Rob Rappold and council members are looking for political cover on the issue – no one wants to admit his town is dealing with a drug crisis – they can look no further than Mike Pence, the GOP nominee for vice president of the United States. Back in 2009, then-Representative Pence voted to keep a federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs. And then, as governor of Indiana, when an an outbreak of HIV infections hit rural Scott County, he signed an emergency order to implement a temporary needle exchange program. He then extended the program for another 30 days.

The flood of HIV cases in Scott County slowed to a trickle.

As of 2014, needle-exchange programs were operating in nearly 200 locations across the U.S., programs that were credited with a drop of more than 80 percent in incidences of HIV among intravenous drug users between 1988 and 2006, according to the CDC.

And contrary to popular myth, a needle exchange program “both decreases incidence of HIV and decreases drug abuse,” said William McColl, director of health policy at AIDS United.

So, yes, let’s get out in front of this, let’s prevent the spread of a pair of devastating diseases in our communities. We have the know-how and the means to make a huge impact.

If they are looking for political courage, our mayor and council need only talk to a couple of citizens they were elected to serve.

And members of Congress? Yes, they should lift the federal ban on needle exchange programs.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.